As the year continues, many of these posts will be philosophical in nature. Some will be in contradiction to previous postings. These are not intended as truths or assertions, they’re merely thoughts…ideas. Think of this as stream of consciousness over a wide span…
I understand where people are coming from with this term, but I can still hate it. Sound reproduction has been a 3D experience for decades now. The sudden enthusiasm for VR and 360 media experiences has made people think they need a catch phrase to describe sound for these mediums. The thing is, I’ve encountered filmmakers who think that the process of designing sound for VR is so radically divergent from the way we’ve done sound in the past, that it highlights how woefully uninformed our collaborators are about how we do our work. One conversation had a filmmaker trying to impress upon me the importance of being able to create the perception of distance in the sound design. They don’t realize that we already know how to do this, that we’ve been doing it in film and games all along. The way we do this hasn’t changed: lower the volume, apply EQ, and utilize reverbs or delays as appropriate and depending upon the scene’s environment. The way our profession does this does not change for VR/360 either.
What changes is the playback system (primarily headphones) and the way we generate deliverables (mostly ambisonics or binaural). Certainly, there are some new tools we need to use in the process if we want to create the perception of height while listening over headphones. Honestly though, the technologies we’re using to achieve this are decades old as well. We just suddenly have an appropriate and interesting use for them, computers powerful enough to make it a (relatively) simple task, and manufacturers creating tools that allow these workflows in nearly every DAW in existence.
I don’t know that there’s a better term to use…one that doesn’t lead our collaborators to think they need to emphasize a “new need” for a process we’re already intimately familiar with. What I do know is that, as usual, we need to demystify it enough so that they stop thinking about the process, and start thinking about the use. [/end ornery rant]
I completely agree Shaun. “3D” was never really an accurate way of describing sound that is localized to a stationary object or a moving actor / emitter. I think Unreal’s made up term “Spatialized” is a good one because it is in fact “Spatial”. “Localized” is a good solid term as well as “Postional”. Oddly enough, I do think that “2D” makes sense for a non-positional sound, but “3D’ doesn’t quite work.
Interesting thought, Shaun. I’ve never reflected about it in this way.. Thank you for sharing!
On the other hand, “3D audio” helps people who don’t understand the technicalities still try and draw an assumption of what it is. This assumption might not be entirely correct, but still closer to the truth. I personally prefer “spatial audio”, but it requires a more lengthy description about what “spatial” means which often leads to glazed eyeballs…especially when trying to get policy makers/producers/business development people to briefly understand the importance of it within the larger scheme of things.
The analogy I use is that “3D 360 cameras” might influence new ways of story telling or thinking about a scene, but it is still rooted in techniques and lessons we’ve learned over the many many decades of film making. While I am not a fan of marketing speak, some amount of “hype” also helps draw attention to our craft and it is our responsibility to sort the fact from fiction.
I’m going to start using 4D because it factors in the time domain and sounds fancy.