Howdy everyone! i hope you're all getting into the spooky spirit and have some nice plans for Halloween this year~ Every time we add a new sound effect into the world of Leyda, we apply something called attenuation. What is attenuation? Well that kind of depends on the context, but in this case, it's what allows us fade out the volume of certain sounds depending on how close you are to them. As you can probably imagine, almost every sound in the game uses attenuation. There are very few times where we want a sound to play at the same volume, no matter where you are in the world. However, some exceptions include background music and certain ambient sounds, like subtle wind. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33742756/1848dd5dfb6bf640d43ef016a33445e826c8b412.gif[/img] After initially applying attenuation to a sound effect, there are tonnes of cool options we can customise, and which of these options we customise will vary depending on the the type of sound we're adding and the area we're placing the sound in. Changing the shape of the attenuation is incredibly useful and we do this often, as certain environments and types of sounds are better suited to certain shapes. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33742756/b590da8ea37a5400f718709b3bb318641d7cf28b.png[/img] A bird chirping in a tree, for example, is well suited to spherical attenuation, whereas box attenuation works nicely for adding ambient sounds to a room. Another interesting option we have at our disposal is the ability to spatialize audio. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33742756/b7611a43d51042a513b9c479046e076694752837.png[/img] Applying spatialization to a sound essentially means that you'll be able to hear it in 3D space. If the source of a sound is on your right and you're wearing headphones, you'll hear it in your right ear. Picture yourself strolling through a forest and suddenly an arrow whooshes past you. Even without seeing the arrow, spatialization would allow you to hear which side of your body the arrow flew past. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33742756/7d36fd6755b6c9352e51b751122472d2372d6788.gif[/img] Despite this being the more realistic approach to sound design, we don't use the effect too often in Vahrin's Call. Applying it to too many sounds can feel jarring when turning your character, as the sounds constantly dart between your ears. That being said, we do have the option to customise spatilization further. We can adjust the non-spatialized radius, which controls how close you have to be to a sound before it returns to being 2D. This means we can have a sound play predominantly in one ear at a distance and then slowly transition to playing in both ears as you near closer and closer to the sound. This is useful for voice acting in Vahrin's Call, particularly when enemy bandits spot you and call out before attacking. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33742756/adfb4dd11260b0096bf3794bf69f41d3f00d2290.gif[/img] Attenuation is something you're likely not to notice while on your adventure, and that's a good thing! It's one of those things that helps sounds to blend into the background and feel natural, and so most of the time we don't want it to demand your attention. I think we'll end it there for today! I hope you all enjoyed today's post, a mini-introduction to what attenuation is and how we're applying it to all manner of sounds throughout Vahrin. Have a spooktacular Halloween and we'll catch you again next Friday! [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33742756/daf3c366a61b15a564cd852788df0bc512876924.gif[/img]