Course

Immersive Audio for Games II

Faculty
Language, Literature & Performing Arts
Department
Music
Course Code
MUSC 4272
Credits
3.00
Semester Length
15 Weeks
Max Class Size
26
Method(s) Of Instruction
Lecture
Lab
Course Designation
None
Industry Designation
None
Typically Offered
To be determined

Overview

Course Description
Building on MUSC 3272, this course will explore immersive audio in Virtual Reality (VR), including the Virtual Reality Musical Instrument (VRMI) tools that are facilitating modern computer music, and the audio components of the 3D game development tool, Unreal Engine.
Course Content

1. Careers in Gaming - Industry Overview 

  • Corporate responsibility in gaming
  • Anticipated future innovations
  • Storytelling through AV immersion in modern gaming

2. VR Technology Overview - How to use the VR Studio

  • SteamVR setup
  • VR calibration
  • Controllers
  • Practical application

3. Music for Games - The Art and Business

  • Music-based games in Immersive VR
  • Applications built for music production
  • Virtual Reality musical instruments (VRMI) introduction
  • Synth VR, Synthspace VRSoundstage VR, Lyra VR, MuX

4. VRMI Music Production Part 1

  • Synth VR 3D Synth Music Production
  • Synth VR setup
  • Sound design creation in a VR Space

5. VRMI Music Production Part 2

  • Lyra VR 3D Synth Music Production
  • Lyra VR setup
  • Sound design creation in a VR Space

6.  Perception of VR Sound in Headphones

  • Immersive non-diegetic audio rendering for VR
  • Sound field vs object-based representations
  • High Order Ambisonics (HOA)
  • Head tracking technology

7. Impact of Immersive Sound on Gaming

  • Binaural room scanning (BRS) 
  • Binaural room impulse response (BRIR)
  • Personalized room impulse response (PRIR)

8. Unreal Engine Part 1: Introduction to the Game Engine

  • Impact on the gaming and film industries
  • Case studies of immersive audio implementation
  • Sound classes, sound cues, rendering, metasounds, audio modulation

9. Unreal Engine Part 2: Spatialization Overview

  • Panning
  • Listener and speaker geometry
  • Computing pan values
  • Soundfield spatialization
  • Binaural spatialization
  • Interaural level difference, intramural time, spectral shadows, Head Related Transfer Function (HRTF)

10. Unreal Engine Part 3: Sound Attenuation

  • Attenuation functions
  • Inner shape, capsule radius, extents
  • Falloff distance
  • Enable air absorption
  • Focus azimuth
  • Attenuation reverb, enable occulsion

11.  Unreal Engine Part 4: Audio Analysis and Visualization

  • External audio control
  • Audio console commands
  • Audio gameplay volumes

12. Unreal Engine Part 5: Audio Debugging

  • Debugging
  • Audio memory management
  • Component-based architecture
  • Importing audio
  • Audio stream caching/blowing cache
  • Audio file requirements
  • Priming a sound for playback
  • Force wave to memory
  • Trimming memory

13. Unreal Engine Part 6: Music System Quartz

  • Quartz clock
  • Quantization boundary
  • Time signature and pulse overrides

14. Unreal Engine Part 7: Dialogue System

  • Building dialogue waves
  • Setting the context
  • Subtitling





Learning Activities

Lectures, demonstrations and hands-on studio experience

Means of Assessment

Assessment will be based on course objectives and will be carried out in accordance with the Douglas College Evaluation Policy. An example evaluation scheme is provided below:

Case Study - Immersive Audio Tech for Games Research Paper and Presentation

30%

VR Music Production

20%

Unreal Simple Sound Implementation

20%

Unreal Immersive Audio Original Sound Design Build

30%

 TOTAL

100%

 

 

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

  • Demonstrate thorough understanding and use of interactive audio-specific language;
  • Apply the unique production requirements of interactive audio;
  • Demonstrate competence with event-driven programming in the audio context;
  • Demonstrate a thorough understanding of Object-Oriented Programming and related concepts;
  • Implement interactive sound effect and ambience elements using Unreal Engine;
  • Select appropriate sound Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and their corresponding Graphical User Interface (GUI) tools;
  • Demonstrate a thorough knowledge of the complete game production cycle; 
  • Apply the full range of unique audio production skills required in a game development environment;
  • Competently operate a VR setup.
Textbook Materials

Textbooks and materials are to be purchased by students. A list of required textbooks and materials is provided for students at the beginning of each semester.

Example texts may include:

  1. The Game Audio Tutorial (Stevens, Richard & Raybould, Dave)
  2. Creating Music and Sound for Games (Childs, G.W.)

Requisites

Prerequisites

MUSC 3272

Corequisites

No corequisite courses.

Equivalencies

No equivalent courses.

Course Guidelines

Course Guidelines for previous years are viewable by selecting the version desired. If you took this course and do not see a listing for the starting semester / year of the course, consider the previous version as the applicable version.

(Current)

Course Transfers

These are for current course guidelines only. For a full list of archived courses please see https://www.bctransferguide.ca

Institution Transfer Details for MUSC 4272
Acsenda School of Management (ASM) ASM GEN 4XX (3)
Athabasca University (AU) AU MUSI 3XX (3)
Camosun College (CAMO) CAMO MUSC 2XX (3)
Capilano University (CAPU) No credit
Coast Mountain College (CMTN) No credit
Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU) No credit
Thompson Rivers University (TRU) TRU MUSC 4XXX (3)
Trinity Western University (TWU) TWU MUSI 357 (3)
University of British Columbia - Okanagan (UBCO) No credit
Vancouver Community College (VCC) VCC MUSC 4XXX (3)
Vancouver Island University (VIU) Individual Assessment

Course Offerings

Winter 2025