VR can be said to be one of the hottest technological trends, but VR audio technology has never been popular in the professional audio field. Although audio technology has almost entered the market together with video services, its performance in VR games and VR movies is far less “eye-catching†than the picture.
For so long, the concept of VR audio has not been tepid. Whether it is CD, SACD music, vinyl records, or streaming music services, the more traditional stereo audio technology is used. In recent years, despite the continuous emergence of similar pure audio Blu-ray surround technology, two-channel recording technology, and claims to be able to truly restore the home theater-level surround sound experience, the public has not been able to discover what is technically significant. breakthrough.
Although as early as 2010, headsets equipped with Realiser A8 processors did have strong spatial positioning capabilities and could produce shocking sound effects, but unfortunately, their manufacturers no longer produce this product.
As a result, the figure of VR audio has become more and more unpredictable, as if there is less and less sense of existence. Could it be that VR audio is going to be so cool?
Stanford develops a holographic sound synthesis system to automatically render animation sounds
And just recently, a new sound-related technology developed by Stanford has brought VR audio back to everyone's eyes. Stanford researchers developed a holographic sound synthesis system by calculating pressure waves generated by fast moving and shaking surfaces. Stanford claims that the system can automatically render realistic sounds for computer animation.
For this new system, Professor Doug James from the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University said: “We can use physics and computer graphics to create animations for scenes. Before this, the technology in the industry could not generate realistic and synchronized sounds for complex animation content. For example, splashing water or colliding objects. At this time, the system fills this gap in technology."
Through geometric and physical movement, the system can calculate the vibration of each object and how to excite sound waves through vibration like a speaker. It can calculate pressure waves thrown by fast-moving and vibrating surfaces, but cannot replicate room acoustics. Therefore, although the echo cannot be reproduced in the magnificent cathedral, the system can realize the sound in various other situations. For example, cymbals collide, an upside-down bowl rotates to a stop, a cup is filled with water, an avatar speaks with a megaphone, etc.
The analog sound produced by this method will be very lifelike. The system takes into account the sound waves generated by each object in the animation, and at the same time predicts what kind of bending, rebound or weakening effect these sound waves will produce when interacting with other objects and sound waves in the scene. Stanford said that many tests have shown that the sound generated by the system is very shocking.
But this system also has some regrets. It is still difficult to realistically simulate the sounds produced by the interaction between those complex objects. In this regard, the Stanford research team also admitted that they need to continue to invest in research to find a solution.
Is VR audio important to VR?In fact, people are not so sensitive to hearing compared to sight. In many cases, when the picture and the sound are synchronized, it is easier for people to obtain more information in the picture, thus ignoring some sound details. So, does it mean that VR audio is not important?
The answer is obviously no. For audio processing in VR, the editor believes that everyone needs to use a new way of thinking. Too realistic sound is really not suitable for all carrying modes. For example, in a theater, when the audience is facing a 2D video, but the sound comes from all directions, this will indeed distract the audience and make them confused about the video content.
However, the emergence of VR headsets changed everything. Studies have shown that realistic audio is an important prerequisite for establishing a sense of presence in VR. Through the VR headset, the user can turn in any direction and see a continuous visual scene. Visually continuous scenes and surround sound, the two together construct a VR system. It is precisely because of this that it is expected to provide users with a sense of presence closer to reality.
In order to pursue a good sense of presence and presence, interactivity is essential. When the user wears the headset, he will at least turn his head to see different panoramic content, and the sound will change accordingly. Similar to in the game, when the player enters from one room to another, the sounds from the same point should be different. This is almost the same as the visual change. It is precisely because of the introduction of these interactive features that the authenticity is improved, and it also proves that the existence of VR audio is very necessary.
VR audio requires interaction to give users a better sense of presence. Another very important point is that developers can express their intentions more conveniently through VR audio. Users can also use sound to better understand what the developer wants to express. On the contrary, if there is no sound prompt, then the audience is watching the video according to their own preferences and guessing what the video is expressing while watching the video.
Obviously, this is very inefficient. And all the VR works that are very well shot abroad, without exception, the sound effects are very good. Relying on VR audio, these videos will be more purposeful to guide the audience to watch the content. In this way, it also makes the video work more rhythmic.
Major manufacturers come to research and develop, what solutions are available for VR audio?In VR, the user is at the center of the scene and can independently choose the direction and angle of viewing. Users who want to experience the VR experience through a headset and earphones need to hear sounds from all directions on the earphones with two-channel stereo output. On the other hand, users often need to turn their head back and forth or have large body movements, so the influence of body structure on sound must also be considered. In this way, two key issues need to be solved, one is how to put it, and the other is how to listen.
First of all, how to put the sound? When developers make sounds in VR, they must center on the user and arrange the sound positions in the entire spherical area. When it determines a certain direction as the reference, the screen content and the user's position are relatively determined. With this positioning, there are both horizontal surround sound and vertical sound. Through the two parameters of horizontal rotation and vertical rotation, developers can control the direction of the angle of view in the 360-degree spherical range, and the changes in the sound that matches the screen at any time.
On the other hand, the user only has a pair of headphones, how to achieve the effect of Dolby Atmos in the cinema? A technology used here is called HRTF (Head-related Transfer Function), which can calculate and simulate the effect of sound coming from a certain direction and movement changes, which is a bit similar to a filter. It adjusts the frequency band of the original sound to make it closer to the hearing effect received by the human ear and replay it through the earphone.
Based on this principle, many manufacturers have tried to create audio in VR.
ValveValve once acquired the sound effects company Impulsonic, which has a physically-based sound propagation and 3D audio solution called "Phonon". Last year, Valve opened the Steam Audio SDK, the follow-up product of the Photon audio tool. This solution can enhance the VR immersive experience through spatial sound effects, allowing the game's audio and scene geometry to establish interaction and bounce echoes, thereby enhancing the experience. Steam Audio supports multiple platforms such as Windows, Linux, macOS and Android, and is not limited to specific VR devices and Steam.
GoogleIn 2017, Google also cooperated with audio companies Firelight and AudiokineTIc to launch a VR audio plug-in. Developers can use this plug-in to adjust the sound according to the size of the virtual space, materials, and the position of the object to create a more realistic atmosphere. The plug-in can be seamlessly integrated into Unity and Unreal engines. When using it, developers only need to make simple adjustments to the 3D audio, which can easily create spatial audio.
AMDSimilar to Nvidia, in August 2016, AMD released a real-time dynamic sound rendering technology called TrueAudio Next to make the sound and picture in virtual reality more synchronized. The technology also uses physical simulation to make the rendered sound infinitely close to the sound of the real environment. It performs multiple reflections in virtual modeling and uses Radeon Rays ray tracing technology to allow the system to identify the VR space layout and locate objects in the space. AMD has open sourced the technology.
NVIDIAAs of May 2016, NVIDIA has launched a physics-based acoustic simulation technology "VRWorks Audio" specifically for VR scenes. This technology draws on the idea of ​​ray tracing rendering and fully considers the rendering of the 3D scene. By interactively mapping the audio to the objects in the 3D scene, the audio sounds more natural.
The user is constantly moving and can hear the changes in the echo and the sense of space that it brings. In addition to judging that the sound is emitted by the object, it can also judge the object's direction, distance, and more.
OculusAs early as 2014, Oculus authorized VisiSonic's RealSpace 3D audio technology and integrated it into the Oculus Audio SDK. The sound information is processed by the spatial information sent from the tracker, so that the listener feels that the sound is emitted from this object. This technology relies heavily on customized HRTFs to reproduce precise spatial positioning through headphones.
Existing technologies can indeed realize VR audio, and users can also use it to distinguish the direction and distance. But what VR audio technology requires is not only to provide location information of objects in the environment, but also to be able to feed back more spatial environment states.
Take the game as an example. When the light in the scene gets darker and darker, the player's vision is bound to be restricted. At this time, audio is needed to determine the state of the environment. Footsteps, wind, animal calls, etc. can provide players with information and induce their next actions and interactions. Therefore, accurate and effective audio technology is particularly important in VR, not only in games and videos, but in other fields such as education and social interaction, VR audio technology needs to be further matured.
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