Take your game audio to the next level with Volumetric Audio. With just a few clicks you can turn your point audio sources into fully volumetric ones that emit from any kind of shape!
Thank you for reading.
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Version 1.0.1 changes:
- Added the ‘Is Hollow’ setting to all volumetric shapes, allowing them to be treated as hollow.
- Added Mesh Filter field to VA_Mesh.
- Added more warnings to components when you use possibly incorrect settings.
- Added the ‘Dynamic Mesh’ scene.
- Improved the demo scenes.
Hi darkcoder,
Another great package! Good work!
I’ll try this for sure. I work with audio every day, and this is a huge feature to add in any game!
Cheers!
Thanks!
I just finished implementing mesh baking, which allows you to convert a volumetric mesh into a Bounding Volume Hierarchy for very fast calculation speeds (just click Bake Mesh in the VA_Mesh inspector). This feature will come with Version 1.0.2 whenever that gets accepted onto the store.
This plugin is very interesting. We are using Master Audio for all the sounds and an integration between the two systems would be great.
For example all the sounds are loaded by Master Audio with Dynamic Groups, and each group has it’s own volume level settings. This allows to have environment sounds tuned all at the same time, independently from, for example, player interaction sounds, or weapons, etc.
Master Audio has some option to specify the source of the audio. Probably could be enough to extend this.
Do you think that could be possible?
Depending on how Master Audio works this may already be possible. To get Volumetric Audio working at the most basic level you just need to add the VA_AudioSource component to some GameObject that represents your audio source and it will position the sound at the right place (though the Pan Level adjusting feature would require an AudioSource attached).
Hello Carlos! thank you for Volumetric Audio. One thing I cannot get to work: I created a VA Box shape to use on a building with the intention of using a 2D quad ambience sound file within the box.
The 2D sound file actually had to be checkboxed to 3D since it never stopped playing throughout the entire space, so I did that with the hopes that the Pan and / or Spread will widen it back up when inside the building.
I added the sound file to the Hierarchy and added the VA Audio Source component to it, using the VA Box as the Shape. The sound’s icon appeared offset from the center of the VA Box, but after checking the Pan settings (default sound’s Pan set to 1 and the Min Max Pan of the VA Audio Source component left at 0/5), I entered the building in Game mode but the sound only plays at the spot where the offset sound is positioned.
Do I need to set the sound’s radius properties separately from the VA Box? Does that not defeat the purpose of using the VA Box shape (with the sound itself only being spherical like default Unity game objects)?
Your example showed two capsules set as a Compound shape and my guess was you were using a mono sound loop. Mine is quad and set to 3D.
Can you help?
- Rodney
The way Volumetric Audio is designed is that you set up volumes (shapes) that you want sounds to emit from, you then assign a standard Audio Source to it. The standard sound Max Distance & Rolloff settings allow you to change how far away from the volume the sound can be heard from. Another way to think about it is that these standard distance settings blur the edges of the sound volume, for example:
On the left: if the sound distance settings were ignored, then sound would only be heard from inside the volume.
On the right: the green area shows you where the sound falls off as you move away from the volume.
In addition to this, using 3D sounds also gives you Doppler shift as the sound or the listener move around, as well as directionality (e.g. if the sound volume is to your right then you’ll hear it in your right speaker).
If I understand you correctly, you have a specially designed 2D ambient loop that you want to hear when the camera enters inside a volume? If so, this isn’t supported yet (because VA doesn’t touch the sound volume setting). However, I’ll work on adding this right now and I’ll send you a build soon.
Thank you, Carlos! Yes, that is essentially what I am looking for. I’d love to create a VA Box, for examples, and attach that to the Shape parameter of a VA Audio Source emitter, using a 2D sound (stereo or quad) to create a basic ambient bed sound when you’re within a warehouse. I just want the sound to play when inside the warehouse (VA Box) and NOT play when I’m outside of it (with a little custom roll-off for the transition).
Hi Carlos,
I discovered your Volumetric Audio for Unity and wanted to know if it supports Unity vers 5.0.1f1 and if not when do you think you will have an ETA on a compatibility update?
Thank you
Maximo
Hey,
The current version of Volumetric Audio supports Unity 5.x fine, but due to API changes there are a few warnings in the editor. I plan to release an update to remove all these warnings in the next few days once I test it more thoroughly.
Thanks Carlos! for the quick response. I’m interested in using this tool. If you could please let me know when you have a version update that would be great! I can be reached at email maximo.olmos@gmail.com.
Thank you
Maximo
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Really interesting plugin. Is it compatible with any binaural plugins like 3dception, AstoundSound, or Oculus Audio SDK?
If these plugins provide a component similar to Unity’s AudioSource then it should be at least partially compatible. To make it fully compatible you would have to modify the VA_AudioSource component, particularly the parts that deal with the AudioSource’s 2D/3D sound slider to do the equivalent.
3dception can be used with it’s own AudioSource type, or alternatively a filter component can be applied to a Unity AudioSource. (which is my current preferred workflow). Oculus also uses its own AudioSource type. It appears that both custom source types are derived from Unity’s AudioSource but I’m not certain.
Would be great if anyone out there knows if these plugins are compatible with certainty! Thanks!
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Hello,
I’m very interested in your Volumetric Audio product but would like to know if it’s supporting Wwise Audio Engine? Just want to be sure before buying it. Thanks !
As I said earlier, as long as these other audio engines come with an equivalent to the Audio Source component it will mostly work. To get it to fully work you have to do some minor tweaks to the 2D/3D sound slider and volume settings if available.
Can this be used in conjunction with FMOD? If so, I am a very happy man (and customer, as it is).
By default it only fully supports Unity’s built-in Audio Source. But it’s very easy to extend to support more systems. All you need to do is modify VA_AudioSource.cs lines 125-143 to grab the AudioSource component from your alternative sound lib and modify the spatial blend/pan level, and volume.
Hey Im thinking of use your volumetric sound asset on my project but Im not sure if it fits with my performance needs.
Im thinking of use it in a Big world Sceneario, (objets rivers, ocean, sound Ambient zones, etc), so my main question is about how the detection system works, I have 2 main examples/questions:
-I have a tiled-Island-Continent surrounded by an Ocean, I want to play a sound of waves for the ocean, So can I have a va shape for each tile ocean, and add/remove them in runtime to the ocean va compound audio source and it will work? Can I enable/disable in runtime a Va audio source and keep things working?.
- Imagine I want to display bird sounds when the player aproachs to a tree, Can I have X number of VA Audio Sources (x for X random bird sounds) and add the va shapes to the va compound audio source in runtime?
And over All which will be the performance/calculations made (Imagine an va Audio compund source with 150 shapes).
Thanks in Advance.