Sound Maps - A new, easier, faster and better way to setup your soundscapes !

Hi All !
Excited to write that our first asset is now available on the AssetStore !
Sound Maps is a polished version of a tool we have been using in production for many years now, always wanted to release it but, polishing, documentation etc, always made it slip…
Well, now it’s available and IMO it brings a big improvement to soundscape design both from the artist / coder point of view and from the user experience one. Ever struggled with having a sea shore sound natural ? A forest ? Had to to set up many audio sources, triggers, scripts and waste a lot of time for a “meh…” result. Well, Sound Maps brings a completely new approach. You paint “Sound Maps” (2d or 3d) of where you want one or multiple sounds to be heard with opacity handling the rolloff/volume. System even takes care of audio directionality, so in the sea shore (or river) example (which were the initial reasons we built the system) you can walk along a shore hearing the sound of water coming from the correct direction and the correct intensity (without having to set up a crazy number of Audio Sources with overlapping rolloffs or being forced to use triggers and 2d sounds).

System is based on what will probably soon become a standalone asset (always included with Sound Maps) which is a “mapping system” which allows to process multiple 2d maps (images) affecting specific areas of your scene, this maps can then be easily accessed via script to be used in many different situations. (another use we have are wind maps, where we use the “mapping system” to define wind intensity based on scenario location).

Maps cover a volume so multiple 2d maps (images) can be set inside a volume targeting different height allowing for full 3d experience (if your audio listener / player can wonder vertically too).

BTW, performance wise Sound Maps impact is negligible in most use scenarios, been using it on mobile builds since 2015.

Available on the AssetStore : https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/audio/sound-maps-109146

A demo video / trailer :

A fast web demo for who cares to try it (headphones suggested) (NOTE: not sure why but on web build have some weird crackling on the music path when moving from side to side, could be some import setting, but not happening on other builds) Unity WebGL Player | SoundArea

And a basic tutorial (yet rather in depth and surely boring) that should give an idea of how the tool works, the (current) workflow and its capabilities: (updated on 6/12/2023)

Great thanks in advance for any feedback / suggestion which will be more than welcomed.

EDIT : 6/12/2023 New update with custom Painter tool that allows to easily “paint” your soundscape directly within unity is now available.

2 Likes

Fyi the first link is broken, starts with “%20”.

1 Like

Great thanks for the heads up !

Just submitted the first update for review bringing changes to make loading at runtime “Sound Maps” as easy as possible (example streaming terrain, additive scene loading etc).

Propelled by our great users feedback we are finally close to the release of the new “sound painter” tool for the Sound Maps asset. Tool allows to paint sound maps directly in unity editor replacing the need for an external image editor in most use cases (possibility to import maps remains there so that for more advanced needs external image editors are still a option).

Painter tool centered update (including also other improvements and fixes) is finally available on the Asset Store !

Also prepared a new tutorial video based on the new painter workflow which I will place in the first post replacing the old one.

Happy to write that SoundMaps received a huge price cut (temporary ?) to $15
Check it out.