I’m looking for opinions from people who have looked into this or gone down this route before.
What is the best solution for getting HRTF audio that can be used with unity? Which is the most convincing? Which is the easiest to use? Which has a future? Supercollider? OpenAL? Slab3D? Another? Are there any decent resources for implementing any of these in c# or unity that you know about? Information seems scarce so I’d like to get opinions before diving into copious amounts of documentation and source code. FMOD says they have a basic software HRTF implementation, is there no way for unity to access that functionality?
I see that HRTF has been done a few times with unity, but I’m not seeing anything on the asset store.
Panning as a 3D audio solution is very two dimensional and not convincing. You can’t tell which direction a sound is coming from unless it comes directly from your left or right. Binaural sound does to immersion what 3D graphics does to immersion, which is why I am so confused that this is not the gaming industry standard.
HERE is the latest binaural audio implementation I have found implemented in unity.
Update: Super Collider doesn’t seem to have an actual standard HRTF implementation, just panning? That’s unfortunate, because it looks awesome. I will play around with it anyway for completely unrelated features. Slab3D seems like a small project with limited features. I’m going to stay away. OpenAL is used quite often to implement HRTF in games, but it lacks other functionality that would be of interest to me, and it is ageing.
I am looking into PureData right now, it seems to have similar functionality to Super Collider and HRTF is a possibility.
I looked into doing this for quite a long time before. What drives me bonkers is that FMOD is there waiting in Unity, but we don’t have full access to it. It can perform HRTF effects. It’s my hope that the Rift will create more demand for access to this capability. I would really love to do HRTF stuff in mobile devices, but I’ve come to the conclusion that this is only a dream. You are definitely on the right track. PureData and Max MSP are your best bets. I wish they fit my purposes. I look forward to updates from you on this.
FMOD currently doesn’t support actual binaural or ambisonic effects. I have chatted to the FMOD team about it. The best option i’ve found is to implement OpenAL-soft support or support for the RippleAudio openal drivers. They support higher order ambisonics. Gaming And VR They do seem limited to Windows platforms though. I’d love to hear what solution you go for.
Hey, NA-RA-KU. Good HRTF is really tough, especially without low level access to the FMOD mixer. I think you’re a SECTR licensee, right? If so, SECTR AUDIO only has a very simple/hacked HRTF but you can email support@makecodenow.com if you can code and wanted to discuss ways to use the SECTR plumbing to help you get a more believable HRTF.
I also have wondered for over a decade why binaural Audio isn’t a standard thing in the gaming industry or media in general.
I too think that there’s a huge potential in true binaural audio comparable to the revolution of 3D graphics.
AMD’s TruAudio looks promising. I hope they’re trying to push hardware-accelerated binaural audio processing to the masses.
That said, I too am looking for a good Unity implementation for our next simulation project as we’re aiming for an immersive experience.
I’ll be subscribing to this topic and look forward for any updates. I’ll go through the solutions mentioned in this topic before but I wish for a more streamlined solution in the future.
HRTF is always going to be CPU-hungry anyway. The guys at TwoBigEars are saying their HRTF is extremely CPU-efficient compared to competitors, and I think it’s available on the Asset Store.
Alternatively, my team is releasing an omni binaural plugin this week along with some stock 3D sounds. Our plugin practically doesn’t even touch the CPU, and actual binaural is as good as it gets. If you don’t have the equipment to record in binaural, hit us up. We’re looking for projects to showcase our plugin so we may be able to work out a deal in the short term.
Sorry for the delayed reply, Salamankero. We had some gnarly technical difficulties back in September when we tried to launch the plugin originally. Long story short, our entire codebase was wiped out (along with backups) and we had to rewrite it from scratch.
We have just finished that process, and we submitted the plugin to the Unity Asset Store for review yesterday.
It looks like there has been no basic Unity HRTF module added to unity other than the option for a plugin since version 5.
Surely by now Unity would have it’s own good enough for most games solution that could be upgraded with plugins?
Are there any community based/free solutions that just work?