In this tip, game audio instructor Eric Kuehnl walks us through creating a complex footstep event in both FMOD and Wwise, and implementing the sound into Unreal Engine 4. He uses sounds that were recorded here at Pyramind - keys jingling, cloth rubbing, and footsteps that were recorded using our foley pit. He combines these sounds to make the footstep more complex.
He creates an event in FMOD with a track for footsteps, cloth, and jingle. He easily creates a multi sound on each track by clicking and dragging the corresponding samples onto their respective tracks. He demonstrates a couple quick ways to achieve variety in your samples by slightly modulating the pitch of each footstep / cloth movement.
Next, Eric goes over how to achieve the same result using Wwise instead of FMOD. He starts by navigating to the Audio tab in the project explorer. He clicks on Default Work Unit under Actor-Mixer Hierarchy, and creates a new random container. He names the container “Footsteps”, and repeats the process to make containers for the cloth movement and key jingle samples.
Next, he clicks on each of the containers and imports the respective audio samples. After making sure the samples are playing correctly, he shows us how to apply pitch randomization to the footsteps, as well as the cloth. Eric then creates an event by selecting all three of the random containers, right clicking, and selecting New Event (Single Event for all Objects) - Play. He returns to the Events tab in the Project Explorer, and renames the event “Play_Footsteps”.
In the Event Editor, he auditions the sounds layered together. From here, he is able to make a couple minor adjustments - such as slight volume changes in the cloth and key jingle. He also demonstrates how to add specific delay times to each random containers - similar to what he showed us in FMOD.
He implements the sounds by navigating to the SoundBank layout, then clicking on his “Play_Footsteps” event and dragging it into the SoundBank. From there, he clicks on “Generate” and Wwise generates his SoundBank.
For more info on our Sound for Picture & Games Program:
https://bit.ly/2z9H3Dt
