Approaching the 3D Audio Ideal | The Necessary Adoption of Object-Based Rendering

This session was given by speakers Damian Kastbauer and Simon Ashby at GameSoundCon 2020. For the longest time, the best vehicle to carry spatial information was to mix the audio content using more than one channel. To achieve better spatial precision, the industry has proposed new formats almost every decade that increased the channel count from stereo, to 5.1, to more recently. While standard channel configurations continue to maintain their value in preservation of a certain level of fidelity, especially for linear content, the precision necessary for interactive audio is better served by higher order Ambisonics and the use of audio objects. The latest improvements in 3D spatial audio is embodied by personalized HRTF when properly informed by Ambisonics and object-based audio delivered to headphones. This new method also provides better spatial precision over standard speaker configurations. This talk outlines: - The ideal intersection of mixing considerations between channels and objects - The f