Ambient Day/Night Cycle - Wwise & Unreal

In this Isometric/Top-Down horror project, players must plan their actions around the day/night cycle. During the day, the player can explore and scavenge for useful items without the immediate threat of enemies. Come nightfall however, players must use their supplies to survive against waves of enemies until morning.

With this gameplay feature in mind, I designed a dynamic ambience system that gradually evolves over time, responding to the each day/night counter.

I first created a timer in Unreal that can update a Wwise RTPC each second. This RTPC will drive the volume level of a 2D sweetener layer, as well as increase the frequency of each 3D floor creak sound.

Below, you can see how I’ve used a “Countdown Day Duration” variable to determine how long the day phase will last for. This variable is then clamped to a range of 0-100 so it can be used as a percentage. This made it far easier to refine this prototype, as I could change the duration of the day phase and the RTPC modulation would scale accordingly.

For a demo of this system in game, check out the above video.