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Lesson 4
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There are some instances where the 3D approach to positioning a sound is unnecessary. This is especially true for music or narration in the game, as these elements aren’t represented by actual game objects. For example, it’s unlikely there’s a rock band represented in the 3D world of Cube, even though you might choose to add that kind of driving soundtrack to the game. However, you can still control which speakers the sound comes from using a more conventional approach to panning the sound to the speaker(s) that you want the sound to come from. For example, you may want narration to come from behind the listener by positioning it in the left and right surround speakers, or you may want the music to only come from the left and right front speakers. Positioning sounds using this conventional approach, where location of an emitter in a 3D world is ignored, is referred to as Speaker Panning.
Speaker Panning can be used for sounds that do accompany visual objects within the game, but this is usually reserved for when these objects are viewed in the same position relative to the player’s perspective. For example, in Cube each time the player throws a magic gem, there's the animation of the Wwizard's staff wooshing offscreen to the right where a newly charged gem magically reappears. You’ll use Speaker Panning to give the woosh and magic sounds a subtle sense of their own space in the world, even though they aren’t represented as separate game objects within Cube.
Because you're going to apply the same positioning to two different sounds, you’ll first group them into an Actor-Mixer. Actor-Mixer objects serve as folders to organize your project, but with the added benefit of being able to serve as a way to quickly apply property settings to all objects that are contained within. In the case of the sounds associated with the gem recharge, where you may want to equally adjust things like volume and panning, placing them into an Actor-Mixer will save you from having to make the same adjustments twice.
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In the Project Explorer, select the Gem_Recharge_Magic and Gem_Recharge_Woosh objects, right-click and choose New Parent > Actor-Mixer.
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Name the Actor-Mixer Staff Recharge.
By default, the source channels of speaker-panned sounds are linked together and are played through the front left and right speakers, regardless of the position or orientation of the listener or game object. To give you added flexibility, Wwise also provides you with a Balance-Fade option that you can use to balance the volume of each channel so the sound can be heard through the front and rear speakers in the surround sound playback environment.
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With Staff Recharge selected, set the Speaker Panning property to Balance-Fade and then click Edit.
The Speaker Panner is displayed, showing an overhead view of a person sitting in the middle of a room with speakers in typical 5.1 surround sound positions.
With the control point directly over the player’s head, the sound is divided between the speakers of a surround system.
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Drag the control point slightly forward and to the right.
Now each time a gem is recharged, the staff's woosh and magic recharge sound will be just in front and to the right from the player’s perspective.
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Close the Speaker Panner.