Meant to be Seen

I came across this - http://slab3d.sonisphere.com/
It's an open source sound library made by a guy called Joel Miller while he was at NASA. They used it for some of their simulations I think. It can render binaural stereo sounds reasonably well. I haven't tested it out much (it was a nightmare to get it to build on VS2010) but it looks like it has some pretty cool features.

It comes with several HRTFs - that's basically models of your ear. I think you should be able to pick one that is close to your own but again I haven't tried them out yet.

I just whacked together a quick demo (attached - ) - let me know if it doesn't work. It's not very exciting, just a room with a sphere that moves around and talks on a loop. If you let it pass by your head on either side you get a pretty good effect.

Here's a video (use in ear headphones);
[youtube-hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4MBEoBHTf4[/youtube-hd]

That's really darn cool. It freaked me out when I heard the sound come from behind me.

Can you modify the demo to test vertical positioning too? Also, now that you've managed to build it, what is some advice you can give to future potential devs?

Wow! Very nice. I'll have to take a closer look at this when I get a chance.

I know this might not be relevant, but its cool.
A binaural audio demo where I noticed something neat.
Im in a dark room right now, so the effect might only work that way.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FwDa7TWHHc[/youtube]

Wear a headset, and close your eyes when he shows the sparklers, with youtube in fullscreen.
The bright light from the sparkler will make it feel like its close to your face.
Shining through your eyelids. As he moves the sparkler "over your head" the bright light follows.

Kinda interesting.
Spoiler alert:

Also funny with the random noises, I turned to look at the door in my room thinking someone was knocking.

If binaural audio could be easily implemented in games to make it even more immersive it would be a mindblowing addition to the rift.

I played about with the reflections but I don't think they add much. They break the effect of being able to localize the sound so although they might be more realistic, without a perfect model of your ear I think its a better simulation without them.

@ zalo

Don't try and use any of the lib files in the download, build everything again from source. You also have to change a few of the settings for when you open the project file in VS2010; the automatic converter breaks it. I can't remember if I had to change any of the code at all. I'm happy to share everything I have though if you have VS2010 and want to play with it. This demo uses DarkGDK which is not free (it's $30 although I think there's a 30 day trial version).

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BTW if you want to use C# its much easier, you can just include the prebuilt dll.

Ive looked into Binaural sounds for quite some time, here are my findings on some other 3D Binaural sound engines:

Rapture 3D: http://www.blueripplesound.com/

Ghoast Binaural 3D:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP070E_JCu0

My ears 3D: http://www.myears.net.au/ (Creates a HRTF based on your own ears)

pretty cool stuff, I think it would be awesome to see some more Binaural sounds in games if VR ever becomes more mainstream.

as for Binaural sound demos, this is one of my favorites (I think over ear headphones work best):
[youtube-hd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT1XuB95qMk&fmt=18[/youtube-hd]