Binaural Audio in Interactive Media (FINAL VIDEO ESSAY)

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You can watch the trailer to this 12 minute video essay on another post on my Steemit blog.

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To watch the video essay, please download it from dropbox through the following link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5r16pxoea7d1ugv/TD_BinauralAudioInInteractiveMedia.mov?dl=0

Binaural audio is only experienced while wearing headphones, so PLEASE WEAR YOUR HEADPHONES!

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From the beginning of this investigation, my main subject of interest was spatialisation of sound within interactive environments. I aimed to identify methods and techniques that media designers can use to observe sound in it’s full, three dimensional form. In my trailer, I identified different examples of work that had been done in the field of binaural audio, but I was still, at the time, keen on looking at everything to do with ambisonics and analyse it’s use in visual media. This obviously turned out to be a huge field, which would take an entire feature film to discuss in detail. So, taking the research forward from the trailer, I narrowed my focus onto binaural audio alone. I discovered that this field is still in it’s infancy and game production companies are just about beginning to dive into this world of binaural audio in games.
The reason I felt strongly about following this topic is because this technology makes surround sound an affordable thing for everyone to have access to. When we think about 5.1., 7.1 or atmos surround sound, we think of a large theatre. Not everyone can buy a theatre or even afford to buy tickets to a movie every day. Does that mean that not everyone should afford surround sound experiences? The fact that binaural audio can be fully appreciated on any regular pair of headphones is a wonderful and exciting one. Another point that I considered is that in today’s world, we all use powerful portable devices like tablets, phones and laptops. All of these devices are capable of sending audio through headphones into the listeners perception. And hence, these devices act as portals of communication in the form of interactive media. Story telling, game design and virtual reality experiences are being revolutionised by the amount of advancement that is going on at this present time.

In this video essay, I wanted to begin by convincing the audience that they, as human beings, have an uncanny ability to locate sound around them. I read a paper written by P. Minaar about localisation of sound and recording of audio through binaural microphone techniques around a dummy or real human head. The conclusions were that every human head has slight differences in shape, size, dimensions and density. All these factors affect the way sound is analysed in that particular person’s brain. The shape of the ears also plays a major role in this process. This paper introduced the concept of the HRTF to me. This is the “Head Related Transfer Funciton”. Each human has an associated HRTF based on the physical qualities of his or her head and auditory system. Using this system, one can obtain incredibly accurate reproductions of spatialised sound, when heard back on headphones.

I followed the developments of three major productions as the central case studies of my research. Uncharted 4 by Naughty Dog, Horizon Zero Dawn by Guerrilla Games and Land’s End (From the creators of monument valley). These are two console games and one virtual reality experience (puzzle game).

My aim was to show the audience that binaural audio is in fact not a gimmick, but rather a game changer in the industry of interactive media. As simple as it sounds, it is an amazing way to spatialise sound for a localised, personal use context. Designers from all around the world are attacking this field as it grows exponentially.