XR audio
Unity XR SDK

Audio spatializers in XR

Audio spatializers use physical characteristics of a sceneA Scene contains the environments and menus of your game. Think of each unique Scene file as a unique level. In each Scene, you place your environments, obstacles, and decorations, essentially designing and building your game in pieces. More info
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, such as the distance and angle between an AudioListener and an AudioSource, to modify the properties of sound transmitted to the user. Spatialization can improve the perception that a sound originates from a specific location in a scene.

The Unity audio system supports spatialization through plug-insA set of code created outside of Unity that creates functionality in Unity. There are two kinds of plug-ins you can use in Unity: Managed plug-ins (managed .NET assemblies created with tools like Visual Studio) and Native plug-ins (platform-specific native code libraries). More info
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built with the Unity Audio Spatializer SDK. Unity doesn’t provide any built-in spatializer plug-ins itself, but several plug-in implementations are available in third-party 3D audio SDKs. These audio SDKs typically provide additional Unity components and tools for 3D audio. Refer to the following sections to understand the available third-party audio SDKs and how to enable them in Unity.

Audio spatializer reference

The following is a non-comprehensive list of third-party audio SDKs that provide Unity audio spatialization plug-ins:

Maker Name Platforms Documentation
Microsoft Microsoft Spatializer Windows, Android Spatial sound in Unity (Microsoft learn)
Meta Meta XR Audio SDK Windows, Android Meta XR Audio SDK Unity Plugin (Meta developer documentation)
Qualcomm Qualcomm 3D Audio Plugin for Unity Windows, Android 3D Audio Plugin for Unity (Qualcomm documentation)
Steam Steam Audio Windows, macOS, Linux, Android Steam Audio Unity Integration (Valve GitHub)
Vive 3DSP Audio SDK Windows, Android VIVE 3DSP Audio SDK Developer Guide (Vive)
Google (now open source) Resonance Audio Android, iOS, Web Developer Guide for Resonance Audio for Unity (Resonance audio GitHub)
Apple PHASE iOS, macOS PHASE (Apple developer documentation)

Some XR provider plug-in include spatializer plug-ins for an associated XRAn umbrella term encompassing Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) applications. Devices supporting these forms of interactive applications can be referred to as XR devices. More info
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device. For example, the Windows Mixed RealityMixed Reality (MR) combines its own virtual environment with the user’s real-world environment and allows them to interact with each other.
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feature group for OpenXR includes the MS HRTF Spatializer plug-in. Note that these provider plug-ins don’t include any additional components that might be available in the full SDK packages from their maker.

Note: Although many spatializer plug-ins were developed for use with VRVirtual Reality More info
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devices, their use isn’t limited to VR games or applications.

Enable an audio spatializer plug-in

After you have added the package containing an audio spatializerA plug-in that changes the way audio is transmitted from an audio source into the surrounding space. It takes the source and regulates the gains of the left and right ear contributions based on the distance and angle between the AudioListener and the AudioSource. More info
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plug-in to your project, you can enable the plug-in in the project audio settings.

To enable a plug-in:

  1. Open the Project Settings window (menu: Edit > Project Settings).
  2. Select the Audio category.
  3. Choose the plug-in from the Spatializer Plugin dropdown menu.

Additional resources


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  • XR audio
    Unity XR SDK