Today I wanted to share 3 of my favourite sound-related Unreal Engine tips and tricks
I’ve been working on a bunch of sound stuff recently for both Marauders and in my own solo side projects and it made me realise how much I use a couple of specific sound tricks. These guys really help to speed things up and reduce workload!
DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN…
#01 - QUICK SET SOUND SETTINGS
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Why Useful: This can save you so much time and has to be my favourite. Normally you need to open up each .WAV you import and set each of its settings; Sound Group, Sound Class, Attenuation, Concurrency etc. This can get very tedious when working with a large number of files. However, if you click on an already existing .WAV then drag in the new .WAVs to import, it will ask you if you want to use the currently selected sound as a template for settings. Open up those newly imported files and you will see they mimic the settings from what you had selected.
#02 - Importing ENTIRE FOLDER STRUCTURES
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Why Useful: This tip works really well when combined with the 1st tip above and I don’t think a lot of people know about it. I find when working with sound, I often need to import a large number of files from different folders. For example for footsteps: type of step, type of material, impact, sweetener. I used to re-create the folder structure inside Unreal then import into each of those folders. However, you can simply drag and drop the top folder into the Unreal content browser and it will recreate the folder structure and import all the .WAVs inside those folders. Combine this with Tip #01 above means you can quickly import a large number of files and have their settings setup, saving you a bunch of time.
#03 - VIEWPORT PREVIEWING AUDIO
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Why Useful: This is incredibly useful when you are working on ambient sounds for your game, it allows you to hear the sounds in your level from your editor viewport. By default this setting is turned off, but its easy to turn on. Simply go to Settings then look for the Real Time Audio setting. Click the little speaker to toggle it on and off.
