A study on an efficient spatialisation technique for near-field sound in video games

This article presents a simple and efficient method for spatialising sound in virtual environments by adding low pass filters (LPF) to the already widespread panning and attenuation techniques. Through two different experiments, variations in subject performance when locating sounds in a virtual environment between regular 3D audio from popular game engines (Unreal Engine and Unity) and our proposed sound system were evaluated. The first experiment consists of an audio-only test via an online survey, whereas the second experiment employs a minimalistic 3D video game which allows for user interaction guided by sound. Results of both experiments suggest better performance and accuracy when using LPFs, the second one finding a significant difference when comparing both techniques. We conclude that the LPF technique, as a mean for spatialisation of sounds coming from behind the subject, could be applied to complement current audio systems due to their performance-oriented nature and their good results with real users.