Sounds
UnrealED2 Tutorials by EZkeel

E-mail:Ezkeel@nikodemus.co.uk
Accompanied files : Sounds.UNR

Contents

1) Ambient Sounds
2) One Shot Sounds
3) Random Sounds
4) Importing Sounds

Introduction
This is quite a basic tutorial, as I don’t know an awful lot about sounds. I know
enough to add atmosphere to maps and use my own noises, but that’s it.

Ambient Sounds
Another essential addition to your level are the ambient sounds which your player will encounter. A good visual effect will seem even more impressive if you have the appropriate sounds to go along with it. However, fast paced gametypes won't benefit from this much as players don't generally stop to listen to birds tweeting while a redeamer is about to turn them into jam!

To add ambient sounds to your map, just do the following:

1) Create a lit room with a playerstart and set the gametype to singleplayer so you can run around in an empty room to bask in your audio glory. Then choose "Keypoint" from the "ActorClassBrowser".

2) Under the "Keypoint" option you will find some more options. Choose "AmbientSound" and add this item to your room. You should see an object appear that looks like a box with a key on top.

3) Click on this item and press F4 to bring up its properties box.

4) Click on the sound option and as in the diagram on the left and you will see a few fields that you may want to change.

5) You will need to tell it which sound you want, so open up your sound browser from the icon tool bar at the top (looks like a small wav file icon) You’ll see a list of different folders appear, but they may not have the type of sound you’re looking for.

6) Click on "File" and "open" and then choose one of the sound files from the browser. For this exercise choose "AmbOutside.UAX". You will notice that you have a choice of "looping" or "one shot" sounds. You can choose either selection, but its best to choose "looping" for ambient sounds (its set to this by default anyway).
(If you choose a "one shot" sound, it will loop anyway).

7) From your list of sounds, choose "wind31" and in the "AmbientSound" field of your property box that should still be showing click on it and then click on "use". The chosen sound file should now appear in this field.

8) You can also change the number in the "SoundPitch" field. Experiment and you will see that it makes the sound seem deeper or squeakier depending on how high or low the number is. The maximum number you can use is 255.

9) The "SoundRadius" will enable the sound to be heard from further away the higher you have the number. The widest radius is 255. If this still isn’t loud enough, try duplicating it (CTRL-W), so that you have two of the same ambient sounds in that area.

10) Similarly, the sound will be louder, the larger the number you use in "SoundVolume". Again 255 is the largest number.

11) I don’t know what "Transient Sound" does. :-o

One Shot Sounds

There may be occasions when you want to trigger off a quick sound You're more likely to use this for deathmatch games), like an owl hooting, an earthquake sound or an explosion. For this you will need to use a "SpecialEvent" trigger.

See the tutorial on TRIGGERS to find out more.

Random Sounds

For a good atmosphere in maps, its useful to have one shot sounds that pop up from time to time. To do this you need to use an actor called "DynamicAmbientSound" which you will also find in the Keypoints section. If you want the sounds to play straight away set the "bInitiallyOn" field to true.

MaxReCheckTime is the maximum amount of seconds you want to pass before another sound must be played. This ensures that you don't get occasions where you haven't heard anything for ages.

MinReCheckTime is also in seconds and forces your sounds not to play too often. Once a sound has played it must wait for at least this length of time before another is played.

PlayProbability refers to how often it plays a sound. The number must be between 0.1 and 1. The higher the number, the more often you will hear a sound.

Finally, put whichever sounds you want in any of the 16 sound fields but don't use looping sounds because they won't shut up once they've started!

Importing Sounds

In case the sounds that are in UT don’t give you the effect you’re looking for, if you just want something different, you can actually introduce your own sounds to UT.

Just do the following:

1) First create the sound that you want with whatever package suits you. The sound must be in the correct format or UnrealED will import it, but crash if you try and use it! I found it worked as Mono, and 22050Hz.

2) Open the sound browser, and then click on "File" and "open". Choose a small UAX file from the browser such as "Extro.UAX".

3) Now Save this UAX file as a different name, e.g. "Noise.UAX". Once it has saved, it’s a good idea just to load it in again so that "Noise" is actually showing in the browser.

4) Now click on the import button, and another browser will appear. Select your sound file and click OK. A small box will appear with Name Group and Package on it. "Name" will be whatever you want to call your sound, the "Group" will be looping or one shot, or another unique set that you want to create. "Package" is the name of your UAX file. In this case, it should say "Noise".

5) If all that looks right click on OK. You should now see your sound file appear in your right-hand toolbar. To make sure it works, double click on it and you should be able to hear it. If not then you’ve got a problem, try again!

6) If its working, you now need to remove all the sounds included in this file that you don’t need (i.e. all the sounds that were included in the original Extro.UAX file). Remember that there may be more than one group (looping and one shot). You need to remove all the sounds from all of these, so that all that remains is your own sounds. If you leave them in, it won’t hurt, but it makes your file unnecessarily large (UAX files are big enough as it is!).

7) That’s it, you should be able to introduce your new sounds in your level using the methods above.

Be Noisy.

EZkeel
(Simon West-Bulford)