Wwise CUBE 2019 – CHAPTER 09 B: Vocal – Player Character Dialogue

Created By: Game Audio Resource Ltd     Date: 10/08/2019     Version: 2.00

In this guide we will focus on vocal Dialogue for the Player Character.
We will follow on with hierarchy duplication as mentioned in Chapter 09 A

• TIP: In a professional studio dialogue content would have its own unique hierarchy and hardcoded event variables. However, in the guide we keep the content consistently together with the player character vocal exertions

Guide Steps:

• STEP 01: Attack Weapons
• STEP 02: Test & Integrity Report

Task Time Needed: 1 Hour

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Video Guide

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Written Guide

Chapter 09 B – Step 01
Vocal Dialogue Attack Weapons

When the player character fires any weapon (not punch) we shall implement hierarchy to trigger dialogue assets

Hierarchy

1. Navigate to the Actor-Mixer hierarchy Vocal WWU > Vocal_Player Actor Mixer.
   Duplicate the Vocal_Player_Pain Switch Container
   With the batch rename tool rename the parent and child Containers to e.g. Vocal_Player_Attack_Weapon
2. Drag in associated audio assets to the AboveWater Random Container.
   Place them under the path: SFX > VOCAL > PLAYER > DIALOGUE.
3. Select the Vocal_Player_Attack_Weapon Switch container, then in the Property Editor > Advanced Settings tab:
   Tick Ignore Parent
   Tick the Limit Sound instances to:
   Change the value to 1 Globally
   Change: When limit is reached: to Kill voice
   Change: When priority is equal: to Discard newest instance

• TIP: These limiting settings, allow the asset playing not to suddenly stop, then play another dialogue melee attack asset, until the current playing asset has stopped.

4. In the Master-Mixer Hierarchy,
   Right click the VO audio bus, select New Child > Audio Bus.
   Name it: Dialogue_Player.
5. In the Actor-Mixer Hierarchy assign any switch container that has player character dialogue (worded/speech) assets to the new output bus Dialogue_Player. You will need to tick Override Parent to allow you to assign a new Audio bus.

Event

1. In the Project Explorer > Events tab > Unused Folder, locate the following 4 events
   > Fire_Chaingun_Player
   > Fire_Rocket_Player
   > Fire_Shotgun_Player
   > Fire_Rifle_Player

2. In each of the events, add a new Play Action.
3. Then in the Actor-Mixer Hierarchy > Audio tab, drag the Vocal_Player_Attack_Weapons Switch Container onto each new Play Action line for each of the 4 sound events.
4. To stop a huge amount of vocal spamming in each event, select the vocal Play action line, then change the probability to 20.
   For the Fire_Chaingun_Player Event set the Probability value to 5, as the rate of fire occurs more quickly than other weapons.
5. Save Your Wwise project updates, then generate the sound banks.

Chapter 09 B – Step 02
Test & Integrity Report

In this step we will test our updates

1. Boot up the game, connect Wwise to the game.
2. In Wwise, Solo the Vocal_Player_Attack_Weapon Switch Container.
3. Change to the Wwise Profiler Layout
4. Collect lots of ammo for each weapon type, then make the player character fire each weapon. The vocal assets should trigger around 1/5 times.
5. If you wish to increase of decrease the likeliness of the vocal asset being triggered, return to the related events. Then adjust the probability value.
6. Add any balancing changes you wish to add, then close the game.
7. Save your Wwise project updates and generate the sound banks.
8. Finally run an integrity report to verify your data updates are correct.

Hopefully you can now use chapter 09 A & 09 B to implement different vocals types for the Player Character where ever you feel they are needed. E.g. when the player character picks up the Quad item using event ItemPup.
You could even add an extra state for weapon fire dialogue to trigger more often when in the Quad mode.
In the next guide of this chapter we will overview how to trigger idle vocal dialogue or vocal exertions for any entity in the game.