When it comes to VR gaming, realism is key. As a developer, you want to bring the player into the reality you created as effectively as possible. Valve is helping with that. Today, the company released a free software development kit that will help developers make their games sound more realistic.
The free Steam Audio SDK can be integrated into to all types of games (not only VR) and seeks to better simulate how sound travels through space. It calculates how sound moves through a scene, adjusting the volume, panning, and quality by taking into account the environment’s physics and materials. The features are described in an announcement post which includes features such as “physics-based reverb” and “real-time sound propagation.”
The Steam Audio SDK is currently available as a Unity plug-in, but the source can also be integrated into other engines. Epic will be demonstrating Steam Audio in Unreal Engine during GDC next week.