Spline Audio Blueprint: For Complex Spaces

Applying sounds to complex spaces and irregular shapes like rivers, roads, and pipes, can be time-consuming. Attaching audio to a spline instead can allow for better control of assets in unusual spaces.
In this tutorial, we create a customised spline audio Blueprint, look at different ways to use it, and add several features so it can serve you better as a generic tool.
References:
Redesigning Audio in Unreal Engine’s Shooter Game Sample Project, by Senior Technical Sound Designer Adam Block www.unrealengi...
Images:
Thumbnail: Image by ThuyHaBich from Pixabay
Music:
We Ride! by Reed Mathis, from the UA-cam Audio Library

Your voice its comfy, man.

[@CrownKing2499]

Very nice, thanks for this!

[@valkyriesound3888]

Thank you! :D

[@jmmyandreen5358]

nice tutorial. one question though. i making this around a beach for the ocean shore sound. but if i walk away until the sound stops it doesnt play again when going back to the shore. any ideas?

[@valkyriesound3888]

Hey jmmy - is the sound set to looping? If not, it might be ending before you return. If it *is* set to looping... you could try changing the Sound Cue Voice Management option for Virtualisation Mode (although it *should* call the sound again when you enter the attenuation area...).

[@vojtecheffenberger3672]

Thanks for tutorial, really gret. Did you managed to do audio over spline with spacialization? I have tried to do with my collegues but in our setup is really pain in the ass. So thats postponed for now. But i have noticed that in the new water system in ue4 is among another things audio intensity slider, so maybe that would do ue5 in future for us

[@valkyriesound3888]

Thanks! No, unfortunately I couldn't think of a way to get spatialisation to work with this setup. I didn't spent lots of time working on the problem though, it just seems impossible :/ Maybe it'll be easier to resolve in UE5!

[@valkyriesound3888]

​@Arnej Secerkadic Spatialisation isn't intended for this setup ;) Remixing the audio doesn't solve the issue, unfortunately. When the Player moves around the spline, the audio source jumps around them as it finds the closest location to the Player. With spatialisation on, those jumps are very noticeable (14:36).
If you stand beside a river, the sound isn't very spatialised (depending on the size of the river and how fast it's flowing, I guess). The further you move away, the more you become aware of the sound source's direction. I guess you could position a spatialised sound with larger attenuation in the secondary Audio Component slot. When the Player moves nearer the spline you could apply a fade that moves to 0 based on Player distance, overlapped with the attenuation of the non-spatialised audio. I guess you could also add extra functionality to get the Player's Z rotation and fade in the spatialised sound as the Player turns relative to the sound source while near it.
I haven't tried this, but I think I will :)

[@shahinpejhan7425]

thank you so much. I was wondering how can I learn more about Blueprints and use them as u do in UE4. I would appreciate ur help if u suggest me any course or videos.

[@valkyriesound3888]

Thanks :) Mathew Wadstein is my go-to if I'm not sure about a Blueprint node: ua-cam.com/channels/OVfF7PfLbRdVEm0hONTrNQ.html
The learning portals on the Epic website and inside the UE4 launcher app are really good as well: www.unrealengine.com/en-US/onlinelearning-courses
Mess around with the free stuff that comes with the engine - I started out making maps in Unreal Tournament (the original!) and playing around with stuff is the best way to learn imo ;) Maybe take one of the Engine's template projects and try to change something - that gives you a goal, even if it's a small one.
Good luck :D

[@AdamFBuchanan]

I cant get a 'time of day' variable in my character controller. :(
I also cant get a 'get attenuation' from the attenuation looping variable at 12:01 minutes.

[@valkyriesound3888]

Sorry for my late reply! The 'time of day' variable is a Float I added to the Character BP at 6:59.
The attenuation looping node is the variable we made at 2:58 :)

[@alecsheamusic]

Fantastic tutorial but best moment was the monorail guy.

[@valkyriesound3888]

Haha thank you :)

[@alecsheamusic]

@@valkyriesound3888 You're very welcome! :D
Looking forward to more tutorials! Particularly if you happen to have a chance to do one with quartz for music systems! Resources for it seem fairly limited atm (which of course makes sense, since its still new)

[@valkyriesound3888]

@@alecsheamusic thanks! You're right about Quartz, it's not the most intuitive thing to pick up. I think I'll do something on it shortly 😉

[@alecsheamusic]

@@valkyriesound3888 That'd be awesome! Will be looking forward to it! :D

[@alecsheamusic]

Oh btw, if you do decide to make a music system video, I'd be glad to provide some music (stemmed however you prefer) for you to use if you don't already have stuff to use!

[@Fettman89]

I have 3 selectable player characters, what can I do instead of cast to third person?

[@valkyriesound3888]

Oooh... in that case I'm guessing your player characters inherit from a shared parent? I've not worked on a setup like that but I believe the parent would be the cast target in this case.

[@SuperGari2]

how do you get Cast to ThirdPersonCharacter node?

[@valkyriesound3888]

So long as your project has a ThirdPersonCharacter BP you should be able to right-click in a BP and type 'cast to thirdperson' and it'll show up. You might need to tick the 'context sensitive' box in the top corner. Hope that helps!