There’s a KB on this that just hasn’t trickled down to UE Hub, yet. I can copy and paste, hold on a moment:
Audio Gameplay Volumes allow you to impact audio sources based on the spatial relationship between the closest listener and the volume, as well as toggle audio effects when a listener enters or exits a volume. This can allow for things like tying custom attenuation and lowpass filter effects to outside audio sources when a player enters a given area on the map. Unlike the older Audio Volume system, Audio Gameplay Volumes work through separate modular components, allowing you to only utilize the functionality needed for a given specific Audio Gameplay Volume, and can easily be extended or customized without modifying engine code. As such, it offers more flexibility and extensibility than the older Audio Volume system.
In 5.0, Audio Gameplay Volumes are still experimental, and aren’t yet at feature parity with our older Audio Volume system. Because of this, depending on your use case, using our older Audio Volume system might be a better fit. In particular, the Audio Gameplay Volume system does not yet support specifying a third-party spatialization plugin to handle reverb nor does it support utilizing Reverb Effect Assets, as is possible with Audio Volumes. You can find out more about Audio Volumes here.
Step A:
Add an Audio Gameplay Volume object to the level, as well as any sounds you want the Audio Gameplay Volume to be able to impact. Double-check that the Sound Class of all sounds you want the Audio Gameplay Volume to influence have “Apply Ambient Volumes” checked - otherwise, the Audio Gameplay Volume will not be able to alter the sound source.
Step B:
Add one of the compatible modular components to customize the effects of your Audio Gameplay Volume - these can be found under the Audio Gameplay Volume subsection of the Components dropdown menu. At the time of writing, the available options are Attenuation, Filter, and SubmixSend. This lets you customize which parameters you want this particular Audio Gameplay Volume to control. Attenuation impacts the perceived loudness of sounds, while Filter lets you assign lowpass filter cutoff frequencies and interpolation times. The SubmixSend Component is arguably the most powerful - it allows you to send sounds to arbitrary Submixes, based on whether they are inside or outside the defined volume. This means you can use an Audio Gameplay Volume to apply any Submix effect, or combination thereof.
Step C:
The different modular components have somewhat different parameters, but the theme is largely the same. For example, both the Exterior Volume setting in the Attenuation Component and the Exterior LPF in the Filter Component apply to sound sources outside the Audio Gameplay Volume when the player is inside the Audio Gameplay Volume. An example might be that as a player is within the bounds of a building, sounds outside of the building get occluded via a stricter LPF value. In contrast, the Interior Volume setting in the Attenuation Component and the Interior LPF in the Filter Component apply to sound sources inside the Audio Gameplay Volume when the player is outside the Audio Gameplay Volume. In other words, language like Interior and Exterior in Audio Gameplay Volumes refers to the location of the impacted sound sources, not the location of the listener.
The Interior and Exterior time settings are more complex. They are used to define the amount of time to interpolate from the previous value to a new one - for example, a player entering an Audio Gameplay Volume with Attenuation would hear external sounds’ volume interpolate to a volume of Exterior Volume over a time period of Exterior Time. Importantly, both Interior and Exterior Time settings are only used when the player is entering the volume. When exiting an Audio Gameplay Volume, the Audio Gameplay Volume system will use the time settings of the volume they’re entering - when no Audio Gameplay Volume is surrounding the player, the Default Ambient Zone Settings for the map’s World Settings are used, instead. These can be found by right-clicking “Settings”, opening “World Settings,” then scrolling down to the Audio tab.
The SubmixSend Component uses a similar pattern. However, it differs from the Attenuation and Filter Components in that it’s applied when the listener is in the same location as the Sound Source. I.e., a Listener Location State of “Inside the Volume” will influence sound sources that are located within the volume. The Submix Sends otherwise work the same way they do in other sound sources - you can find more info about general Submix Send functionality here.
Step D:
Start your game, and have the player enter the bounds of the Audio Gameplay Volume. You should hear the sounds that are marked as “Use Ambient Volume” via their Sound Class be impacted by the Audio Gameplay Volume settings you chose.
Does that help?
