AES Los Angeles 2016
AVAR Conference Session AT3

Friday, September 30, 2:00 pm — 3:30 pm (Theater Room 411)

AVAR Conference: AT3 - Spatial Audio and Sound Propagation for VR: New Developments, Implementations, and Integration

Abstract:
"In this tutorial, we give an overview of recent research and tools for immersive spatial audio and sound propagation effects for VR. We also discuss sound design and integration aspects of adding these propagation techniques and capabilities to a massive VR platform, Project Sansar from Linden Lab. Spatial audio is important to maintain audio-visual coherence in VR for increased realism and better sense of presence. It refers to 3D audio and environmental effects like sound occlusion, reflection, diffraction, and reverberation. However, quickly simulating spatial audio to update with orientation and positional changes in VR is computationally challenging. We will give an overview of research techniques that have been developed in the last 10 years for efficiently modeling spatial audio for complex VR worlds. There will also be a hands on tutorial using Phonon, that has implemented many of these state of the art spatial audio algorithms. Phonon integrates with a wide variety of game engines and audio engines and we use these applications to demonstrate the performance of these novel spatial audio algorithms. We also demonstrate how 3D audio effect can be applied to environmental effects in spatial audio. Finally, we will discuss various sound design considerations when adding spatial audio for VR as well as practical challenges and considerations when adding spatial audio into a large VR platform, especially with regards to making spatial audio tools accessible for untrained users or content creators. "

Price: This session is part of the co-located AVAR Conference which is not included in the normal convention All Access badge.

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