Dolby Atmos for UE4

Dear Kunos,

Really hope you can implement the audio experience for VR (headphones) and Multichannel with the upcoming release of ACC.

Since this is a PC only version, it would be very easy and convenient for your customers to adopt the technology:

https://www.dolby.com/us/en/categories/games.html

Is the feature in reference part of the deal?

Thanks for you attention.

 

Does Dolby Atmos work with headphones? I thought it was just for home cinema stuff where it reflects the sound off the ceiling and whatnot.

Is positional audio maybe what you’re looking for?

 

It does, as long the software is designed for: https://www.dolby.com/us/en/categories/games/overwatch.html
and BTW: https://www.cnet.com/videos/dolby-atmos-comes-to-apple-tv-4k/

It's cheap for us, less than $14 on Win10, and it's not hardware dependent.
On top, it says to work almost out of the box for UE.

 

Oh OK, I see. Thanks.

It’s hard to tell what benefits Atmos has without a direct A/B comparison with the default built-in positional audio that UE provides using basic stereo.

TBH that Dolby Overwatch demo video sounded a bit off to me. When the sound source moved past the camera, the positioning felt a little jumpy to me, as if there were only a few discreet positions in 3D space that the audio could be appearing to originate from.

There was an interesting demo of enhanced 3D audio that took into consideration the acoustics of the virtual space, that was posted to this forum a few months back, I’ll see if I can find it.

 

I couldn't tell the difference listening samples with very good headphones, same for Windows native Spatial, slight change of balance and pitch but positionally not much better, may be because of my external USB DAC.
Same as Dolby Headphones gimmick before, it just muddies the sound and don't belong to high end audio setups, good clean original stereo without post processing will always sound better.

 

Hmmm, can’t find it unfortunately, perhaps someone else can. It was a first-person demo of the camera moving though a some basic buildings with various different sound sources. You could hear the sound reflecting off of walls and being distorted by the objects the environment. It was pretty good if memory serves.

I did stumble across this 3D binaural recording of real GT3 cars practicing at Monza that someone else posted, and it sounds f-ing epic.



Those Huracans and Mercs are spellbinding.

 

Sooooo, I just found this demo from Dolby that “compares” Atmos to plain stereo:



Jesus Christ, what disingenuous bull****. SMH.

 

And you are listening to all that via your regular Windows stereo driver, without any Dolby Atmos.

 

Well, on an iPad, but that’s not really the point. AIUI (though I could be way off base), the video portrayed that as a demo of Atmos, not a simulation. The implication being that the sound processing had been “pre-rendered” for that demo.

But that’s not really the point I was making, their “this is stereo” example of two static sound sources was a pretty dishonest representation of the sound stage you can achieve with regular common-or-garden stereo.

 

My point as well. Stereo in a good system is still a king with excellent positional cues.
Some interesting article on fading away multichannel format.
https://www.cnet.com/news/is-surround-sound-for-music-and-home-theater-on-its-way-out/

And we have only two ears, right, where the other channels go?

 

Ah, this isn’t the one I had in mind, but it’s very similar:

 

Ah OK, no worries. Indeed.

Yeah, I never thought surround made much sense for music, for the reasons mentioned in the article but also, how often do people sit down on the sofa in front of their multi-channel home cinema system to listen to some tunes? And how many people even have such a setup? I would guess in the grand scheme of things, vanishingly small numbers.

I’ve got a few ideas about where I’d like to stick ‘em, they mostly involve the marketing department of Dolby Laboratories, Inc.

 

It's all about how the sound has been recorded and intended to be reproduced by mixing the audio channels.

Confusing music and games doesn't help the conversation.

If they want to go the chesky way I am fine with it as long I don't hear cracking noise instead of the engine from my headphones via external DAC as I do now and then.

 

Bump up number of audio channels is audio.ini.
The default is 256, try 512 or even 1024.

 

I'm on 512, will try 1024. Thank you

 

This is however a recording in a binaural microphone setup, this setup helps capture sound as our own 2 ears would hear them by putting microphones inside some full head or ear moulds.



Capture this properly with good hardware and then play it back in some good headphones it will be amazing. However its not a simulation or computer generated audio file more like comparing a video capture to cgi or realtime rendering its 2 very different things.

Its highly unlikely for any game or even surround audio simulation to come close to this. It would need to do something like audio wave tracing as it interects with all other objects in the scene that creates that sound we hear.

 

Thanks for the background info, that’s what I thought it would be like, though I didn’t realise they had actual models of human ears attached.

So yeah, I was mostly posting it as a good benchmark for the sort of recordings that were possible to achieve in the real world. Well, that and that it’s just damn good ear porn. If a sim could get anywhere near that sort of thing I’d be very impressed.

 

Honestly, i’m greedy...
Would be great having Dolby Vision (or HDR10) along with Atmos.

Slot#9 is available for Atmos and #3 for DV
https://www.dolby.com/us/en/categories/games.html

 

It’s 2019. For audio stereo is the best. For gaming surround. I don’t understand that only one sim does it right (RaceRoom). Audio is half the experience, so dear Kunos please get this up to par.

 

you can have Dolby Atmos or many other virtualizations in any game (as long as it outputs normal surround sound) for free:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/hesuvi/
I am using the Sennheiser GSX, it gives the best surround experience for me on headphones (even better than Dolby Atmos)