bevy_audio

Audio playback. Wraps rodio with a Bevy-native API: load a sound as an asset, attach an AudioPlayer component, set volume/pitch/spatialization, despawn the entity to stop.

Purpose

bevy_audio provides:

• An AudioSource asset and per-format loaders (WAV, OGG/Vorbis, MP3, FLAC, AAC, and more, depending on cargo features).
• A Decodable trait for plugging in custom decoders.
• The AudioPlayer component plus settings (PlaybackSettings).
• 3D spatial audio with HRTF.

Directory layout

crates/bevy_audio/src/
├── lib.rs           # AudioPlugin
├── audio_source.rs  # AudioSource asset + loaders
├── audio.rs         # AudioPlayer component
├── audio_output.rs  # Output sink + system glue
├── pitch.rs         # Pitch resource
├── sinks.rs         # SpatialAudioSink, AudioSink
└── …

Key abstractions

Type	File	Description
AudioPlugin	crates/bevy_audio/src/lib.rs	Adds the audio output and asset loaders.
AudioSource	crates/bevy_audio/src/audio_source.rs	Asset; the decoded sample data.
AudioPlayer	crates/bevy_audio/src/audio.rs	Component; spawn an entity with this to play a sound.
PlaybackSettings	crates/bevy_audio/src/audio.rs	Volume, speed, looping, spatial.
AudioSink / SpatialAudioSink	crates/bevy_audio/src/sinks.rs	Component that lets you control playback after spawn.

How it works

AudioPlugin initializes a rodio output stream and stores the handle in a resource. A system watches for entities that have an AudioPlayer but no sink yet and creates one. Sinks update each frame from any setting changes. When an entity despawns or the sink reports empty, playback stops.

Spatial audio uses ear-pair attenuation and an optional HRTF when the relevant feature is on.

Integration points

• Depends on: rodio, bevy_app, bevy_ecs, bevy_asset, bevy_math, bevy_transform.
• Depended on by: bevy_internal (default plugins).

Entry points for modification

• New audio format: add an AssetLoader in audio_source.rs, gate by a cargo feature, add the dep:symphonia-... dependency in Cargo.toml.
• Custom decoder: implement Decodable for a type and register it as an asset.
• Spatial improvements: audio_output.rs and sinks.rs.

See also

• bevy_asset for the asset infrastructure.
• examples/audio/ for runnable demos.