Setting up a "Linear" Sound Source - Electricity Line/ Fire breath

FMOD Studio
1

Hey everyone!
I am currently working on a project, with two sounds, where I wasn’t really sure, how to set them up in FMOD. Both of them have in common, that they’re visually rather “linear” (instead of spheric) as a visual with changing range/ area. I was wondering if that is somehow solveable in FMOD Studio alone or if I/ we as a team need to code something (and what) in our used Game-Engine (Unity):

  1. There is an enemy type having electric blasters, which visually (as long as the blaster is fired) there is a lightning between the blaster and the point where it hits anything (roughly ressembling the electric fences in Borderlands). Attaching the FMOD-Event just to the blaster and playing it on the firing animation doesn’t seem sufficient to me, as I would like the player to auditorially have the feedback if the actually lightning (as potential source of damage) is to their left or right (instead of just tracking the sound to the enemy firing it). Where should the Event then be played (without having to play events all along the electricity-line)?

  2. An other large dragon-like enemy can breath fire, which the player has to dodge behind certain objects where the fire would be blocked - but still passes left and right of that blocking object. So again thinking from the audio result perspective, I would love to translate to the player that the “harmful” fire is still to the left and right, but the fire is as well blocked from that object in the front (= occluded).
    (We’re using the Meta plugin for FMOD, so the occlusion part of it is somewhat clear.)
    So similar question to 1): how would I spawn my events on that fire animation without having to place to many of those events in that animation?

I am really looking forward to your answers and opinions!
As well feel free to share any additional thoughts on that topic!

All the best,
Joshnt

2

For the electric blasters, what are the important elements that the player needs to hear? If the blaster sound (so the source of the attack) is important, it may be a good idea to keep it the way you have it, and add a sound at another important location. For example, would you like a sound to play from the actual line of lightning, or where the lightning makes contact with something (so the end of the line)?

With the fire attack, it seems like you want the first option I mentioned above – the sound to come from the point closest to the player, on the “line” of fire. It depends on how the fire and its direction is generated, but perhaps you could add a spline that goes from the fire’s source (the dragon) to where it ends. Then an audio component can be spawned on the spline, which will find the closest point to the player while still being constrained to the spline.

This method of having a single sound emitter at a flexible, moving point along a long “object” has worked well for me in lots of situations, like making a river or a long pipe make a sound.

1 Like
3

Thank you so much! Those are exactly the spots for the sounds I was looking for, but I hoped to somehow being able to solve as much as possible in FMOD ^^
I will try that out together with the devs in my team!