The release notes for the audio SDK indicate "The optional OVRAudio C/C++ SDK is available to qualified developers by contacting developer support directly."
Hey there! Thanks for your interest in our C/C++ SDK, however at this time we're not publicly releasing it (we intend to do so in the future). If you feel you have a strong business reason requiring this, please PM me here.
I was also wondering about his, but they have released a "plugin" for FMOD. FMOD provides a C++ API, and is actually an awesome audio engine. I will be using FMOD and the Oculus Audio SDK together. FMOD also offers a free "indie" license for projects with a budget of under 100K, so it's commercial usage for me works great!
But what open source people really need is a closed black box DLL that officially comes with the platform and is considered a system library. Preferably one that handles sound, graphics, and input together. Or better yet, a permissive open source API that supports both open source and closed plugins for different VR hardware vendors.
"BrianHook" wrote: Hey there! Thanks for your interest in our C/C++ SDK, however at this time we're not publicly releasing it (we intend to do so in the future). If you feel you have a strong business reason requiring this, please PM me here.
Strong business reason? this is ridiculous... yeah, my "strong business reason" is that I have my own sound code, and I'm not using fmod or whatever you happen to support at this point.
Why would I have to pay a license to a 3rd party, and be constrained by their API and platform decisions, just to use the audio features of your headset? Are you getting a cut off fmod sales? What is this?
Please consider how much of a disaster it would be if you followed a similar approach for the main functionality of the headset and never provided a C API for it, but only a plugin for unity.
Hi John, let me clarify a few points since I think you might be misunderstanding some of this.
First, the 'strong business reason' is referring to getting access right now. We fully intend to release the C/C++ SDK, however the current release is a Preview (< 1.0) version, and the OVRAudio component is the fastest moving, least stable (feature wise) part of the SDK. As a result, most users are far better off using one of the standardized plugins. Very few users write their own sound engines anymore, most rely on either Unity's built in sound capabilities or they use a third party system such as FMOD or Wwise. It's not a coincidence we support all three!
There are significant API breaking changes between 0.9 and 0.10, for example, and anyone who had gone down the path of using OVRAudio directly would have been impacted. As a result when we say 'strong business reason's we mean strong reasons for getting access right now vs. after the API has stabilized.
The second point I'd like to address is your "just to use the audio features of your headset" comment. OVRAudio is not required to access the audio of CV1, it is "just" a set of 3D audio functions that work on audio buffers and in fact can work quite well on regular PC apps without Oculus hardware.
It's worth noting that even if it were used to gain access to our audio hardware, given that we haven't shipped it's not exactly limiting the available features to developers. 😃
"BrianHook" wrote: Hi John, let me clarify a few points since I think you might be misunderstanding some of this.
First, the 'strong business reason' is referring to getting access right now. We fully intend to release the C/C++ SDK, however the current release is a Preview (< 1.0) version, and the OVRAudio component is the fastest moving, least stable (feature wise) part of the SDK. As a result, most users are far better off using one of the standardized plugins. Very few users write their own sound engines anymore, most rely on either Unity's built in sound capabilities or they use a third party system such as FMOD or Wwise. It's not a coincidence we support all three!
There are significant API breaking changes between 0.9 and 0.10, for example, and anyone who had gone down the path of using OVRAudio directly would have been impacted. As a result when we say 'strong business reason's we mean strong reasons for getting access right now vs. after the API has stabilized.
The second point I'd like to address is your "just to use the audio features of your headset" comment. OVRAudio is not required to access the audio of CV1, it is "just" a set of 3D audio functions that work on audio buffers and in fact can work quite well on regular PC apps without Oculus hardware.
It's worth noting that even if it were used to gain access to our audio hardware, given that we haven't shipped it's not exactly limiting the available features to developers. 😃
Thanks for the clarifications. Although I'm using FMOD, I look forward to having access to the SDK when it stabilizes.
