# Composing for Virtual Reality?



## Snarf (Sep 29, 2020)

Hey everyone!

Does anyone know any starting points, articles and such for composing music for VR games (or other VR situations)?
Stuff like, if/how the music differs from traditional game audio, how it's usually implemented (2D/3D?), unique possibilities and challenges, etc.
Thanks in advance!


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## Captain Oveur (Sep 29, 2020)

Depends on where you fit in the workflow. The client should be providing requirements on delivery format for implementation at the very least, unless you are being expected to work in Unity or Unreal yourself. GDC talks can provide inspiration on how music can shape the experience, such as https://gdcvault.com/play/1024077/Audio-Adventures-in-VR-Worlds


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## CT (Sep 29, 2020)

Yeah you'll want to ask what is expected of you. I've worked on a few VR things and always assumed it'd be a great opportunity to try out some interesting stuff, only to be asked to just approach it like anything else.


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## Snarf (Sep 30, 2020)

Thank you for your answers, guys! GDC looks like a good resource in general


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## pmcrockett (Sep 30, 2020)

Winifred Phillips has some blog posts about this: https://winifredphillips.wordpress.com/tag/vr/


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## Richard Wilkinson (Sep 30, 2020)

For the most part, it's not much different to other games. I worked on the Doctor Who VR game and I'm currently scoring the Peaky Blinders VR game and both of those are fairly standard videogame pipelines. We'll do some spatialization on Peaky but for infrequent and very particular sequences. 
For the most part you want your score to be in the player's head rather than placed in the scene, otherwise it gets too distracting and becomes part of the diegesis.


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## Richard Wilkinson (Sep 30, 2020)

I just remembered I did also work on the VR experience for a Chainsmokers single with Sony, and we did some fun stuff with head tracking - looking at environment objects triggered musical FX , turning back on yourself remixed the music in a reversy way etc.


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## Living Fossil (Sep 30, 2020)

In the projects i did so far for this format, i had an engineer who made the ambisonic mix. 
However, when producing the music i had the exact spatialisation in mind, so it was a lot easier.

Ambisonics is standard, however, there are different formats that come with different quality settings.
Personally, i think the most used ones (i.e. the simple ones) aren't yet there, sonically.
There's just too much phase issues going on. But i think there will be huge leaps soon; at least if there is a market – since the pop market starts exploring this area, i'm mildly optimistic.

@Richard Wilkinson : do you mix yourself in ambisonics?


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## Richard Wilkinson (Oct 1, 2020)

No - I'm not that familiar with ambisonic stuff. Since unity & unreal are 3d engines anyway, they translate well to VR with less fuss than I would have expected before these games. So spatialization is done in-engine and in Wwise, Fmod etc rather than using any binaural or ambisonic tricks. I'm sure that stuff will be useful for some SFX though. Our sound team are fantastic - I'll check in and see if they're exploring that!


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