Hey all,
Now that the NDA is lifted, and we can start talking about the iPhone code out in the open, i thought it might be nice to talk about some of the problems I have encountered in my forays into the iPhone world and how I went about fixing them.
Currently I am working on an iPhone game. It is all openGLES based and uses openAL for sound. I think I am gonna talk about openAL today.
For now I am only going to be talking about sounds that are less than 30 seconds, so sound effects and short loops. Before you can think about playing sounds on the iPhone they need to be in the right format (or they should be in the right format, many of the audio toolbox methods will handle multiple formats, but if you put the sound in the right format to start, then the iPhone wont have to do it at play time).
So, pop open terminal and type this:
/usr/bin/afconvert -f caff -d LEI16@44100 inputSoundFile.aiff outputSoundFile.caf
what the hell does that do? you ask. it puts the file into a nice Little-Endian 16-bit 44,100 sample rate format. (generally saved with a .caf extension)
OK! now we have a nice .caf file in the proper format, we are ready to do something.
There are lots of ways to play sound on the iPhone, there is the ‘easy’ way, and then there are a few ‘hard ways’.. I am gonna touch on the easy way quickly and then move onto the openAL ‘hard way’.
the quickest (and easiest) way to make the iPhone spit out some sound is to use the audio system services:
NSString* path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"soundEffect1" ofType:@"caf"];
NSURL * afUrl = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:path];
UInt32 soundID;
AudioServicesCreateSystemSoundID((CFURLRef)afUrl,&soundID);
AudioServicesPlaySystemSound (soundID);
this works well for making your interface buttons click and simple UI interaction stuff. However, it is absolutely shite for anything more complicated than that (think: a game). It doest always play right away, and if you are trying to match up specific frame of your game with specific sound effects, then this method is basically useless. (I actually implemented my whole sound engine using the above style of code, then i got onto the phone and every time a sound played, it was either late by many frames or the whole thing would pause and wait for the audio toolbox to load the sound into the buffer, it sucked.
For better control of the sound, you will require either openAL or audioUnits or the audioQueue.
I decided to go with openAL so that my sound code could be kinda sorta portable, and by learning how to use openAL I would be able to use those skills on some other platform besides the iPhone. (and since I am a code-mercenary, i figured that having openAL experience was more marketable than audioQueue experience) (that and I already have familiarity with openGL, and openAL is very similar, and the audio units and audio queue code is kinda ugly)
So, this will be a super quick tutorial on openAL and the absolute bare minimum you need to do to accomplish static sound generated from openAL.
OpenAL is really quite straight forward. there are 3 main entities: the Listener, the Source, and the Buffer.
The Listener is you. Any sound the listener can ‘hear’ comes out the speakers. openAL allows you to specify where the listener is in relation to the sources, but for this example we dont care, we are going to bare minimum static sound, so just keep in mind that there is a concept of ‘listener’ and that you could move this object around if you wanted to do more complicated stuff, but I wont go into it in this post.
The Source: basically this is analogous to a speaker. it generates sound which the listener can ‘hear’. like the listener, you can move the sources around and get groovy positional effects. However, for this example we wont be doing that.
The buffer: basically this is the sound that will be played. the buffer holds the raw audio data.
there are two other very important objects: the device and the context.
the device is the actual bit of hardware that will be playing the sound, and the context is the current ‘session’ that all these sounds are going to be played in (you can think of it as the room that all the sources and the listener is in. Or it is the air that the sound is played through, or whatever.. it is the context.)
How does this all work: (this is the bare minimum)
1) get the device
2) make a context with the device
3) put some data into a buffer
4) attach the buffer to a source
5) play the source
that is it! The above presumes that your implementation of openAL has decent defaults for the listener and if you dont specify any listener or source positions then this will all work dandy. (it works just dandy on the iPhone in any case)
so, lets look at some code:
// define these somewhere, like in your .h file
ALCcontext* mContext;
ALCdevice* mDevice;
// start up openAL
-(void)initOpenAL
{
// Initialization
mDevice = alcOpenDevice(NULL); // select the "preferred device"
if (mDevice) {
// use the device to make a context
mContext=alcCreateContext(mDevice,NULL);
// set my context to the currently active one
alcMakeContextCurrent(mContext);
}
}
Pretty straight forward really. get the ‘default’ device. then use it to build a context! done.
Next: put data into a buffer, this is a bit more complicated:
First: you need to open the file in a nice audio-friendly way
// get the full path of the file
NSString* fileName = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource:@"neatoEffect" ofType:@"caf"];
// first, open the file
AudioFileID fileID = [self openAudioFile:fileName];
wait! what is that: openAudioFile: method?
here it is:
// open the audio file
// returns a big audio ID struct
-(AudioFileID)openAudioFile:(NSString*)filePath
{
AudioFileID outAFID;
// use the NSURl instead of a cfurlref cuz it is easier
NSURL * afUrl = [NSURL fileURLWithPath:filePath];
// do some platform specific stuff..
#if TARGET_OS_IPHONE
OSStatus result = AudioFileOpenURL((CFURLRef)afUrl, kAudioFileReadPermission, 0, &outAFID);
#else
OSStatus result = AudioFileOpenURL((CFURLRef)afUrl, fsRdPerm, 0, &outAFID);
#endif
if (result != 0) NSLog(@"cannot openf file: %@",filePath);
return outAFID;
}
this is pretty simple: we get the file path from the main bundle, then send it off to this handy method which checks the platform and uses the audio toolkit method: AudioFileOpenURL() to generate an AudioFileID.
What’s next? Oh yes: get the actual audio data out of the file. To do this we need to figure out how much data is in the file:
// find out how big the actual audio data is
UInt32 fileSize = [self audioFileSize:fileID];
another handy method is needed:
// find the audio portion of the file
// return the size in bytes
-(UInt32)audioFileSize:(AudioFileID)fileDescriptor
{
UInt64 outDataSize = 0;
UInt32 thePropSize = sizeof(UInt64);
OSStatus result = AudioFileGetProperty(fileDescriptor, kAudioFilePropertyAudioDataByteCount, &thePropSize, &outDataSize);
if(result != 0) NSLog(@"cannot find file size");
return (UInt32)outDataSize;
}
This uses the esoteric method: AudioFileGetProperty() to figure out how much sound data there is in the file and jams it into the outDataSize variable. groovy, next!
Now we are ready to copy the data from the file into an openAL buffer:
// this is where the audio data will live for the moment
unsigned char * outData = malloc(fileSize);
// this where we actually get the bytes from the file and put them
// into the data buffer
OSStatus result = noErr;
result = AudioFileReadBytes(fileID, false, 0, &fileSize, outData);
AudioFileClose(fileID); //close the file
if (result != 0) NSLog(@"cannot load effect: %@",fileName);
NSUInteger bufferID;
// grab a buffer ID from openAL
alGenBuffers(1, &bufferID);
// jam the audio data into the new buffer
alBufferData(bufferID,AL_FORMAT_STEREO16,outData,fileSize,44100);
// save the buffer so I can release it later
[bufferStorageArray addObject:[NSNumber numberWithUnsignedInteger:bufferID]];
OK, lots went on here (well, not really). made some room for the data, used the AudioFileReadBytes() function from the audio toolkit to read the bytes from the file into the awaiting block of memory. The next bit is slightly more interesting. We call alGenBuffers() to make us a valid bufferID, then we call alBufferData() to load the awaiting data blob into the openAL buffer.
Here I have just hardcoded the format and the frequency. If you use the afconvert command at the top of the post to generate your audio files, then you will know what their format and sample rate are. However, if you want to be able to do any kind of audio format or frequency, then you will need to build some methods similar to audioFileSize: but using kAudioFilePropertyDataFormat to get the format, then convert it to the proper AL_FORMAT, and something even more byzantine to figure out the frequency. I am lazy so i just make sure my files are formatted properly.
Next I put the number into a nice NSArray for later reference. you can do with that ID whatever you want.
OK, now we have a buffer! neato. Time to hook it to the source.
NSUInteger sourceID;
// grab a source ID from openAL
alGenSources(1, &sourceID);
// attach the buffer to the source
alSourcei(sourceID, AL_BUFFER, bufferID);
// set some basic source prefs
alSourcef(sourceID, AL_PITCH, 1.0f);
alSourcef(sourceID, AL_GAIN, 1.0f);
if (loops) alSourcei(sourceID, AL_LOOPING, AL_TRUE);
// store this for future use
[soundDictionary setObject:[NSNumber numberWithUnsignedInt:sourceID] forKey:@"neatoSound"];
// clean up the buffer
if (outData)
{
free(outData);
outData = NULL;
}
Much like the buffer, we need to get a valid sourceID from openAL. Once we have that we can connect the source and the buffer. finally we will throw in a few basic buffer settings just to make sure it is all set up right. If we want it to loop, then we need to set the AL_LOOPING to true, if not, the default is not to loop, so ignore it. Then I store the ID into a nice dictionary do I can call it out by name.
lastly, clean up our temporary memory.
So close now! everything is all ready to go, now we just need to play the damn thing:
// the main method: grab the sound ID from the library
// and start the source playing
- (void)playSound:(NSString*)soundKey
{
NSNumber * numVal = [soundDictionary objectForKey:soundKey];
if (numVal == nil) return;
NSUInteger sourceID = [numVal unsignedIntValue];
alSourcePlay(sourceID);
}
that’s it. alSourcePlay().. easy. If the sound doesnt loop, it will stop of it’s own accord when it is all done. If it is looping, or you want to stop it early:
- (void)stopSound:(NSString*)soundKey
{
NSNumber * numVal = [soundDictionary objectForKey:soundKey];
if (numVal == nil) return;
NSUInteger sourceID = [numVal unsignedIntValue];
alSourceStop(sourceID);
}
That is basically the quickest and simplest way to get sound out of the iPhone using openAL. (that I can figure out anyway).
Lastly, when you are done with everything, be nice and clean up:
-(void)cleanUpOpenAL:(id)sender
{
// delete the sources
for (NSNumber * sourceNumber in [soundDictionary allValues]) {
NSUInteger sourceID = [sourceNumber unsignedIntegerValue];
alDeleteSources(1, &sourceID);
}
[soundDictionary removeAllObjects];
// delete the buffers
for (NSNumber * bufferNumber in bufferStorageArray) {
NSUInteger bufferID = [bufferNumber unsignedIntegerValue];
alDeleteBuffers(1, &bufferID);
}
[bufferStorageArray removeAllObjects];
// destroy the context
alcDestroyContext(mContext);
// close the device
alcCloseDevice(mDevice);
}
One note: in a real implementation you will probably have more than one source (I have a source for each buffer, but I only have about 8 sounds, so this is not a problem). There is an upper limit on the number of sources you can have. I dont know the actual number on the iphone, but it is probably something like 16 or 32. The way to deal with this is to load all your buffers, then dynamically assign those buffers the the next available source that isnt already playing something else.
Groovy, hopefully this will be helpful to someone. I had a bit of a hard time finding a good basic sample to get myself started so I made this one by going through the openAL programmers guide and just doing the very minimum.
Cheers!
-b
EDIT: clever reader Nathan points out that I forgot to include:
AudioFileClose(fileID);
in my sample code! Whoops! good catch, it is now fixed in the tutorial :-)
EDIT: this page continues to be the most visited page on my site, so: yay! Unfortunately, if you get here via google, then it can be hard to find other good articles about OpenAL on my site. So, to be servicey, if you read this article, you might also like: