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Aha! I'm a huge fan of positional voice audio in video games. Mumble has a positional audio feature[0] that is relatively straightforward to integrate via mods.

Aha! I'm a huge fan of positional voice audio in video games. Mumble has a positional audio feature[0] that is relatively straightforward to integrate via mods. I built a mod[1] recently that adds support to Raft, and I attempted to list some of the benefits in the readme. In my experience, it completely changes the feeling of talking with people online; they become their avatars. I'd love to see it come to discord or zoom, and be lifted out of the video game space. I haven't looked at Mumble's actual implementation, but I imagine it's possible with the web audio APIs. [0]: https://wiki.mumble.info/wiki/Positional-Audio https://wiki.mumble.info/wiki/Positional-Audio [1]: https://www.raftmodding.com/mods/mumble-link https://www.raftmodding.com/mods/mumble-link

ryukafalz 6y ago
I love that Mumble has that, but I wish it were possible/easy to enable it without a video game and manually position participants. As for webapps, I think Mozilla Hubs does this: https://hubs.mozilla.com/#/ https://hubs.mozilla.com/#/ ...as does Freeswitch I believe, though I've had a heck of a time trying to get that up and running: https://freeswitch.org/confluence/display/FREESWITCH/mod_conference https://freeswitch.org/confluence/display/FREESWITCH/mod_con...
- SirYandi 6y ago
  I would love for MozIlla hubs (or any similar app for that matter) to allow one to set a webcam feed as your avatar's "head". If anyone knows of such a thing please let me know. Would be perfect for socialising during quarantine and beyond.
  - zumachase 6y ago
    It's at the other end of the spectrum, but Remotion is really cool and does what you describe. We wanted to get away from always on video, but I know lots of people like that. I cannot say enough good things about what the Remotion team are doing.
  - schwartzworld 6y ago
    Kosmo.io has a poker app where your webcam feed sits at your seat at the table.
- jka 6y ago
  You might be interested in https://www.calla.chat/ https://www.calla.chat/ ( https://github.com/capnmidnight/Calla https://github.com/capnmidnight/Calla ) which supports spatialized audio based on participant location on a top-down map. Edit: in some ways, this might be totally off-base since it does involve a game and participant self-arrangement. Hopefully it's somewhat relevant, though!
  - ryukafalz 6y ago
    I could be wrong, but based on the README this looks like it just sets speaker volume based on position - which is neat, but is not quite positional audio.
    - jka 6y ago
      I wondered about that too, and found https://github.com/capnmidnight/Calla/commit/abc851b49bd180108826c527fc8968956c576e6d https://github.com/capnmidnight/Calla/commit/abc851b49bd1801... before commenting which seemed to indicate that there's at least stereo positioning. It's possible I'm mistaken though.
      - ryukafalz 6y ago
        Oh interesting, it looks like you're right! They do appear to be using a StereoPannerNode rather than the full 3D PannerNode[0], but that is more than just speaker attenuation. [0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Audio_API/Web_audio_spatialization_basics https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Audio_A...
        moron4hire 6y ago
        That's an old commit. It's had spatialized audio for the last month, at least. I'm actually going to put a feature back in to let you select the audio "spatialization" model, because some folks have had trouble with PannerNode not working right. I used to have a selection between volume scaling, StereoPannerNode, and PannerNode. Been a little too busy at the day job to do it lately.
- taxidump 6y ago
  I have some multi-tenant PBXs based on Freeswitch however, I have not seen a positional audio feature in Freeswitch. Can you give more insight? Your link is the conference module and unrelated I believe.
- anateus 6y ago
  I made a proof of concept chrome extension a bit ago: https://github.com/anateus/amphisonic https://github.com/anateus/amphisonic Currently re-writing it to be actually decent code. Basically, it takes up streams on the page and arranges speakers in a semi-circle in front of you, letting you adjust the radius (I've found for particular numbers of speakers there's an optimal radius for speaker separation).
- SOLAR_FIELDS 6y ago
  The now defunct Dolby Axon had this feature for up to 50 people. It was great, you could drag people in a grid around you (see picture in [1]). I’m still sad they discontinued it, it’s one of the few voice chat services that I would gladly pay money for. [1]: https://venturebeat.com/2009/09/04/dolby-launches-axon-surround-sound-communication-for-web-games/ https://venturebeat.com/2009/09/04/dolby-launches-axon-surro...

ryukafalz 6y ago

I love that Mumble has that, but I wish it were possible/easy to enable it without a video game and manually position participants. As for webapps, I think Mozilla Hubs does this: https://hubs.mozilla.com/#/ https://hubs.mozilla.com/#/ ...as does Freeswitch I believe, though I've had a heck of a time trying to get that up and running: https://freeswitch.org/confluence/display/FREESWITCH/mod_conference https://freeswitch.org/confluence/display/FREESWITCH/mod_con...

SirYandi 6y ago
I would love for MozIlla hubs (or any similar app for that matter) to allow one to set a webcam feed as your avatar's "head". If anyone knows of such a thing please let me know. Would be perfect for socialising during quarantine and beyond.
- zumachase 6y ago
  It's at the other end of the spectrum, but Remotion is really cool and does what you describe. We wanted to get away from always on video, but I know lots of people like that. I cannot say enough good things about what the Remotion team are doing.
- schwartzworld 6y ago
  Kosmo.io has a poker app where your webcam feed sits at your seat at the table.
jka 6y ago
You might be interested in https://www.calla.chat/ https://www.calla.chat/ ( https://github.com/capnmidnight/Calla https://github.com/capnmidnight/Calla ) which supports spatialized audio based on participant location on a top-down map. Edit: in some ways, this might be totally off-base since it does involve a game and participant self-arrangement. Hopefully it's somewhat relevant, though!
- ryukafalz 6y ago
  I could be wrong, but based on the README this looks like it just sets speaker volume based on position - which is neat, but is not quite positional audio.
  - jka 6y ago
    I wondered about that too, and found https://github.com/capnmidnight/Calla/commit/abc851b49bd180108826c527fc8968956c576e6d https://github.com/capnmidnight/Calla/commit/abc851b49bd1801... before commenting which seemed to indicate that there's at least stereo positioning. It's possible I'm mistaken though.
    - ryukafalz 6y ago
      Oh interesting, it looks like you're right! They do appear to be using a StereoPannerNode rather than the full 3D PannerNode[0], but that is more than just speaker attenuation. [0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Audio_API/Web_audio_spatialization_basics https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Audio_A...
      - moron4hire 6y ago
        That's an old commit. It's had spatialized audio for the last month, at least. I'm actually going to put a feature back in to let you select the audio "spatialization" model, because some folks have had trouble with PannerNode not working right. I used to have a selection between volume scaling, StereoPannerNode, and PannerNode. Been a little too busy at the day job to do it lately.
taxidump 6y ago
I have some multi-tenant PBXs based on Freeswitch however, I have not seen a positional audio feature in Freeswitch. Can you give more insight? Your link is the conference module and unrelated I believe.
anateus 6y ago
I made a proof of concept chrome extension a bit ago: https://github.com/anateus/amphisonic https://github.com/anateus/amphisonic Currently re-writing it to be actually decent code. Basically, it takes up streams on the page and arranges speakers in a semi-circle in front of you, letting you adjust the radius (I've found for particular numbers of speakers there's an optimal radius for speaker separation).
SOLAR_FIELDS 6y ago
The now defunct Dolby Axon had this feature for up to 50 people. It was great, you could drag people in a grid around you (see picture in [1]). I’m still sad they discontinued it, it’s one of the few voice chat services that I would gladly pay money for. [1]: https://venturebeat.com/2009/09/04/dolby-launches-axon-surround-sound-communication-for-web-games/ https://venturebeat.com/2009/09/04/dolby-launches-axon-surro...