Sound Occlusion & Ambiance
Here is a quick list of keybinds and best practices for creating sound area entities, or modifying pre-existing ones. Scroll to the bottom for quick hotkeys.
Quick Tips
- Before starting clip make sure the grid size is reasonable so you’re not constantly zooming in/out.
- Turn off all unnecessary map layers (generally leave geo/lights/soundref on).
- Work in the soundref map.
- Change world camera to lit mode (F3).
- Save after each room completed.
- Name the areas so they’re easy to find later (generic names. hallway_01/02).
- When working in tight areas hide extra brushes, use H to make it easier to see. Shift+H reveals all hidden brushes.
Procedure
tip
It can be helpful to keep your speakers and sound area brushes inside a separate refmap just for sound. For more information on refmaps, see: Add A Reference Map.
- Open your map in World Editor.
- Begin drawing brushes to fill the areas where you would like to add ambient sound.
info
This procedure assumes knowledge of creating and editing brushes. For more information, see: Brush Geometry & Block Out
- Trim selected brushes by using Ctrl+Right-click to select two points on the grid then press Enter to cut.
info
Cuts are always made in a clockwise direction.
- Segment a brush by pressing Shift + Enter with two points on a brush selected. Doing this will create two separate brushes along the line you’ve created.
Selecting brush, cutting it, then segmenting it
- Use Ctrl+Middle-click to move the player camera, and Ctrl+Tab to change view orientation.
- Changing the grid size makes creating large rooms, as well as finer detail cuts much easier to manage.
- Use Shift+Left-click to group several brushes into a soundareaentity
Hotkeys
| Keystroke | Action |
|---|---|
| Shift+Left-click | select a brush or entity |
| Esc | deselect all brushes/entities |
| Ctrl+Right-click | set a point on the grid for a brush cut, you need to set two points to cut |
| Ctrl+Tab | changes world editor view orientation (top down, front, side) |
| Ctrl+Home | teleports you and sets your view to the brush/entity selected |
| F3 | change between lit/unlit mode (world cam) |
| H | hides selected brushes/entities |
| Shift+H | makes all hidden brushes/entities visible again (don't ctrl + Z!) |
| Ctrl+Z | undo |
| Ctrl+Middle-click | teleports world camera to position clicked on the map with the Middle-click |
info
For the Ctrl+Right-click keystroke:
- press Enter to accept brush cut (clockwise)
- press Shift+Enter to accept both brushes and cut
- press Ctrl+Enter to swap which brush cut is selected
warning
For the Ctrl+Z (undo) keystroke: There is no history, so be careful using this. There is no redo option.