Recording VR audio on top of a sacred mountain overlooking Seoul, South Korea.Īs an audio director and sound designer on several high-profile VR projects (including Spider-Man*: Homecoming Virtual Reality Experience with Sony, Shapesong with Intel, and Space Dock VR demo with Qualcomm), I have had to learn and adapt to the best practices for audio content creation on many different platforms and engines (Unreal Engine, Unity*, and so on). Surround audio, binaural audio, and hyperrealism in sound design have now become a necessity to help those dreams and graphics come to life.įigure 4. Visuals can only go so far, and audio must take us the rest of the way through the uncanny valley. For the player wearing headphones, enjoying a full immersive experience, realistic sounds make the virtual world come to life. Multichannel audio is used to add reality to a standard video-game experience in VR, however, new rules and expectations have been established. Sure, in a first-person shooter (FPS) game, you would want footstep sounds to be cinematic, or be able to hear bullets flying off in the distance. All these interactive programs use sound in ways that standard AAA games never had to. VR popularity has accelerated over the past few years, with the introduction of SteamVR*, HTC Vive*, Oculus Rift*, and others. Toting gear through the Underground in Prague, Czech Republic. The expedition proved to be a real adventure.įigure 3. I captured original, high-resolution resonances in castles, cathedrals, catacombs, churches, caves, forests, jungles, temples, cities, markets, mansions, halls, concert venues, rivers, streams, tunnels, passages, and other unique venues. Recording on a jungle river in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. To help VR sound designers create soundtracks for virtual worlds, I recorded natural indoor and outdoor environmental audio, impulse responses (for creating custom reverbs), foley design (raw sounds), sound effects sources, musical performances, and other audio content in many different places and conditions (see below).įigure 2. I acquired multiple terabytes of fresh new textures, sounds, audio, and content. My field-recording expedition took me through South East Asia, Europe, and North America. A high-resolution hardware recording interface: Zoom F4* Multitrack Field Recorder, and Audio-Technica ATH-M50x* professional monitor headphones.Some 4K video recording gear: Sony Cyber-shot* DSC-RX100 V, Apple iPhone* 8 Plus, and ZHIYUN Crane-M* three-axis gimbal stabilizer.A Sennheiser AMBEO* VR mic and the Audio-Technica omnidirectional ATR3350* lavalier (hands-free) microphone.High-quality, portable binaural recorders, including the Roland R-07-BK* and Roland CS-10EM*.The equipment I brought along for this expedition-which involved traveling through more than 17 countries-included: Author Justin Lassen using a variety of recording equipment in different settings around the world. Think of the ambient space of places as sonic textures this spatial-audio helps drive the realism (and hyperrealism) of sound design for interactive VR.įigure 1. These atmospheric recordings, impulse responses (reverb), and foley (everyday sound effects) for sound design were all captured in high-resolution audio, specifically for use in VR applications and experiences. I was tasked with capturing the 3D sonic space of jungles, castles, catacombs, caves… all kinds of fascinating and mysterious places around the planet (some of these travel sites are shown in Figure 1). It's not every day you get to travel all over the world collecting spatial-audio from dozens of countries for VR projects, in much the same way as you might take photos on a vacation. Walkthroughs and procedures are provided, using software examples with MAGIX ACID* Pro 8, MAGIX SOUND FORGE Audio Studio* 12, and Unreal Engine 4. Binaural recording uses two microphones to capture and later recreate a 3D soundscape these field-recording techniques, specifically for use in VR applications and games, are described here-as well as the process of recording, editing, mastering, and creating environmental sound assets for Unreal Engine* 4. This article explains techniques for using advanced audio hardware and virtual reality (VR) microphones to collect real-time binaural audio samples.
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