Tech Project
Description of the challenges faced by the Tech Project
Apart from the key scientific and technical challenges related to acoustics and signal processing, BINCI faces challenges in relation to its application in the target use cases, namely: • Cost-efficiency: Ensuring it improves the audio content production workflows, by introducing novel 3D functionalities in way that it is realisable and adoptable by practitioners. • Usability: Ensuring a co-design approach with and for end-users, to make sure the solution is consistent with most current workflows and keep the necessary learning curve at minimums. • Quality: Ensuring the workflow is robust, resilient, and capable to support high quality 3D audio productions meeting market and consumer end standards. • Meaningfulness: Ensuring artist and creative industries find the solution useful for creating compelling immersive contents that meet their own expectations, and of the consumers’. BINCI’s main challenge from the creative point of view is to realize and describe the position and movements of sound in a production without a common, standardized language. The entire process is almost simile to learning a new programming language. On the other hand, due to the lack of contents available for a comprehensive study on user experience and perception, there is little evidence to deduce guidelines or rules for creating effective 3D audio productions.
Brief description of technology
In the context of the temporal residency, cinematic VR artist(s) will be able to work with a set of software tools for creating, mixing and monitoring 3D audio for its VR and immersive content. BINCI tools will allow him/her to script, mix and render all audio elements (e.g. music, effects, voices) of his/her cinematic VR production with a control on temporal and spatial aspects of the production. Furthermore, he/she will be able to include in the creative concept the possibility of user interaction enabled by BINCI’s capacity of monitoring head movements in real-time and interactive binaural rendering. Try the following demos Binaural sound demos by Eurecat brand Sfëar (put on your headphones!): • HEAT: https://soundcloud.com/user-809544458/heat Original © Marc Bahamonde. Eurecat • 20 años: https://soundcloud.com/user-809544458/20-anos Original © Maria Teresa Vera Morua • Water: https://soundcloud.com/user-809544458/aigua-1 Original © Eurecat • Birds: https://soundcloud.com/user-809544458/birds Original © Eurecat
What the project is looking to gain from the collaboration and what kind of artist would be suitable
BINCI is looking for cinematic VR artist(s) to join the project activities. The artist(s) will use BINCI binaural audio tools for creating and experimenting with immersive 360 immersive contents. He/she is a storyteller, a 360 video producer, a complete cinematic VR artist that misses a key aspect of it all: the tools for easing 3D sound content production. BINCI will allow him/her to experiment with its tools, as much as necessary during the temporary residence, for him/her to complete an experimental 360 production using the BINCI binaural tools. By working together with the artist, the BINCI research and development teams will engage him/her in a co-design and iterative assessment approach that would help BINCI to deliver usable and meaningful tools. The artist’s creations will be disseminated and given visibility as a BINCI result, while he/she keeps rights (and due credits) to it. Nonetheless, BINCI is open to consider proposals to artists willing to experiment with binaural sound in other applications.
Resources available to the artist
Most part of the residency would be in Eurecat premises in Barcelona, Spain. Eurecat can provide the office facilities, including full connectivity and office equipment. Furthermore, the artist will be able to use EURECAT’s audio lab, a fully equipped 3D audio studio with state of the art technology, including an omnidirectional loudspeaker (dodecahedron), an omnidirectional multi capsule microphone, binaural head microphone and Head & torso simulator. Short visits could be arranged to the premises of partners VPOP in Berlin (also counts with a fully equipped 3D audio studio) and ANTENNA creative teams in Berlin and/or Amsterdam for side collaborations with the experimental production teams.