All content in this course uses:

Implement sound effects

Add closed captions for these sound effects

Now that you’ve created a basic interactive VR experience, you can use audio to make it more engaging and immersive. In this tutorial, you’ll add static and contact sound effects to objects in your Prototype Room. You’ll also add closed captions to make your VR experience more inclusive.

Overview

In this tutorial, you’ll use the VR Beginner Unity Project and your VR hardware. Before you begin:

 Check that your hardware is ready. If you’re using Oculus Link with the Oculus Quest, enable and connect this now through the Oculus app.

Before you begin

You can add sound to VR experiences in Unity just like non-VR experiences. Unity can also spatialize the audio (make it sound like the audio source is coming from within a 3D environment). To use Unity’s audio spatializing features, you need to make sure that:

The Camera GameObject in your Scene has an 

, so that Unity can spatialize the sound properly through headphones, based on the position of your VR headset


Sounds that are part of your VR experience have their Audio Source Spatial Blend set to 3D, to be more immersive in experience


This is already configured by default in Prototype Scenes created using the custom menu in this Unity Project.

Implementing basic audio sound effects in VR

First, let’s add a spatialized looping sound to your Prototype Room — a low hum for the fusebox.

To add the sound to the Fusebox GameObject:

 Search for “Audio Source”, and add this component to the GameObject.

 from the Project window to the Audio Clip property at the top of the Audio Source component.

 slider to 3D (1 in the numerical field).

 Select the grey arrow to expand the 3D Sound Settings, if it is not already open.

, which means the further you are from the audio source the quieter it will be

, which defines the distance at which maximum volume is reached

, which defines the distance where the sound begins to play

You can now test the sound effect. When you are on the teleporter next to the fusebox you will hear the sound loudly. It will be much more faint if you create a teleporter further away. If you move your head, the audio will change as it would in real life.

Add a static sound effect to an object

Close captions are a feature which can improve the inclusivity of your VR experience. This learning project includes an example prototype Closed Caption System, as an indication of how you can implement this in a VR experience.

The prototype Closed Caption System is made of three scripts:

, which associates a given audio clip with one or multiple lines of text and display timings for each line


 which can be added to an object that has an Audio Source component (like the Fusebox) and enables closed captions for the object


, which checks for audio sources with closed captions enabled in the Scene and displays the text when the user is in front of the object 

Using closed captions in VR

Let’s add closed captions to the Fusebox sound effect:

In the Project window, go to the Assets folder. Right-click and select 

 Double-click the Asset icon to open the database editor.

 from the Project window into the TutorialCCDatabase window. This is the sound effect you added to the Fusebox.

Select the new button which appears with the sound effect name.

to create a new line of text in the database. Add “[ Humming ]” to the new 

 As the sound effect is more than three seconds long, let’s create another line of text for the closed captions to see what that looks like in the Unity Project. Select 

This means that when the sound has played for 1.5 seconds, the second line of text will be displayed. You can now close the database editor window.


 In the Inspector, use the selector button to the right of the 

 field to select your new TutorialCCDatabase as the database the Closed Captions System reads from.


Add closed captions for the sound effect

Now that you’ve added closed captions to the sound effect, you need to set the Fusebox GameObject as a source for closed captions in the Scene:

  In the Hierarchy, select the Fusebox GameObject.

 field the CC Source component in the Inspector.

This canvas defines how the closed captions will appear. If you have more experience with UI development for Unity, you can customize this for your VR experience.

  You can use the following fields in the CC Source component to make basic adjustments to the caption display:

. This displays an arrow in the center of the user’s view that points to objects with closed captions that are playing. This can indicate critical audio sources for the user, for example those that give gameplay information.


. This is the maximum distance at which the caption is displayed. The Fusebox captions will display when you are standing next to it, but will not appear when you’re next to the table.


 to increase the default caption size, or below 1 to decrease it.


You can now test the sound effect closed captions. When you stand next to the Fusebox, the caption text should appear, cycling as the sound effect loops. When you move back to the box table, you should not see the closed caption text. If you enabled 

, you should see an arrow indicating the direction of the sound effect.

Set the Fusebox as a closed caption source

VR Beginner includes a custom system called 

, which enables scripts to play SFX (special effects) sounds. Prototype Scenes created using the custom menu include this system by default. One feature of this Unity Project is a custom script to set sounds when an interactable object makes contact with another object. For example, this script will play a sound if the grabbable flashlight is dropped onto a table.

To add a contact sound effect to a grabbable object in your Scene:


  In the Hierarchy, select the interactable item GameObject.


component. This is a custom component created for this Unity Project.


 and select a sound effect file.  Try one of the four 

  Drag the file from the Project window onto the 

 property in the Contact Sound Player component.

If you do this with multiple sound effects, the script will select one use randomly when the object makes contact with another. Try adding all four variant 

  You can now test the sound effect in VR. Pick up the interactable object you selected and drop it onto one of the block tables. You should hear one of the sound effects you added to the Contact Sound Player component.

Add a contact sound effect to your object

Now that you’ve added a contact sound effect for your object, try adding a closed caption for the effect.

Add the sound effect to the database, and set its caption text and timing(s)

In the Contact Sound Player component, enable the 

Test to check that you have implemented the closed caption successfully


If you need more guidance to complete this challenge, review steps six and seven of this tutorial.

Challenge: Add closed captions for the contact sound effect

In this tutorial, you have implemented audio and closed captions to enhance your VR experience. Next, you will learn how to set up the Unity project for UI development.

Unity Version 2020.3