After our crits I decided it would be beneficial to do more research into mixing for virtual reality in order to bring an increased sense of sonic realism to the game.
While in two dimensional media such as movies, mixing involves adjusting volume levels, appropriate panning and reverbs, however for more interactive experiences like that of VR, these qualities of the mix rely on distance and direction. In softwares such as Fmod and Unity, as opposed to Ableton (which is what I am most used to using) we are able to automate and attenuate these qualities based on distance. For VR specifically, panning is replaced with HRTF, which stands for Head-Related-Transfer-Functions, which supposedly provides more accurate directional cues than panning.
To expand on this HRTF is seemingly a more advanced way of localising audio as it is ‘measured in a specialized facility under controlled conditions. During such a measurement, a sound is played through a loudspeaker from a certain direction and microphones placed at the entrance of your ear canal register how your ears ‘hear’ this sound’.
Moreover, while non-VR games can be played on any form of speaker, however this means somewhat compromising the quality of sound in order to ensure the final mix sounds good on all kinds of sound systems. VR headsets however are all equipped and played with headphones, allowing for a more consistent audio reproduction. However taking this into account, when mixing for VR, one has to be aware of user fatigue, requiring volume levels that can be listened to for sustained amounts of time as well as not cluttering the mix with too many sounds in the same frequency ranges.
Distance is also crucial to successful immersion within a game. For example when considering audio cues, if a sound is loud despite it being perceived as far away then it will most likely throw off the player and confuse them, breaking down the illusion of immersivity. The rule of thumb for physically accurate distance attenuation is apparently that ‘the doubling of distance is a halving of intensity’. Reverb is another important tool that, if used effectively, can create the illusion of distance also. Sounds that are far away we perceive to have more reverb.
All of the research into these techniques are sure to help me when coming together with the rest of my group for the final mix down and has only reinforced the importance of controlling and treating the relative qualities of each sound as a critical component in the mix.