You most likely will be using Audacity as your main audio editing tool in this unit, but are welcome to look for and use other tools:

• Audacity (top right): Commonly used free program for audio editing.

• BFXR (middle right): Useful standalone program for creating simple game UI sounds.

• BeepBox (bottom right): One of many online tools for generating simple synth patterns.

While not recommended for this unit, some other tools are:

• FMOD: Integrates audio for games, useful for larger team-based projects.

• Protools: industry standard audio recorder and editor, available in the Audio labs, advanced for newbies.

• Ableton Live: industry standard audio editor, available in Audio Labs, but advanced for newbies.

A list of some other audio tools is here:

• https://instabug.com/blog/game-audio-tools/

You can find many online royalty free sound libraries, including:

• BenSound

• 99Sounds

• SoundCloud

• Open Game Art

• Itch.Io

• Sound Snap

• SoundBible

• FreeSound

• Incompetech

The best source of how to use sound in Unity is the Unity Documentation:

• • Unity Audio Documentation

As usual, Brackey provides a good introduction to the topic that covers the level of Unity audio integration adequate for this unity:

• Brackey Introduction to Unity in Audio (below).

The key things to look into are:

• Every Unity scene has an Audio Listener component attached to the Main Camera (each Scene can only have one Audio Listener). This functions like the player's ears in the game, listening for any audio generated within the scene.

• Game Objects may have Audio Source (top right) component attached to them, which has a variable slot for one or more Audio Clips as well as parameters for . These may be set to play when the Scene begins, or be triggered by script to play when required. (The basic commands are in the documentation linked above).

• Unity supports a variety of audio file types but .ogg is a good standard to follow:

  • MPEG layer 3 .mp3

  • Ogg Vorbis .ogg

  • Microsoft Wave .wav

  • Audio Interchange File Format .aiff /.aif

  • Ultimate Soundtracker module .mod

  • Impulse Tracker module .it

  • Scream Tracker module .s3m

  • FastTracker 2 module .xm

(A 'tracker' is basically like a midi file with a simple instrument sample, i.e. a low cost synth.)

• You can route your different AudioSources to an Audio Mixer (bottom right), allowing you to modify all your audio, or individual channels, in a manner similar to a traditional mixing desk.

If you are ambitious, you can look into FMOD or Wwise, tools which provide more robust control over the audio in your game.