Chapter 8.  Bringing Your Game to Life with Audio and Sound Effects

In the previous chapter, we thoroughly explored multiplayer game concepts. Our exploration included a review of multiplayer game design, and development considerations and challenges. We examined AWS with a specific focus on Amazon GameLift, the AWS that allows you to deploy, operate, and scale multiplayer games. Rather than theorize, we used a hands-on approach to become familiar with Amazon GameLift.

In this chapter, we will explore Lumberyard's Audio System. We will take a look at the complexity of Lumberyard audio and examine the components of the Lumberyard Audio System. We will revisit the Amazon Lumberyard download web page and obtain examples for our exploration of Lumberyard's audio features.

After reading this chapter, you will:

• Understand the Lumberyard Audio System architecture

• Install and use the Wave Works Interactive Sound Engine

• Download and import the BeachCity Asset Package

• Download the Legacy Game sample

• Understand...

Getting started with the Lumberyard Audio System

Lumberyard's method of handling in-game audio is a bit complex. Audio assets are not created in Lumberyard; they are created using the Wwise software. Wwise is an acronym for Wave Works Interactive Sound Engine by Audiokinetic. There are two versions of Wwise: a full, for-pay, version and a free, lite, Wwise LTX version.

Game audio works through collaboration and communication between Lumberyard, the Audio Transition Layer, and Wwise. When an in-game event requiring audio is triggered, Lumberyard notifies, using the Audio Transition Layer, the audio middleware to play the sound. The following diagram graphically illustrates a high-level view of the audio system pipeline:

Lumberyard's audio pipeline might seem unnecessarily complex, especially when compared to how other game engines implement their audio systems. This complexity results in great efficiencies and mitigates frustrations due to frequent changes. To explain, since the Audio Transition...

Using sample asset packages

When learning to use a new game engine, such as Lumberyard, it can be beneficial to use sample projects and asset packages for testing and familiarization. For audio testing, you can use almost any package, or even create your own level from scratch. Downloading and installing asset packages is more complicated than it seems.

The following section walks you through the process of downloading, installing, and configuring an asset package for use. This is an optional section that will result in the BeachCity Asset package being installed on your computer. The installation process is lengthy and the hard drive space requirements are large.

BeachCity Asset package

In order to see how audio is implemented in a game, let's review an existing game example. The following steps will guide you through the process of downloading and installing the BeachCity Asset package and configuring Lumberyard to use it:

1. In a browser, navigate to the AWS Lumberyard download page: https:...

Audio options

There are several ways we can add audio to our Lumberyard games: Audio triggers, ambient or background audio, and sound effects. We will take a look at these three methods next.

Audio triggers

Our next task is to add an Audio Trigger Spot to the level. Here are the steps:

1. In the RollupBar, select Objects | Audio | AudioTriggerSpot:

   

2. Next, click the Entity: AudioTriggerSpot bar from the RollupBar to your level. Clicking in the Viewport adds an Audio Trigger to the level. You can review the settings in the RollupBar and edit the script using the Edit Script button. If you do not see the Edit Script button, click the Entity:AudioTriggerSpot bar.

Ambient (background) audio

We can add ambient or background sounds to our Lumberyard games. To do this, we will identify an area in the game where the audio can be heard. There are fade levels associated with ambient sounds, so the closer the player gets to the identified area, the louder the sound level will be:

1. Our first step is to define a...

Audio Controls Editor

The Audio Controls Editor is accessible using the View | Open View Pane | Audio Controls Editor. This editfor is where you will map your game entities, such as actions and events, to the audio system:

The Audio Controls Editor has a three-column layout. The first column is presented in hierarchical form and is the Audio Translation Layer panel. The second and third columns are the Inspector and Middleware Controls panels, respectively.

You can navigate to specific items in the Audio Translation Layer panel by clicking the gray triangles to the left of the folder icons. When the triangle points to the right, it can be clicked to expand the section. This results in the triangle pointing downwards:

When an item is selected in the left-most column, the item's metadata is displayed in the Inspector pane:

The Inspector pane displays the item's name and scope. There is also an Auto Load checkbox that can be selected or de-selected. The individual sounds are listed in the...

Summary

In this chapter, we scratched the surface of audio concepts regarding Amazon Lumberyard games. We looked at Lumberyard's Audio System architecture. We also reviewed the Wave Works Interactive Sound Engine. Following that review, we installed the Wwise LTX software. To make our exploration of the audio system more in-depth, we downloaded and installed asset packages and the Legacy Game Sample from the Lumberyard website. We concluded our review of Lumberyard audio with a look at audio areas, audio triggers, and the Audio Controls Editor.

In the next chapter, we will look further into AWS as they apply to Lumberyard. Specifically, we will look at Cloud Canvas, Cloud Storage, Simple Queue Service, and Simple Notification Service.