Greetings masters of game audio,
I’m working on a car racing game, with traffic coming the opposite direction.
What are thoughts on setting up the sound of passing cars, and their doppler effect, as they fly past the player camera?
Thanks heaps!
This very much depends on what your game needs, and what you want to do.
The simplest option would be to create an event that plays a looping engine sound, and rely on FMOD’s built-in Doppler effect to affect the Doppler of each instance of that event that your game needs.
However, as with every aspect of game design, if time and budget permits (and you believe your game would benefit from it), you could potentially do something much more complex. You could even make each oncoming car its own complex event that changes in behavior depending on the car’s model, speed, acceleration, and state of damage, as well as whether the driver is aware of the player car and whether they’re desperately trying to swerve out of the way while honking their horn and swearing vociferously.
(Of course, in either case, you may occasionally want to supplement the specific car events with some background traffic ambiance designed to imply additional vehicles driving nearby but outside of the player’s immediate vicinity.)
So… What exactly does your game need?
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Thanks heaps for the info, I really appreciate it.
Currently I have the sound looping on approaching objects with doppler effect on in FMOD.
I’m curious to see how it sounds once implemented in the coming days.
If it doesnt meet standards I will definately do something more complex.
I think everything you listed, the game needs and will be tackling all of them eventually.
Thanks heaps for the advice!
In addition to the 3D Spatializer and the Doppler effect, you could also try filtering (low passing) the passing traffic sounds by distance, for a stronger effect. Use a gentle low pass slope so it’s not resonant sweeps but just the high end lowering at a distance.
Yeah, great idea. Thanks!