Researchers Synthesize Real-Time Fracture Sounds 54
ChippedTeapot writes "Researchers at Cornell University have devised an algorithm for synthesizing sounds associated with brittle fracture simulations. Computers can now automatically generate synchronized sound, motion, and graphics for physically based fracture events, such as in future interactive virtual environments. The results will be presented at ACM SIGGRAPH 2010 in Los Angeles July 25-29. Check out the smashing results on YouTube."
Movies? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not so much, there are entire ranks of Foleys who work under union rules to deliver most movie sound effects (although they probably have impressive Sound Engineer titles now).
This is much more likely aimed at environments like video games and battle-ground simulations, where any number of events can occur and the presence of a tightly aligned sound track is needed to produce a more realistic effect.
The sequences of events in movies are pretty tightly controlled, so I see this as having less use there
Cool demo... (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Just Use Samples (Score:2, Insightful)
In old video games where the graphics and physics were also the equivalent of samples, it was okay to have sampled sound, but so much work has been poured into graphics and physics these days and everyone has ignored sound. I'm sure a lot of the work that went into making more realistic physics can be used in making better sounds, since material properties, velocities and angle of impact are important to both sound and physics.
It's a terrible immersion-breaker when you hear the same sample every time you hit something in game, regardless of whether it should have sounded like that.
Re:Uses? (Score:5, Insightful)
for me, as a physicist, it's fascinating that they were able to do it. the human brain is a great tool to test how "natural" various simulations are, and when you succeed in fooling it, it means your model is very close to reality in a certain way.
in the study of complex phenomena, any ability to model is an important insight, because we don't have the math to understand what's happening just by using first principles.
as a sidenote, the problem of turbulence was well-known before the revolution of quantum and relativistic physics; still, Kolmogorov's scaling law (one of the most important results in turbulence) came in the 1940s. these problems are hard, and I will take my hat off to anyone who is able to cheaply reproduce aspects of nonlinear phenomena.
Re:Uses? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it depends on what people are accustomed to. Do silencers really work on guns as silently as shown in the movies? Or do punches really have the big "phwak" sound that you hear there? People are only good at determining "natural" sounds compared to what they are used to. They may not be realistic though.