
Q-OPENAL
========

An OpenAL module for the Q programming language. Copyright (c) 2005-2007 by
Albert Graef and Jonas Joebges, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany.
Distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) Version 2 or later (see
the accompanying COPYING file for details).

Please refer to the INSTALL file for installation instructions. You
need at least Q 7.0 and OpenAL 1.1 to compile this package.

This is a SWIG-generated wrapper of the OpenAL library, which allows you to do
3D sound programming in Q. The Q programming system can be found at
http://q-lang.sourceforge.net.

OpenAL is a specialized audio library which provides 3D sound in very much the
same way that OpenGL handles 3D graphics. Thus OpenAL allows you to create a
simulated 3D world with an arrangement of audio sources and a listener, from
which the appropriate multichannel output is generated in realtime. As such it
is typically used for programming games and other spatial sound applications.
The API resembles the OpenGL API in coding style and conventions, so that by
combining both you can easily create virtual 3D worlds with both graphics and
sound. For more information about OpenAL please visit http://www.openal.org.

For the most part, this module is just a straightforward wrapper of the OpenAL
routines. Thus most functions work just like their C counterparts, and you
should refer to the OpenAL documentation to find out how to use them. Some
additional helper functions (alIntVector etc.) are provided so that you can
create the integer or floating point vectors required as arguments for some of
the routines. Two simple examples are included in the distribution, to help
you get started.

Please note that this module is still work in progress. The current release
might not yet fully support all available OpenAL routines, but we intend to
fix that, so if you find anything that's missing or unusable, please let us
know. The module was originally developed using OpenAL 1.0 on SuSE Linux, but
the present version requires OpenAL 1.1. A windows port is available.

Please send bug reports, patches, comments and suggestions to:
ag@muwiinfa.geschichte.uni-mainz.de.


Enjoy!
December 2007
Albert Graef
