Navigational Weather System

This project is my honours project, the culmination of my honours project literature research and time at Edinburgh Napier.

Project Description:

This project aims to alleviate the growing trend of over reliance on UI as the method for conveying information in games. 

Inspirited greatly by the implementation of navigation in Ghost of Tsushima by Sucker Punch Production, 2020. Ghost of Tsushima game uses sound and animation in order to guide users to locations within the world. This is what I wish to build upon but remove the reliance on UI to guide the player. As while Ghost of Tsushima is not overly cluttered the majority of new open world game releases wish to convey so much information to the player the screen becomes cluttered. 

Technical Description:

The project is a Unity asset store project that has been integrated with Wwise. The weather system was created and then sound designed using the Wwise Soundseed air, woosh and grain plugins. This project allowed  me to learn new skills in the form of the Wwise plugins and also provide me a space to demonstrate my abilities as an implementor.

The level was duplicated to use a sample based audio system for the weather and a procedural version. This was to allow testing of the features with participants.

Technical Skills Used:

Wwise

Unity

C#

Unity Asset Base Level: (I have added several additional asset store packs to enhance the level)

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/environments/flooded-grounds-48529

Wwise Session:

The Audio buses used and games syncs used to user location awareness to game features.

Images of the Wwise hierarchy and events utilised within the session.

Wwise Soundseed Air & Woosh used to create the procedural wind navigation system. 

The project also featured a footstep switch system, each containing multiple samples. 

The rain system was created using the Wwise Soundseed grain plugin.

Unity:

The Unity session functioned by locating the furthest and closest orb to the objective (invisible during gameplay) and using it as an audio emitter and flying it past the player  to the position of the closest orb. Creating a positional wing gust that leads the player to the objective then resetting its position relative to the player once done. This would trigger whenever they player stopped moving for a set amount of seconds.

Sound Attribution:

Table 1 Grass Steps

Title	Creator	Copyright	Link
Grass_Footsteps.wav	Adielees9	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/Adielees9/sounds/331167/
Hiking Boot Footsteps on Grass	Fission9	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/Fission9/sounds/521587/

 

Table 2 Gravel Steps

Title	Creator	Copyright	Link
Going on a forest road gravel and grass.wav	Straget	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/straget/sounds/411206/
A Walk with stop.wav	Straget	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/straget/sounds/414921/

 

Table 3 Snow Steps

Title	Creator	Copyright	Link
Footsteps_MountainBoots_Frozen_Grass_Mono.wav	Nox_Sound	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/Nox_Sound/sounds/546604/
Foot steps in snow.mp3	Mrrap4food	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/mrrap4food/sounds/618977/
Steps on snow	Aurelon	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/Aurelon/sounds/422631/

 

Table 4 Concrete Steps

Title	Creator	Copyright	Link
Concrete footsteps 2.wav	Patchytherat	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/patchytherat/sounds/535051/
Footsteps on concrete	Florianreichelt	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/florianreichelt/sounds/459964/

 

Table 5 Forest Floor Steps

Title	Creator	Copyright	Link
Walking through wet forest	NachtmahrTV	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/NachtmahrTV/sounds/553227/
MudSteps.wav	Edsward	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/edsward/sounds/367810/

 

Table 6 Wooden Floor Steps

Title	Creator	Copyright	Link
STEPS_ON_WOOD.mp3	Jvitorml	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/jvitorml/sounds/393737/
Footsteps while running on wood	Florianreichelt	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/florianreichelt/sounds/459965/

 

Table 7 Staircase Steps

Title	Creator	Copyright	Link
Creaking Wood 4 Steps	Rudmer_Retteveel	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/Rudmer_Rotteveel/sounds/502507/
Wood Creak Single V9	Rudmer_Retteveel	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/Rudmer_Rotteveel/sounds/506664/

 

Table 8 Bridge Steps

Title	Creator	Copyright	Link
Multiple Footsteps over Wooden Bridge	OBXJohn	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/OBXJohn/sounds/253093/

 

Table 9 Water Steps

Title	Creator	Copyright	Link
Stepout.wav	Tran5ient	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/tran5ient/sounds/190104/
Water movement body step out of pool splash drips.flac	Kyles	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/kyles/sounds/637948/

 

Table 10 Carpet Steps

Title	Creator	Copyright	Link
Walk carpet.wav	Taure	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/taure/sounds/575321/

 

Table 11 Dirt Steps

Title	Creator	Copyright	Link
Footsteps_6_Dirt_Shoe.wav	Monte32	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/monte32/sounds/353799/

 

Table 12 Rain Steps

Title	Creator	Copyright	Link
Rain.wav	Idomusics	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/idomusics/sounds/518863/
Soft Rain in Forest Raindrops fall on leaves	Borgory	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/Borgory/sounds/678435/

 

Table 13 Rain on Buildings

Title	Creator	Copyright	Link
Silencyo_CC_Rain on window_Reverberant room_Medium perspective.aif	Silencyo	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/silencyo/sounds/81819/
Rain recorded inside with open window.WAV	BonnyOrbit	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/BonnyOrbit/sounds/392304/
Teufelsberg_tropfen2.wav	Nikitralala	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/nikitralala/sounds/204473/

 

Table 14 Greenhouse Sounds

Title	Creator	Copyright	Link
A piece of metal squeaking in the wind	Felix.blume	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/felix.blume/sounds/209639/
Pushing a metal fence	Launemax	CCo	https://freesound.org/people/launemax/sounds/274768/

 

Tree CreakingTable 15 Tree Creaks

Title	Creator	Copyright	Link
Tree_creak_04.wav	Department64	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/Department64/sounds/95262/

 

Table 16 Floorboard Creaks

Title	Creator	Copyright	Link
Creak OWI.wav	Nayahnaidoo	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/nayahnaidoo/sounds/656038/
Creaking Wood 8.wav	Greg_Surr	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/Greg_Surr/sounds/590158/
Squeaky desk chair.wav	Kiyoshiakira	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/Kiyoshiakira/sounds/436777/

 

Table 17 Tree/Wooden Impacts

Title	Creator	Copyright	Link
Impact: Wood 2 – Small Box	Sheyvan	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/Sheyvan/sounds/475194/
Branch Impact.wav	Shatterstars	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/shatterstars/sounds/651319/
Wood – Wood on wood 4 stereo	Idezem	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/ldezem/sounds/386227/

 

Table 18 Church Bell

Title	Creator	Copyright	Link
Church bell.wav	Audeption	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/Audeption/sounds/425172/
Old Church Bell.wav	Dsp9000	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/dsp9000/sounds/76405/

 

Table 19 Clock

Title	Creator	Copyright	Link
Old Clock Strikes 12.	Tom_Kaszuba	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/Tom_Kaszuba/sounds/658589/

 

Table 20 Wind Sounds

Title	Creator	Copyright	Link
Gust of wind.wav	Tony B kksm	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/Tony%20B%20kksm/sounds/80937/
Wind.ogg	Egomassive	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/egomassive/sounds/536776/
A gust of Wind	NIKOKnecht	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/NIKOKnecht/sounds/569109/
Personal Recordings for SD1 module due to time constraint	Me	N/a	N/a

 

Table 21 Waves

Title	Creator	Copyright	Link
Personal Recordings for SD1 module due to time restraints	Me	N/a	N/a

 

Table 22 Bush Impacts

Title	Creator	Copyright	Link
Rustling leaves	Kinoton	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/Kinoton/sounds/347557/

 

Table 23 Metal Impacts

Title	Creator	Copyright	Link
Foley_Impact_Metal_Long_Mono.wav	Nox_Sound	CC0	https://freesound.org/people/Nox_Sound/sounds/569555/