Project: Sound place

Create a first person environment only using spatialized sounds and particle systems.
Picture it as the sound of a game level minus the visual parts.

  • The sounds can be musical or not, synthetized or sampled, voices or noises, original or found.
  • Use the stylized skybox and a simple single color plane to walk on
  • It can be dynamic, the objects in the scene, sound sources, ambient light and skybox can change dynamically based on colliders or player position. Sounds can move, appear and disappear, etc.
  • You can have transparent primitives with colliders to prevent the player from exiting the area
  • The particles are just meant to guide the player toward certain sound sources, they don’t have to describe the sounds, let the sound drive the experience.
  • You can use sound filters, either in engine or to alter imported sounds.
  • Use at least 10 sounds.

Resources

SoundPlace Template
with first person controller and a few useful scripts

Soundsnap audio database (you have a semester long access to it)

Freesounds.org  youtube for sounds, field recordings and weirder stuff

Alooper create seamless loops online

Finding and editing sound, tools and resources

How do I play sounds in unity?

 

What is a particle system? How do I make atmospheric effects? How do I make fire? Smoke? Explosions? Fountain? Dust? Wind? Sparks? Magic? Special effects?

 

 

Brainstorm

1- Sonification: Find a picture of an existing or imaginary place (ai generated, fictional…).
Imagine the sounds you would hear if you were there.
What are the “soundmarks”, the specific community’s distinctive sounds (landmarks for sounds)?
What are the “keynotes”, the prevalent but overlooked background sounds such as traffic?
Post the image annotated with all the sounds.

2- Sonic storytelling: Create the soundscape for a memory or a dream, made of individual sounds.
It doesn’t have to represent a realistic or coherent place.
What is the dream about? What is the emotional tone of the memory?
You can also start from somebody else’s dream.
Post a top down sound map and imagine the various paths the player will go through.

Jerusalem Sound Map

by ronilevit.

More examples of real world sound maps here

Soundwalk/geo located composition
Soundwalk/augmenting a location with fictional sound

3- Spatial composition: browse the audio databases below for interesting sound samples.
Come up with a “theme” or a series of keyword that allow you to look for related sounds.
The relation can be: more of the same (explosions), thematic (underwater), conceptual (religious and conflict sounds like above), or musical (same key/scale).
Post a top down sound map and imagine the various paths the player will take.

Autofading_Se disparaître by Caroline Gagné

Playthrough with some guy talking over it

See also audiogames or audio-first games: