Any way to make ambient sounds play dynamically?

Hi, I’ve migrated over from the Source engine not long ago and I’m still getting used to using UE4. My question is: Is there any way to replicate the soundscape scripts into UE4?

Incase you didn’t know, the source engine uses scripts to play sounds on loop (if specified) or randomly (not on loop), either spatial or not and it is used to create some really good dynamic, soundscapes with minimal effort whilst also ensuring no 2 soundscapes will be the same. These soundscapes are placed down via entities (or actors) in the level and the soundscape closest to the player will be the one which is played, therefore they are usually place in doorways, caves etc. The sounds from a soundscape will crossfade into another should a different soundscape be activated (making it sound more dynamic and realistic as opposed to just cutting the sound) and if a sound in the current soundscape is also in the next soundscape it will continue playing instead of fading.

This is a much easier method than placing seperate sound emitters with triggers to turn them on and off as desired, and I’d like to know if it would be possible to implement a similar system into UE4.

Any help is appreciated, thanks! :slight_smile:

In your explenation - i cant see a better way to do this… other than within code triggered events on overlaps or event dispatchers to play the audio (at location?)

Where are you having troubles or issues with the current engine method for Ambient Sound actors? Have you looked at the Ambient Sound Actor Guide in the docs? I’ve not had any sound problems using multiple sounds playing at runtime - both spawned at location as well ambient sound actors placed within the level for on-overlap events such as doorways, water noises etc…

Hope this helps!

No I haven’t had any problems with sound, I was just wondering if there was any way to replicate the soundscape system (maybe through coding it into the source files?)

Thanks for your help anyway though! :slight_smile:

it is a good suggestion, I use box triggers, fade in and fade out and attenuence to get a better result, but it should be great have something like that here^^

I´m giving a positive vote to your question!

Also upvoting this. It’s a very nice feature. If i understand the system correct, you can place down entities like (windy1) (windy2) (weary atmosphere1) etc. at different parts of your level? And then the system picks the one nearest to the player to play? If that sound then is not nearest anymore, and are different from the current, it will crossfade to the nearest one… is that correct? If so, i think it would be fairly easy to make such a system, in fact i may make one now in case you still need it.

On second thought… this is very close to what the AmbientSound actor does, so im actually just gonna use that i think…