Working with Audio in Unreal
Audio is crucial for creating a persuasive VR experience. Because of the key role that audio cues play in our sense of being present in an actual, physical space, any effort that development teams devote to getting it should be worth the effort, as it will contribute to the user’s sense of immersion.
Oculus provides free, easy-to-use spatializer plugins for engines and middleware including Unity, Unreal and native development. Our spatialization features support both Rift and Android development.
Our ability to localize audio sources in three-dimensional space is a fundamental part of how we experience sound. Spatialization is the process of modifying sounds to make them localizable, so they seem to originate from distinct locations relative to the listener. It is a key part of creating presence in virtual reality games and applications.
For more on the foundational concepts that make up immersive audio be sure to check out the following guide on VR Audio, Design, Engineering and Mastering.
Audio Features
Oculus provides the following audio tools:
- Sound Spatialization Plugins - The Oculus spatialization tools and integrations transform monophonic sound sources to make them sound as though they originate from a specific desired direction. For details of our spatialization features, considerations and limitations see Spatializer Features.
- Synchronization of Avatar Lip Movements Synchronize avatar lips to speech and laughter sounds with Oculus Lipsync.
- Audio Profiling - Use the Oculus audio profiling tool to track audio issues.
- Loudness Meter - Measure the loudness of your audio mix with the Oculus Loudness Meter.
Download and Use Oculus Audio Tools
See the following documents for Oculus integrations with popular development tools.
Unreal Engine
Oculus provides an spatializer plugin and a Lipsync package for Unreal Engine.
| Tool/ Download | Documentation |
|---|---|
| Oculus Spatializer for Unreal - Plugin integrated with Unreal Engine | Oculus Spatializer for Unreal Engine 4 |
| Oculus Lipsync for Unreal | Oculus Lipsync for Unreal Engine |
UE4 offers built-in HRTF-spatialization only spatialization for Rift. For an example implementation, see AmbientSound Spatialize in the Unreal Audio Content Example.
Note that when Unreal PC (Rift) applications are launched, if the OculusVR plugin is enabled and the Oculus VR Runtime Service is installed, then the application will automatically override the default Windows graphics and audio devices and target the Rift. The Oculus VR Runtime Service is installed with the Oculus app.
Audiokinetic Wwise
Oculus provides a plugin spatializer for Wwise.
| Tool/Download | Documentation |
|---|---|
| Oculus Audio Spatializer Plugin for Wwise | Spatializer for Audiokinetic Wwise |
The following image shows an example of Wwise.
FMOD Studio
Oculus provides a plugin spatializer for FMOD Studio.
| Tool/Download | Documentation |
|---|---|
| Oculus Audio Spatializer Plugin for FMOD | Oculus Spatializer for FMOD Studio |
The following image shows an example of FMOD Studio.
Avid Pro Tools and other DAWs
Oculus provides a plugin for Avid Pro Tools and other Digital Work Stations.
The following image shows an example of Avid Pro Tools.
Additional Audio Utilities
| Download | Summary | Documentation |
|---|---|---|
| Oculus Audio Profiler for Windows | Provides real-time statistics and metrics to track audio performance in apps that use Oculus Spatializer plugins. | Oculus Audio SDK Profiler |
| Oculus Loudness Meter | A tool that measures the loudness of your app’s audio mix. Loudness goes beyond simple peak level measurements, using integral functions and gates to measure loudness over time in LUFS units. | Oculus Audio Loudness Meter |
Sample Audio Files
| Package | More Info |
|---|---|
| Oculus Audio Pack 1 | An archive of WAV audio files that includes a variety of sounds including weather, animal sounds, and human vocals. |
| Oculus Ambisonics Starter Pack | Includes several AmbiX WAV files representing various ambient soundscapes, such as parks, natural environments with running water, indoor ventilation, rain, urban ambient sounds, and driving noises. |
Learn More
Sound design and mixing is an art form, and VR is a new medium in which it is expressed. Whether you’re an aspiring sound designer or a veteran, VR provides many new challenges and inverts some of the common beliefs we’ve come to rely upon when creating music and sound cues for games and traditional media.
Watch Brian Hook’s Introduction to VR Audio from Oculus Connect 2014.
Watch Tom Smurdon and Brian Hook’s talk at GDC 2015 about VR Audio.
Learn more about audio propagation simulation in the Facebook Reality Labs blog post
Read the Introduction to VR Audio white paper for key ideas and how to address them in VR, or see any of the additional topics:
| Topic | Description |
|---|---|
| Localization and the Human Auditory System | Describes how humans localize sound. |
| 3D Audio Spatialization | Describes spatialization and head-related transfer functions. |
| Listening Devices | Describes different listening devices and their advantages and disadvantages. |
| Environmental Modeling | Describes environmental modeling including reverberation and reflections. |
| Sound Design for Spatialization | Now that we’ve established how humans place sounds in the world and, more importantly, how we can fool people into thinking that a sound is coming from a particular point in space, we need to examine how we must change our approach to sound design to support spatialization. |
| Mixing Scenes for Virtual Reality | As with sound design, mixing a scene for VR is an art as well as a science, and the following recommendations may include caveats. |
| VR Audio Glossary | Definitions of technical terms VR audio terms. |
Oculus Audio Community
If you’re interested in learning more about Oculus VR audio or just want to chat with other audio-minded developers, drop by the Audio Developer Forums.