For example, a character might have an ability that allows them to hear things from different locations. Although this is a reasonable assumption for most situations, there can be more unusual setups depending on the game type or gameplay requirements. Typically, the listener is attached to the player camera where it's assumed that the "eyes" and "ears" of a game viewport ought to be in the same location. It can be stationary or manually controlled in a 3D environment. The listener is the location and orientation where a virtual listener is maintained. There are two main geometries to consider when computing the pan values: the geometry of the listener, and the geometry of the physical speaker locations.Īll spatialization techniques depend on the concept of having a listener. This type of panning is known as vector-based amplitude panning or VBAP.īefore discussing different panning techniques, is it useful to understand how the panning value is calculated based on game geometry. However, instead of adjusting the relative gain between two paired speakers, gain is adjusted between speaker triplets (i.e. When describing panning with more than two speakers, this is known as pairwise panning.įor speaker setups that use more than two channels and have speakers above and below the listening plane, the technique for panning is similar to pairwise panning. Technically speaking, this psycho-acoustic experience is referred to as the interaural level difference, where "level" is another term often used for volume.įor speaker setups that have more than two channels, such as quad, 5.1, and 7.1 surround sound, the technique for panning is the same as it is for stereo panning, but it's applied to pairs of speakers instead. It may seem obvious that this would produce the feeling of spatialization, but it's important to note that this illusion is created because the brain has been trained to understand that a sound to your left will sound louder in your left ear compared to your right ear. This is called stereo panning, where "stereo" means that the audio has two channels. Gain is a generic term used to describe the operation of either attenuating (gain 1.0) a sound.įor a given sound, making its gain higher in the left channel compared to the right channel will create the illusion that the sound is coming from the left. In its most basic form, panning can be achieved by adjusting the relative gain between different audio channels (speakers). Panning is the oldest and simplest way to simulate spatialization. The three main methods of spatialization are panning, soundfield spatialization, and binaural audio spatialization. This overview will use the term "spatialization" to exclusively refer to methods of orienting a sound relative to a listener. Other considerations, such as attenuation, reverb, and occlusion, are usually discussed in that same context. In the Unreal Audio Engine, and in game audio, the term "spatialization" usually refers to only one aspect of the overall generalized spatialization problem: the techniques and technologies used to orient the sound relative to a listener. These objects act as obstructions to the sound.Ī sound may take different alternative paths to reach the listener, creating a perceived echo effect. The paths a sound travels from its source to the listener.Ī sound may collide with other objects while it travels towards the listener. The distance between the listener and sound source. The relative orientation between the listener and the sound source. These technologies mimic natural sound phenomena such as orientation, attenuation, propagation, occlusion and obstruction, and reverb. In audio, the simulation of sound spatialization, also known as sound localization, is achieved using a wide variety of audio technologies working together. The Head-Related Transfer Function (HRTF) Determining the Panning Value: The Listener and Speaker GeometryĬomputing Pan Values for Multi-Channel Sources
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