Production of six-degrees-of-freedom (6DoF) navigable audio using 30 Ambisonic microphones

This paper describes a method for planning, recording, and post-production of six-degrees-of-freedom audio recorded with multiple 3rd order Ambisonic microphone arrays. The description is based on the example of recordings conducted in August 2020 with the Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra using 30 units of Zylia ZM-1S. A convenient way to prepare and organize such a big project is proposed - this involves details of stage planning, collecting needed equipment, management, and running the recording. Additionally, the placement of 2D and 360 cameras as well as the design of moving camera paths are described. Two use cases of the collected Ambisonic audio are proposed. The first one is a production of a virtual reality application using Unreal Engine 4 and Wwise. The second one uses a combination of the virtual scene from the previously mentioned application and a footage from a mobile, moving camera to create a so-called "walkthrough movie". The proposed approach for six-degrees-of-freedom Ambisonic interpolation was evaluated on listening tests. Those tests demonstrate that it is possible to recreate a navigable 3D audio taking into account Ambisonic only input and given assumptions for microphone placement.