Positional Audio :: SteamVR Developer Hardware General Discussions

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SuproThunderbolt Sep 30, 2015 @ 9:44pm

Positional Audio

What are people using for positional audio? Oculus has the Oculus audio plugin but I'm not sure what the recommended audio setup is for the Vive. Is there a WWise / FMOD plugin we can use? I've tried AstoundSound before with good results, but not with the Vive yet.

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Showing 1-10 of 10 comments

joelgreenmachine Oct 1, 2015 @ 7:06am

The Oculus plugin is free to use on any platform, and is quite good. It has a Wwise plugin (not sure about FMOD), and a Unity plugin. It doesn't currently work with the Wwise Unity integration, but they're working on that.

I've also used 3DCeption by TwoBigEars, and that's quite good as well, but isn't free.

Cryect Oct 1, 2015 @ 4:48pm

The Oculus plugin with WWise in Unreal Engine works pretty well.

SuproThunderbolt Oct 8, 2015 @ 10:01pm

Thanks for the info, I'll use that then.

flyingaudio Feb 23, 2016 @ 8:30am

The Oculus plugin is a subset of RealSpace3D Audio http://realspace3daudio.com. The full plugin has many advanced features. The demos are excellent. I am not sure of the exact cost.

Gerald Feb 23, 2016 @ 8:54am

The Oculus license agreement for the Audio SDK allows us to use it with titles that are not developed with a Rift and that are not meant to be distributed through their platform?

I am surprised, but that would be a nice thing and make me actually consider 3D audio. But so far I can not say I have seen a convincing demo that makes me want to put the effort in. Still hoping we see some integrated solution with Unity.

flyingaudio Feb 23, 2016 @ 9:21am

Unity integration seems like the right approach, since they are the cross-develpment platform. Maybe they will buy RealSpace3D, like they did with Mecanim, and make spatial audio a standard.

jashan Feb 23, 2016 @ 1:37pm

I've used Oculus Audio SDK but really didn't like it and have moved to TwoBigEars 3Dception which I like quite a bit. It seems that since I've worked with it, Oculus Audio SDK has come long ways, so I'll probably have another look.

The important thing to look for IMHO is that any plugin you use should be using Unity's Spatialization API. 3Dception apparently was the first one that did that - but it seems that by now Oculus Audio SDK also does it.

What I found extremely annoying about the Oculus Audio SDK was that you couldn't simply play the AudioSource - instead you had to play their component (I really hope they've changed that by now, otherwise I won't even try working with it - it's a terrible design for a spatialization SDK). 3Dception doesn't make you do that ... BUT - even though they use the Unity Audio Spatialization API, you still need to add their components to your AudioSources, which is fairly annoying. According to them that's due to limitations in Unity's Audio Spatialization API which, if true, would mean that API is kind of half-implemented.

IMHO, plugins like that should be just that: PLUGINS. So when I use 3Dception, all I want to do is select it from the Spatialization list (there's a setting for that in Audio). That way, when I want to try Oculus Audio SDK or any of the others, all I need to do is put the thing into my project, make another selection and be done with it.

Gerald Feb 23, 2016 @ 1:49pm

I disagree, I would like it to be part of the Unity engine. Doesn't need to cut off support for external solutions... Rift support did not close the door to Vive.

But otherwise very interesting read, thank you for all that valuable info!