This week, I continued the VR task by following the tutorial and began working on implementing audio into my room. I didn’t realise a relatively small feature would add so much realism and an immersive feel to my room.

I added ambient sounds such as crackling and burning from a fireplace and a functional TV that played both audio and picture. Smaller details, like falling sounds of items hitting the floor and a clicking effect for the TV remote, hugely added to the realism of my room. I also implemented interactive audio, designed to help the user. For example, interactable objects made specific noises when hovered over, picked up, or dropped.

The most interesting part of implementing all of this audio into my room was playing with 3D audio. This makes the volume and direction of a sound change depending on the player’s position in the room relative to the sound source. I was impressed by Unity’s software, as it was so straightforward to implement. This feature, which I have now learnt is very valuable to any future VR projects I make, really makes the player feel like they are present and moving around in the room.

Although learning about these new things has been interesting, I’ve struggled to connect with this project, and I’m not really enjoying it as much as previous ones. The tutorial has obviously been needed to guide me through the process, but because it’s so structured, there hasn’t been much room to make my own creative decisions and figure things out for myself, which are things that usually engage me in a project.