Hello all,
Relatively new to FMOD but I have a question in regards to creating a realistic gun echo. I am attempting to replicate the sound of a gunshot in a large outdoor space by adding in a large echo layer to my original gunshot sound. However, it has occurred to me that if the player fires multiple shots, this has to be reflected in the corresponding echo, which wouldn’t happen if I just have a single echo sample layered on top of the gunshot (i.e. Player fires 5 shots, corresponding echo sounds like 1 shot)
So
Is there a way to play multiple instances of the full echo sample on top of one other, each triggered by the separate gunshots? Or is this outdoor echo effect best achieved through DSP effects within FMOD?
Any guidance on this topic would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
There is no hard and fast rule to handling this kind of situation. A DSP would allow for more dynamics and flexibility, but at the cost of being more resource heavy. A pre-rendered echo will sound more realistic but can’t be manipulated as easily to fit different situations (eg. a canyon vs an open field).
In regards to your multiple echo scenario, you can have the echo sample as part of the gunshot event that is triggered by a parameter that detects if the player is outside or not. If this player is outside and fires five times, the echo instrument should also trigger five times. In your game code, each gunshot should be a new event instance for all of the sound to play out, rather than restarting and cutting off the previous shot’s echo.
Thanks for the info!
As a follow up, if I were to use the echo sample as part of the gunshot event, how would I incorporate full auto samples with it? As things are currently set up, I have to have separate, shorter samples that are cut to match the fire rate of each different gun. Is it as simple as having the engine trigger the echo for both long and short gunshot samples?
Sorry if that is unclear, I am still new to FMOD and am not entirely sure how to implement full auto weapons.
I’m not entirely certain of your set up. Is this one “gunshot” event that you’re applying to different guns depending on their firing rate? It might be cleaner to set up separate events for each gun so you can tweak it as needed.
Each gun indeed has a separate event, as there are different samples for each gun, along with the different fire rates. For each full auto weapon, I have the full sample, and a cut sample (ex. 0.3 seconds) to match the fire rate when it is full auto. My plan was to have the shorter sample play when the gun is firing in full auto, and the last shot of the event would be the full sample including the tail. But I don’t know if this is the best method.
Difficult to say, but at this stage it’s more a personal preference than a technical issue. I would suggest setting up an A/B event and testing to see which sounds best to you.