The closest I can think of are
- gradual increase in volume and
- playing with panning to start from left or right and gradually moves towards you
center(i think you might need to physically place the output speaker so the left or right its playing from is farthest away from you)
Feel instinctually like reverb might have some application here but i know almost nothing about it
You’ll need a low pass filter. High frequencies drop off as the source of the sound moves away, while lower frequencies will come through over longer distances. Simply put an envelope on the frequency.
Reverb or delays can be used to make something sound as if it is further away, but in order to make it move, you’ll probably need to change the pre-delay setting rather than the reverb itself. Again, use an envelope.
impulse response files can also be used to create any kind of space. These are static though, so to imitate movement you’ll need an IR plugin that can hold several IRs and fade between them, or look into convolution reverb plugins for this purpose.
Also, closer sounds tend to have more prominent transients, so you can use a transient shaper and automate the attack (if you’re working with something that’s not a sustained tone, that is).