3d Soundwalk
ABOUT 3D SOUNDWALK
This is a project I did as a part of my ‘3D Audio’ exam at Sonic College.
The purpose of the exam was to make an immersive experience using 3D and object based audio, using Wwise and Unity. All sounds are made and implemented by myself, using these tools.
SOME HIGHLIGHTS
- For the ambiences I made 360° ambisonics recordings of a forest, a field and a cabin, which the player is able to rotate around inside as they move through the game world. This gives a very three-dimensional, immersive and surround-like experience of the world, while not having to rely on object based audio.
- Each zone of the map has its own reverb zone, which is most noticeable in the cave and the empty cabin.
- There are different ambience zones throughout the map. Notice for example how the forest shields the player from the windy outside world.
- Footsteps are surface-dependent. There are different sounds for grass, gravel, stone, wood, water, and also the added litter layer (twigs etc) when inside the forest.
- For the footsteps in water i split the sound into multiple parts, and made a script so the initial splash is emitted by the camera object, but the following “sploshing” sound is emitted by a gameobject that is spawned at the current player location, each time a footstep sound is played. This was to give the sound a location in world space, and to avoid the tail of the water-sound following the player, when leaving the water.
- Part of the assignment was to give the cabin a spooky atmosphere. To achieve this i chose to completely shut off all sounds from the outside world, when entering the house. The idea was to create an impression that the house existed on an entirely different plane of existence – as if entering another dimension. Further more the ghost sounds are recorded with 360° ambisonics, and are headlocked instead of existing at specific points in world space. This way the sounds will stay at the same position relative to the character, even when moving around, giving the impression that they are following the player or might only exist inside the players head.