360-degree short film SONAR was originally released way back in 2015, and was available for Oculus Rift, and later a new version headed to the Samsung Gear VR platform. Now the film has received something of a makeover and is set to come to Google Daydream.

The creator of the six-minute sci-fi horror experience, Philipp Maas has teamed up with a German start-up called DELTA Soundworks, a company that specialised in virtual reality (VR) audio to bring a new dimension to SONAR with the addition of Spatial Audio. Using Ambisonics, a new version of SONAR was created that used 3D sound to create an even more immersive, intense experience for viewers.

“I’m very happy to finally bring SONAR to Daydream”, says Maas, “Even though the movie has been around for a while, it still has great potential and I want to bring it to as many different platforms as possible.”

On the new Spatial Audio mix, Maas says: “It really helps you to dive into the experience even more. When we first created SONAR almost three and a half years ago at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, we had to drop a few things like stereoscopic 3D and spatial audio all together because it was technically too difficult to pull off at the time. Over the years I kept working on it, mainly to learn new workflows and see how far I can push it. But part of the reason why it still holds up today is our take on VR storytelling and the techniques we came up with for the original DK1 version.”

SONAR is available on Google Daydream from the Google Play Store, priced at £2.19 (GBP).

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