Sound Entities (deprecated)

For CRYENGINE with Wwise/ATL implementation, see Audio Entities. For more technical information on the Wwise implementation in CRYENGINE, see ATL and Wwise.

Overview

Sound entities are game objects which are specialized for the use of audio and their scripts can be found in: <GameFolder>\Scripts\entities\sound\

By selecting a sound entity and dragging into the level you can place the object where you need them. It is particularly helpful to set up sound entities in a separate Sound Layer, so that Sound Designers can work separately. For more information on setting up layers, please see Creating and Using Layers.

There are entities to be used for playing sounds in the world, creating ambiances and reverb, or adding dialog and SFX-effects. You can then add these sound entities also to your Flow Graph and control them as you like.

AmbientVolume

This entity creates a sound with volumetric behavior, therefore it has to be attached to an area, which can be a box, sphere, or shape. Select a looping sound event. The sound will automatically start to play and fade in when the player approaches, stay with the player inside of the area, and fade out when the player leaves the area. Ambiance sound events can easily be sensitive to battle noise and the day/night cycle by adding appropriate parameter and behavior to the event. Battle noise and sky brightness is passed to the sound system. Sound events, like those being used in the AmbientVolume, with the parameter "battle" and "daylight" offer more complex behavior.

You can not attach the same entity to several areas. This will introduce unwanted ping-ponging artifacts.
The sound event should not have an additional "distance" parameter. The volume fade is done through the OuterRadius value.

Property	Description
Enabled	When set the functionality is active, otherwise it will be ignored.
IgnoreCulling	When set, the sound will not be affected by visarea attenuation.
IgnoreObstruction	When set, sound will pass through geometric objects.
LogBattleValue	When set, the script will output debug information about the current battle noise level to the console.
Name	Sets the sound to be used when the entity is triggered.
OuterRadius	Defines the radius the sounds starts to play and fades to full volume when entering the area in meters.
SensitiveToBattle	When set, the battle noise around the player is passed to the sound event. If this event has a "battle" parameter.

Dialog

This entity is a specialized version of the SoundEventSpot and is used to play dialog lines, as these demand special treatment for localization.

Property	Description
AllowRadioOverDistance	When set, the sound will sound like a radio transmission when heard from a distance. See the Localization list for details.
Enabled	When set the functionality is active, otherwise it will be ignored.
IgnoreCulling	When set, the sound will not be prevented from playing because of distance or VisAreas.
IgnoreObstruction	When set, sound will pass through geometric objects
Line	When clicked, the Dialog Browser will open and a line of dialog can be selected.
Once	When set, the sound will only play once.
Play	When set, the entity will play on level startup

MusicEndTheme

This entity dictates how the current musical theme will end. Triggered in flowgraph.

Property	Description
EndEverything	When true, both the current layers and any extra patterns will be stopped. The method of stopping is listed below. If false, only the current layer (for example the main layer) will be stopped, any individually called patterns will be untouched. Useful when stopping a theme and playing a one-shot pattern.
EndLimitInSec	The value looks ahead for the end of the main layer. If the main layer will finish within the number of seconds listed here, the theme will be allowed to finish and the EndLayer will play, thus stopping the theme. If the main layer does not end in that time window the music will be stopped at once.
FadeOut	Fades the theme unless EndLimit is within range. The fadeout time is specified in mood layer properties.
IndoorOnly	(Legacy - currently not supported)
OutdoorOnly	(Legacy - currently not supported)

The following properties are mutually exclusive. Only one should be true at a time. If more than one is true, the first true setting will be used.

Property	Description
PlayEnd	Fades the theme unless EndLimit is within range, at which point it plays the end layer.
PlayEndAtFadePoint	At next fade point, music will jump from current layer to end layer.
StopAtOnce	At next fade point, music will jump from current layer to end layer.

MusicLogicTrigger

This entity can be attached to an area and will turn on MusicLogic and turn it off again on leaving. It can also be used in flowgraph to enable or disable music logic, but it is preferable to use the Flowgraph node called MusicLogicControl.

Property	Description
Enable	When set the functionality is active, otherwise it will be ignored.
IndoorOnly	(Legacy - currently not supported)
OutdoorOnly	(Legacy - currently not supported)

MusicMoodSelector

This entity allows you to choose a new mood within a theme. It can be attached to an area shape or triggered via Flowgraph.

Property	Description
Crossfade	When true, the new mood will begin playing from the same fade point as the current mood. For example, a theme would ideally have 2 or more moods of the same length with identical fade points to ensure a transparent crossfade. When false, the mood starts from the beginning.
Mood	Enter the name of the mood here.

MusicPlayPattern

Music can be played by triggering specific patterns to play. These can be played on top of currently playing themes or other patterns, or played as stand alone pieces.

Property	Description
Pattern	Enter the unique name of the pattern.
PlaySynched	Will wait to play until a fade point in current mood is reached. Can be used for timing incidentals to the beat in a current piece.
StopPrevious	Stop all other previous music with a fade out when this pattern is started.

MusicStinger

This entity allows you to play a musical stinger when it is triggered. The stinger must be present in the Stinger Layer of the current mood and is chosen randomly.

Property	Description
IndoorOnly	(Legacy - currently not supported)
OutdoorOnly	(Legacy - currently not supported)

MusicThemeSelector

This entity allows you to select which musical theme to play. It can be attached to an area shape or triggered via Flowgraph.

Property	Description
Default Mood	Usually left blank because its specified in the Music Database Theme properties. It good practice to specify a default mood for everytheme in the music database.
DelayInSec	The theme is triggered but the playback is delayed for n seconds.
EndOnExit	Used when a MusicThemeSelector is attached to an area shape. This theme is selected when the player enters the area. If EndOnExit is set to true, the theme will fade out when player leaves the area.
ForceChange	Patterns from the new selected theme will be played immediately.
IndoorOnly	(Legacy - currently not supported)
KeepMood	When changing from a current theme to this new theme, the new theme will begin in the same mood playing in the previous theme.
Mood	Can be blank, but if a mod is specified, the theme will start in the mood.
OutdoorOnly	(Legacy - currently not supported)
Theme	Enter the name of the theme from the music database here.

RandomSoundVolume

This entity creates a sound with volumetric behavior, therefore it has to be attached to an area, which can be a box, sphere, or shape. Select a oneshot sound event, which plays randomized samples. The sound will automatically start when the player entered the area, continue to re-trigger with the player inside, and stop again when the player leaves the area. Like AmbientVolume sounds, the RandomSoundVolume events can easily be sensitive to battle noise and the day/night cycle by adding appropriate parameter and behavior to the event. Battle noise and sky brightness is passed to the soundsystem. Sound events, like those being used in the RandomSoundVolume, with the parameter "battle" and "daylight" offer more complex behavior.

Create a sound event in FMod which has multiple variations.
Assign that sound event to a RandomSoundVolume.
If you would like the entity to play in random locations within an area, link it to an area shape.

You can not attach the same entity to several areas. This will introduce unwanted ping-ponging artefacts.
The sound event may have an additional "distance" parameter. The volume then fades accordingly when the sound spawns.

Property	Description
DiscRadius	Defines the size of circle around the player at which distance the sound gets spawned.
Enabled	When set the functionality is active, otherwise it will be ignored.
IgnoreCulling	When set, the sound will not be affected by visarea attenuation.
IgnoreObstruction	When set, sound will pass through geometric objects.
LogBattleValue	When set, the script will output debug information about the current battle noise level to the console.
MaxWaitTime	Defines the maximal time to wait before re-triggering the sound.
MinWaitTime	Defines the minimal time to wait before re-triggering the sound. Must be smaller than MaxWaitTime.
Name	Sets the sound to be used when the entity is triggered
RandomPosition	When true, the RandomSoundVolume should be attached to an area shape. It will them fire randomly within that area whenever the player is also in the area. When false, the entity should not be linked to an area. In this case, it will fire at random intervals, but always from the same location.
SensitiveToBattle	When set, the battle noise around the player is passed to the sound event. If this event has a "battle" parameter

ReverbVolume

This entity creates a reverb with volumetric behavior, therefore it has to be attached to an area, which can be a box, sphere, or shape. Select a reverb preset from the library. The reverb will automatically be activated and fade in when the player approaches, stay with the player inside of the area, and fade out when the player leaves the area.

Property	Description
Enabled	When set the functionality is active, otherwise it will be ignored.
Environment	Any sound which plays back in an area which has this ReverbVolume attached, will have it's "environment" parameter set to the value specified. The "environment" parameter is optional on sound events.
FullEffectWhenInside	When set, this reverb preset will get full effect and not mix with potentially other reverb effects.
OuterRadius	Defines the radius the reverb starts to become active and fades to full effect when entering the area in meters.
ReverbPreset	Sets the reverb preset to be used when the entity is triggered.

SoundEventSpot

A SoundEventSpot entity can be used to to play a sound event at a set point in the level. This event can be triggered via flowgraph script or TrackView.

Important: Do not use this entity to playback dialog lines. Use the Dialog sound entity instead.

Property	Description
Enabled	When set the functionality is active, otherwise it will be ignored.
IgnoreCulling	When set, the sound will not be prevented from playing because of distance or VisAreas.
IgnoreObstruction	By default, physical objects will block or dampen a sound when the object is between the sound and the listener (player). When this flag is set to true, sound will travel freely through objects such as walls and rock.
Name	Use this field to browse for the sound event you would like to play. Click on the folder icon to the right of the name field to open the browser. The folder tree which appears represents the `\projects\groups\soundevents` available for selection. Click on the project, then event group, then finally select the soundevent you wish to attach to the soundeventspot.
Once	By default a sound can be played multiple times. If this is set to true, this sound can only be played once per game cycle, ie. The sound is reset only when player dies and respawns or you exit and re-enter game mode.
Play	By default this is false. If set to true, this sound will be playing when player enters the level. You may choose to set a looping sound to true in the level. You can also toggle this flag on and off through flowgraph. More on this point in the section titled "Scripted Events and Flowgraph".

SoundMoodVolume

This entity creates a SoundMood with volumetric behavior, therefore it has to be attached to an area, which can be a box, sphere, or shape. Select a SoundMood name from the library. The SoundMood will automatically be activated and fade in when the player approaches, stay with the player inside of the area, and fade out when the player leaves the area.

Property	Description
Enabled	When set the functionality is active, otherwise it will be ignored.
OuterRadius	Sets the outer radius of the sound projected from the object
SoundMoodName	Specifies the name of the used SoundMood

SoundSpot

This entity allows direct Wave-file playback for fast prototyping.

Note: Do not use this to play back sound events. Crytek suggests not using it at all for production. Use the SoundEventSpot instead to playback sound events.

Property	Description
Enabled	When set the functionality is active, otherwise it will be ignored.
InnerRadius	Radius where the volume of the sound reaches full volume.
Loop	When set, the sound will loop until stopped.
Once	When set, the sound spot will only play once.
OuterRadius	Radius where the volume of the sound reaches zero volume.
Play	When set, the entity will play on level startup.
Source	Reference to a sound file to be used when the entity is triggered.
Volume	Specifies the volume of the sound from 0 to 1.