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Mastering Oculus Rift Development

You're reading from   Mastering Oculus Rift Development The next frontier of gaming and simulation

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Product type Paperback
Published in Feb 2017
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781786461155
Length 306 pages
Edition 1st Edition
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Author (1):
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Jack Donovan Jack Donovan
Author Profile Icon Jack Donovan
Jack Donovan
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Table of Contents (11) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Exploring a New Reality with the Oculus Rift FREE CHAPTER 2. Stepping into Virtual Reality 3. Improving Performance and Avoiding Discomfort 4. Interacting with Virtual Worlds 5. Establishing Presence 6. Adding Depth and Intuition to a User Interface 7. Hearing and Believing with 3D Audio 8. Adding Tone and Realism with Graphics 9. Bringing Players Together in VR 10. Publishing on the Oculus Store

Chapter 7. Hearing and Believing with 3D Audio

Experiencing something is so much more than seeing it. We've been focusing on visual elements of VR, but for a truly immersive experience, we need to engage as many of the player's senses as we can, and this applies particularly to hearing.

A lot of the information we process based on our hearing is subconscious; for instance, if sound waves hit the back of our ears, what we hear is muffled by their conical shape. This muffling tells our brain that the sound is originating from behind us. If the sound waves bounce off our shoulders before entering our ears, that tells our brain that the sound is above us.

In typical screen-based games, this level of audio realism isn't possible, because the lack of head tracking makes our ears stay in the same static spot. However, with HMDs like the Oculus Rift, we can calculate the relative position and rotation of each ear, meaning the potential granularity of a realistic audio system...

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