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Valve announces Steam Audio, a physics-based audio library

J

jmga

Member
What is Steam Audio?

Steam Audio adds physics-based sound propagation on top of HRTF-based binaural audio, for increased immersion. Sounds interact with and bounce off of the actual scene geometry, so they feel like they are actually in the scene, and give players more information about the scene they are in.
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Official site: https://valvesoftware.github.io/steam-audio/

Steam community post with demos: http://steamcommunity.com/games/596420/announcements/detail/521693426582988261

EDIT: Shit, the comma.
 
Is Valve just turning into a middleware studio?

Naturally, I'm not trying to diminish their great contributions to the game industry but I kinda just realized they've been making some handy and free software solutions for game developers everywhere in the past few years.
 
Maxey said:
Is Valve just turning into a middleware studio?

Naturally, I'm not trying to diminish their great contributions to the game industry but I kinda just realized they've been making some handy and free software solutions for game developers everywhere.
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They were providing middleware to other developers since 2004.
 
Things like this make me regret my Platinum headset purchase even more. I was under the impression 3D audio would work for PC too.
 
Wow this is absolutely amazing! Unity is currently supported and Unreal Engine 4 support is coming soon!

Here's the real-time sound propagation video: Steam Audio Sound Propagation Demo

Real-Time Sound Propagation
In reality, sound is emitted from a source, after which it bounces around through the environment, interacting with and reflecting off of various objects before it reaches the listener. Developers have wanted to model this effect, and tend to manually (and painstakingly!) approximate sound propagation using hand-tuned filters and scripts. Steam Audio automatically models these sound propagation effects.

Steam Audio simulates sound propagation in real time, so the effects can change automatically as sources move around the scene. Sounds interact with the actual geometry of the scene, so they feel integrated with the scene.
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Here's the Partial Occlusion Demo: Steam Audio Partial Occlusion Demo

What is Steam Audio?
Steam Audio adds physics-based sound propagation on top of HRTF-based binaural audio, for increased immersion. Sounds interact with and bounce off of the actual scene geometry, so they feel like they are actually in the scene, and give players more information about the scene they are in.

What can Steam Audio do?

Binaural Rendering
The simplest thing that any spatial audio technology must do is HRTF-based binaural rendering. This refers to a way of recreating how a sound is affected by a listener's head, ears, and torso, resulting in subtle cues that allow you to pinpoint where a sound is coming from.

Steam Audio's implementation of HRTF-based binaural rendering has a very low CPU overhead; you can handle hundreds, even thousands of sources using a single CPU core. It also minimizes the frequency coloration of audio clips, while maintaining good localization.

Occlusion
Steam Audio simulates how objects occlude sound sources. In addition to the typical raycast occlusion that many game engines already support, Steam Audio supports partial occlusion: if you can see part of a sound source, Steam Audio will only partly occlude the sound. Steam Audio uses your existing scene geometry to occlude sounds, so you don't need to create special occlusion geometry just for sounds.
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The Wart said:
Interesting that they're putting this out under the Steam name rather than the Source name.
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It makes sense because you can use it in other engines. The fact that they've got a Unity plugin already is great news for me working on an audio focused game. I'm going to check it out.
 
Valve very late with the tech again, running after DICE with Battlefield and Blizzard with Overwatch. But they are finally working on it.

For those who don't play CS:GO: HRTF-3D-Audio is in super early stages and still buggy. For example, if you reload a gun while running around, the reloading sound stays in the position where it started. You can really trick people when using guns with long reloading times when you reposition while the sound is still played at your former location. Also phasing issues and other stuff.
 
Krosia said:
Valve very late with the tech again, running after DICE with Battlefield and Blizzard with Overwatch. But they are finally working on it.
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It's been several years since I worked in games, but I believe FMOD is the industry standard for game audio, even proprietary engines end up using it or other common audio middleware.

FMOD out of the box didn't really have too much support for a lot of additional physics, and you often had to rely on extensions (either snoop around for one or code it yourself in-house) to get particular effects. I'm guessing this library will have FMOD support and any studios that utilize it will then be able to take advantage of this if they want.
 
LelouchZero said:
Wow this is absolutely amazing! Unity is currently supported and Unreal Engine 4 support is coming soon!

Here's the real-time sound propagation video: Steam Audio Sound Propagation Demo

Here's the Partial Occlusion Demo: Steam Audio Partial Occlusion Demo
Click to expand...

Dat beat

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It works well: http://www.youtubedoubler.com/?video1=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dy2vqK6pDYa0&start1=&video2=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DdeBdzC5QVQw&start2=&authorName=aphrocarlin
 
Can they please fix the voice chat first? Always stuttering and often breaking if Steam goes offline and the chat can't deal with it afterwards.
 
jediyoshi said:
What exactly is the crossover in tech with these games you're pointing out?
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I'm curious as well, I haven't kept up with the audio side of game development for a long while. I'm pretty sure both Battlefield and Overwatch use FMOD, and so would likely be able to take advantage of this audio library as I can't see it not having integration support for something so commonly used.
 
IF handle properly this could be big. Questions:

-Binaural? SO i will get 3D sound with a simple pair of headphones. Correct?
-Will Source released games (Half Lifes, Portals, Left 4 Dead, ect) get 3D spund patches?

Abot time someone took 3D positional audio seriously.
 
Refreshment.01 said:
IF handle properly this could be big. Questions:

-Binaural? SO i will get 3D sound with a simple pair of headphones. Correct?
Click to expand...

Correct. If done properly, there should also be a gain with 2d speakers.

-Will Source released games (Half Lifes, Portals, Left 4 Dead, ect) get 3D spund patches?

Abot time someone took 3D positional audio seriously.
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That'd be nice! We haven't had 3d sound with Half-Life since the early 2000s.
 
jediyoshi said:
What exactly is the crossover in tech with these games you're pointing out?
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Said games audio technology is/was very far ahead and three months ago CS:GO didn't even have 3D audio with HRTF.

I'm glad that Valve is working on new/better audio technlogy, their own games will profit from this middleware as much as other studios using it. But again: Damn, their are late with this.
 
XiaNaphryz said:
It's been several years since I worked in games, but I believe FMOD is the industry standard for game audio, even proprietary engines end up using it or other common audio middleware.
Click to expand...
Wwise is the shit these days. You need to write your own occlusion system when you integrate it though.

Plenty of games do good audio occlusion / obstruction. IIRC there's an excellent GDC talk from the Splinter Cell team on this that explains how theirs works. Uncharted from 2 onwards does it too. Check the scene with the tank going through the village.

Sound just isn't as sexy as shaders tho' :(
 
TC McQueen said:
So, would this have any benefit for non-VR games, besides CSGO (apparently)?
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Any and all games would benefit from physics based and full 3D audio. Especially people who play with headphones on (but it would still benefit people with surround sound speakers and presumably ATMOS setups too).

MetalKnick said:
Things like this make me regret my Platinum headset purchase even more. I was under the impression 3D audio would work for PC too.
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Clarify please? 3d Audio is a funciton of the game engine's audio processing, not the headset. Saying otherwise is just marketing.

Krosia said:
Valve very late with the tech again, running after DICE with Battlefield and Blizzard with Overwatch. But they are finally working on it.
[/URL].
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I could be wrong, but I doubt any of thoe games do physics based 3D audio.

A-V-B said:
Still not at Aureal's level, but I'm glad someone with resources is trying to get there.
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Are you sure? This sounds exactly like Aureal's thing back in the day.
 
inpHilltr8r said:
Wwise is the shit these days. You need to write your own occlusion system when you integrate it though.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I clarified later on in that post that FMOD has very basic functionality in various areas, requiring extensions. But everyone still seems to use it!
 
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