This feature simulates realistically how sound travels through virtual geometry to reach your ear. This simulation includes reflections, reverb, occlusion, obstruction, and diffraction.
Meta isn’t the first company to offer an audio SDK with ray tracing. Valve
offers audio ray-tracing. This has been available since 2018. And in fact, the Oculus Audio SDK, the predecessor to the Meta XR Audio SDK,
in 2019.Steam AudioBut whereas the full audio propagation simulation capabilities of Steam Audio and Oculus Audio SDK were designed for use on PC or high-end consoles, Meta claims its Acoustic Ray Tracing is performant enough to run well on mobile chipsets of the type used in its Quest headsets, even with “arbitrarily complex geometry”.had it“Whether your VR scene is a winding cave, a bustling cityscape, or an intricate indoor environment, our technology can manage the complexity without compromising on performance”, Meta claims.
How the Meta XR Audio SDK’s Acoustic Ray Tracing sees a scene in Unity.
“Diffraction allows sound to bend around obstacles, occlusion models how objects block sound, and obstruction simulates how sound changes when it passes through different materials”, the company
“For example, users can hear the footsteps of their opponents echoing down the hall and around the corner, giving them a clear sense of position even without line of sight, allowing them to sneak into a corner and set up an ambush. “explainsAs with Steam Audio, developers tag each virtual object with a sound material, such as metal, brick, carpet, glass, and wood, significantly altering how it absorbs and reflects sound rays.
Meta says
, the upcoming Quest 3 exclusive from its acquired studio Camouflaj, will be its first major title to use this new Acoustic Ray Tracing technology.
As the original Oculus Audio SDK saw few updates after 2019 many third-party developers moved over to Steam Audio. Since last year, Batman: Arkham Shadow the XR audio SDK boasts superior HRTF spatialization. This means that apps using this SDK should have more realistic sounding audio. Meta is hoping VR developers will return to their solution now that they have the best audio propagation simulation. Quest users should hear more realistic audio when using virtual worlds on their headsets.