Sound Layering (Sound Design)
I know, I know, I was supposed to be finishing the push and pull mechanics, but for some reason one thing led to the other and I got carried away. While thinking about the sounds the pulling should make I figured I should start experimenting with it. In the meantime I have been watching various videos about sound layering and sound design in videogames. For this reason I started working on the sound design again and specifically the players sound design i.e. steps, breathing, watersplashes and so on.
Here is a representation of what is going on when the player is running through the environment.
All the different sounds come from an array, so I have multiple variations of each sound. When stepping on concrete there are atleast 6 different sounds of a foot stepping on concrete, this is to prevent ear fatigue. Each of these sounds is picked randomly and both the volume and pitch varies += 20%. This makes it sound like each sound is unique and will prevent the sound design from sounding repetitive.
Now most sounds have some form of logic, they’re conditional in a sense. Stepping on concrete sounds different than landing on concrete. Landing should probably sound harder and might even have higher pitch, it might also be the case that the landing sounds come from a different array(let’s say library). Here is where the layering is coming in. While running through water I also play a watersplash sound and when coming out of the water I also play a squishy wetstep sound. This will create even more variations, since random sounds are placed over random sounds with variations in volume and pitch.
