3D Spatial Audio?

General Discussion
1

For anyone who doesn’t know what 3D spatial audio is, listen to these videos while wearing headphones (you must wear headphones for it to work). Stepping up from stereo to 3D spatial audio is the same as stepping up from regular 3D to VR. It adds an incredible amount of immersion.

3D Audio Algorithm (9 years ago):

Virtual Barbershop (an excellent demo of the effect)

The technology already exists to add this to the game. Steam provides a framework free for all developers: Steam Audio

My question is why don’t we have this in VRChat? Why has no one made a mod to add this to VRChat? More importantly why has no one asked about this? Why isn’t everyone clamoring to have this added to the game? It would add so much immersion to the game our heads would explode.

2

Doesn’t VRChat already use spatial audio? Or is it more of a 2d plane rather than 3d?

3

We already use ONSP. We’ve had spatialized audio since before Steam launch (Feb '17).

We’ve had a years-long project to investigate swapping to Steam Audio, though, as it may offer a ton of extra benefits. No current timeline on that, though.