capturing audio

the first step in the project’s process was naturally capturing and recording audio. this was done using a Sennheiser VR ambisonics microphone and a zoom g4 multitrack field recorder. sound effects were recorded in a studio environment, and ambience was recorded in varying locations such as Dean castle country park in kilmarnock, Scotland.

processing audio

The project audio was then edited and processed using the digital audio workstation REAPER. REAPER is chosen due to friendliness with editing ambisonic audio. The two main plugins used where the AMBEO plugin by senheisel that allows the conversion of raw Ambisonics capture to the usable AMBIX format, and the DEAR VR AMBI MICRO plugin, which allows for the conversion of AMBIX to binaural audio.

unreal engine demo

Now, to showcase both the Ambisonic and binaural audio created, an unreal engine project was made. Using Prefabricated assets for the visual parts of the project such as , the main focus of the unreal engine project could be put on the development at implementation of the audio. The audio was implemented using unreal engines own audio engine, using its Node based coding system to implement it correctly.

videos and survey

Arguably, the most important section of this project, the creation of two video clips, one having Ambisonics audio and the other having binaural audio, as well as the creation of a survey to answer questions about the immersive qualities of each. The survey was created using Google forms, as that meant anyone with a link could participate and the results were easily collected and collated.