RealSpace 3D Audio Demo

• Game Engine: Unity
• Released: 27 February 2015
• Download: RealSpace3D-v0.10.6-Demo.zip

I’ve been keenly interested in the application of head-related transfer functions (HRTF) in video games since at least the beginning of 2010. I’ve spent a great deal of time searching for and testing out game engines and audio systems that employ HRTFs in their audio mix for headphones.

On balance, I think my favourite audio system is VisiSonic’s RealSpace 3D plugin. However, that wasn’t initially the case. My first impression was spoiled because their early demo app was very rudimentary and didn’t effectively show off how good RealSpace 3D really sounds. After I tested the plugin in Unity for myself, I was much more impressed and I decided to create my own demo app.

My demo features two rooms connected by a passage and there are three sources of sound. The environment is designed to be simple yet attractive. I used the following packages from the Unity Asset Store:

• Two rooms – by Shapes
• Sky FX Pack – by Unity Technologies
• Asia – Far East Environment – by Manufactura K4 (I used just the staircase from this pack.)

I wrote some basic C# scripts to control the interactive aspects of the demo. The demo provides a selection of sounds (and music) and a selection of preset reflection coefficients. The user can change these settings per room.

VisiSonics really liked my demo and hosted it on their website. They have used it to demo RealSpace 3D to their clients and also demoed it in their meeting room at GDC 2015. I eventually sold the Unity project to them so that they could update it with their latest plugin versions by themselves.