As the title suggests, I would like to know if spatial sound is possible in Gear VR at the moment?
I’ll take any and all solutions, Fmod or any other plugin.
Currently audio situation for Gear VR is gloomy - you can’t have spatialized sound and HRTF in Gear VR using UE4.
Wwise doesn’t have its own spatializer, neither does FMOD. Facebook just bought the company that provided spatializer for Wwise and removed it from available options until further notice. Oculus has not integrated their spatializer yet into UE4 and UE4’s audio system won’t be ready until who knows when.
So if you are in Gear VR development with UE4, you are out of luck in pretty much any direction whether it’s audio or anything else.
Too bad… Actually… that’s really bad…
And we have to wait for august for the complete audio rewrite it seems.
Which gives no guarantees Android spatializer and HRTF will be in it.
I’m with and we have 3D audio, reverb, and occlusion plugins for UE4. We’re currently working on GearVR + FMOD support and expect to officially release something in the next few weeks. If you have a tighter deadline get in touch and we may be able to give you a preview version. We already support UE4 native spatialization on Win64, and UE4 + FMOD Win64, so you’re welcome to try those out in the meantime.
Here is a video of how to get set up, some parts are a little out of date (no need to package HRTF anymore), but it should give you the gist.
I’m with and we have 3D audio, reverb, and occlusion plugins for UE4. We’re currently working on GearVR + FMOD support and expect to officially release something in the next few weeks. If you have a tighter deadline get in touch and we may be able to give you a preview version. We already support UE4 native spatialization on Win64, and UE4 + FMOD Win64, so you’re welcome to try those out in the meantime.
Here is a video of how to get set up, some parts are a little out of date (no need to package HRTF anymore), but it should give you the gist.
Oh, nice!
How is performance comparing to Oculus’ native spatializer for Gear VR ?
Performance is good - it is comparable to the Oculus spatializer. We did extensive benchmarking last year, you can check out the numbers here https://www…com/blog/phonon-3d-1-1-performance-benchmarking/.
I found this comparison article: http://designingsound.org/2015/04/3d-audio-weighing-the-options/
While dated (Photon 3D 1.0), it shows that Photon 3D only provides positional audio. No room modeling and no occlusions 
We do provide room modeling and occlusion. Our room modeling product is called Phonon Reverb, and our occlusion product is called Phonon SoundFlow. Reverb and SoundFlow use the actual level geometry, not just some approximation, and use baking to make things fast at runtime. In the same way you bake lightmaps, you can bake reverbs and occlusion information. SoundFlow is in beta, but Reverb is available and functional right now. You can download it here: https://www…com/downloads/#phonon-reverb-1-5. Reverb + UE4 currently only works with FMOD - a native integration will come along once the new audio system is in place.
I see, interesting. Although a bit pricey when getting all 3 products, Photon 3D alone seems to be reasonable for my first project.
Do you offer a bundle for all 3 products?
I’m with and we have 3D audio, reverb, and occlusion plugins for UE4. We’re currently working on GearVR + FMOD support and expect to officially release something in the next few weeks. If you have a tighter deadline get in touch and we may be able to give you a preview version. We already support UE4 native spatialization on Win64, and UE4 + FMOD Win64, so you’re welcome to try those out in the meantime.
Here is a video of how to get set up, some parts are a little out of date (no need to package HRTF anymore), but it should give you the gist.
Hi
Our deadline is pretty short, at least for a working demo on the gear VR.
I’ve made a really dirty workaround, using 4 sound files, and then interpolating the volume between them as you turn your head.
It’s dirty as a happy pig, but at least you get the sense of direction which is what we need.
Are you saying Phonon 3D doesn’t work out of the box and requires a workaround?
No…
I misunderstood what he wrote it seems.
I’m actually a little bit confused.
I thought that the support for spatial audio for gearVR would come soon “We’re currently working on GearVR + FMOD support and expect to officially release something in the next few weeks”.
Not sure if it supports it out of the box right now, or if it will come soon.
Bottom line, for our prototype we will be going with my homebrew fake spatial audio that is just 4 stereofiles where I turn the volume up and down depending on the angle to the object that is making the sound.
Where did you see that?
From many conversations I had with Epic and Oculus on this and Oculus’ forum, I take that UE4 for Gear VR is at the bottom of the list of priorities. VR team is small, and mostly dealing with Rift/Vive and now Daydream. I don’t know why Gear VR is not a priority, but I have a feeling it has to do with Carmack (he replied to me on Twitter that UE4 is not suited for Gear VR, despite the fact that it’s quite possible to make games/apps using UE4 for Gear VR and it has been proven in the past) and whatever politics are going on between Oculus and Epic. I fail to see any other reasons (yes, VR team is small, but Daydream isn’t even close to be out and it’s based on Android too, so spatialized audio would have to be developed before it comes out; too bad it might not be compatible with Oculus Audio SDK for Android; Gear VR already has 1M+ and it seems that wrapping up support for all current features it needs should be a priority).
No, it’s not supported and it might be coming any time soon. That’s why there is FMOD and Phonon, so that you can use those middleware products with UE4 to get true spatialized sound, early reflections and occlusions. It’s a cheap (price-wise) solution and I am not sure why would you not use it.
right here:
I’m with and we have 3D audio, reverb, and occlusion plugins for UE4. We’re currently working on GearVR + FMOD support and expect to officially release something in the next few weeks. If you have a tighter deadline get in touch and we may be able to give you a preview version. We already support UE4 native spatialization on Win64, and UE4 + FMOD Win64, so you’re welcome to try those out in the meantime.
Here is a video of how to get set up, some parts are a little out of date (no need to package HRTF anymore), but it should give you the gist.
Hmm. Somehow I overlooked that.
Phonon 3D 1.1 was tested and benchmarked with Gear VR (I provided the link) and now it’s version 1.5, so I am sure it already works on Gear VR. But, if the guy said it’s not ready, then good thing I didn’t purchase it.
@: could you please clarify readiness of Phonon 3D and other plugins for Gear VR ? (using FMOD for UE4)
ook, more info came up about spatialized sound for Gear VR: https://forums.oculus.com/developer/discussion/comment/411562#Comment_411562
So basically, FMOD is the only solution available to Gear VR devs right now.
Is FMOD still the only solution to have spatialized sound on Android?
Or are there any other ways to fake some 3d sound?