Building the Future Connecting People Through Sound.
Ryan is a Sound & Haptics designer, specializing in Virtual Reality, Spatial Audio, and Haptics Implementations.
Sound & Haptics Designer | Spatial Audio Specialist | Los Angeles, CA
Ryan David Kull is a leading Sound & Haptics designer in Los Angeles, specializing in cutting-edge VR-related audio technology. Skilled with Spatial Audio and Haptics Systems, Ryan’s insights have helped create and improve tools for VR developers worldwide. As a designer, his creative contributions are most recently found in the award-winning Virtual Reality title Batman: Arkham Shadow.
Ryan David Kull’s Expertise
Explore the skills Ryan employs in crafting immersive VR experiences. Don’t hesitate to reach out via the contact page or Ryan@practicalhaptics.com
Check out Ryan’s work via the Portfolio link above, or by clicking here.
Ryan is Presenting at GDC 2025. Check out the Blog page for more info!
Advanced Sound Design
Ryan’s recent audio design & Implementation work is extensively featured in the GOTY-winning Batman: Arkham Shadow & Marvel’s Iron Man VR for Meta Quest.
Inovations in Spatial Audio
Ryan helped identify research technology and shepherded it into a Room Acoustics toolset for developers, with its first deployment in 2024 VR Title Batman: Arkham Shadow.
Games Production Experience
Ryan spent 5 years at games publisher THQ working on nearly 30 titles for numerous platforms in production and QA roles. He knows how to get games out the door and keep everyone happy.
Engineering-focused Art
Ryan specializes in collaborating with technical teams to ensure innovative technologies become user-focused creative tools. Beyond finding opportunities to bring these tools to players, Ryan then leverages these tools as a designer to ensure Players have new and engaging immersive experiences. Examples of this can be found in the sections below.
Haptics innovations for VR
Ryan has invented and collaboratively implemented novel ways of presenting haptics in VR that improve player experience in Batman: Arkham Shadow.
Meta Connect 2024: Spatial Audio & Haptics in Batman: Arkham Shadow.
Meta Connect 2024: Introduction
This is the introduction to Ryan’s presentation about Spatial Audio and Haptics at Meta Connect 2024.
This presentation details the two primary technical projects I’ve had since 2022. Ryan is happy to talk in greater detail about the efforts collaborating with the audio and haptics engineers & designers at Meta.
Meta Connect 2024: Acoustic-ray tracing
In this clip, Ryan discusses Acoustic Ray Tracing, a technology he helped bring from Reality Labs Audio Research into publicly-available tools for creating and managing Virtual Room Acoustics in VR.
Ryan worked with engineers Meta to ensure that common workflows were supported, advanced editing features were implemented, and that sonic quality and performance were tuned.
I will be giving a presentation at GDC 2024 that will go into Acoustic Ray Tracing in great detail.
Meta Connect 2024: Haptic innovations
In this section of the presentation, Ryan discusses the haptic innovations in Batman: Arkham Shadow, including Spatial Haptics, Stereo Haptics, and The Haptic Dictionary System. If you wish to see the entirety of the haptics section of Ryan’s talk, you can do so via this link. https://youtu.be/2W3kKuzUPUE?feature=shared&t=1173
Sound Design and Implementation.
Ryan designed and implemented thousands of sounds in Batman: Arkham Shadow across virtually every area of the game. This includes Combat, Interactions, Ambiences, VO Design, and HUD/UI. Check out Ryan’s work on his Portfolio page.
Spatial Audio Innovations
Acoustic-Ray Tracing Debuts in Batman: Arkham Shadow, ensuring realistic Virtual Room Acoustics in mobile VR. Learn more about Meta’s Acoustic Ray-Tracing here:
Please also check out the Meta Connect 2024 videos above to learn more about Acoustic Ray-Tracing in Batman: Arkham Shadow
Haptics Systems Enhancement
Haptics Systems Enhancement
Innovative systems were created to provide new, immersive Haptic experiences. Learn more via the videos above!
Immersive Technology
Ryan has been involved with VR & Haptics professionally for over 10 years.
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Decades of VR experience.
Ryan first tried VR in 1993, got his hands on a DK1 early on, and received a VIVE from Gabe Newell at Unity Vision Summit.
At Meta, Ryan has helped with various aspects of Quest Pro, Quest 3, and Quest 3s launches, including NUX and testing.
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Companies specializing in Haptic wearables.
Ryan has worked at two of the most well-known haptic wearable companies. His experience with DSP for haptics systems and creating bespoke demo content for vibrotactile devices gives him a unique perspective into haptic design.
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AR/VR Digital Audio Workstation Stealth Startup
This never-released software suite allowed users to create musical content using specialized spatial interfaces in VR/AR. The project was partially funded by the National Science Foundation.