WIP: Directional audio sources (think spotlights)

Hi everybody,

I'm working on an editor extension that lets you attach "directivity" to AudioSources. One example might be a "spotlight" sound source, where the sound is at its loudest within a narrow cone in front of the source, and softer everywhere else (and maybe completely silent behind it).

As I work on this plugin, I was wondering if anyone on here had any thoughts about what kinds of sound source directivities might be useful. Also, what are some good scenarios in which they might be useful?

This will help me put together a useful set of features

Thanks!

 

As an example of what I mean by directional audio sources, check out the following video:

[video=youtube_share;uxj9BzZrBzQ]http://youtu.be/uxj9BzZrBzQ

The spinning red sphere is the sound source, and the green dot is the player's (listener's) position.

The video shows a couple of different kinds of spotlight sources, with different widths. Also, there are three "custom" directivities, where the intensity in different directions is controlled by a curve.

Hopefully these examples give a better idea of what directional sound sources are.

Do these kinds of directional sources seem like they might be useful in a game? If not, why not?

 

Looks like it'd be good for like a turbine spinning.

 

I'd love something like that.
Great for speakers like a prop radio or an intercom loud speaker of sorts.

Shouldn't be too hard to make I would think, however the way unity works with the Doppler effect might be tricky and something to look into depending on how your are coding this.

 

Thanks for the responses, folks! Some great ideas here.

I'm a little curious, though. What is tricky about Unity's approach to the Doppler effect? I haven't really looked into it in much detail, so any insight would be appreciated.

Thanks!