ambient-bed

/ambient-bed — Long Looping Location Ambience

Overview

An ambient bed is the air of a place. Forest at dawn, dungeon corridor, spaceship hum, market street, ocean cave. It plays at low energy under everything else — never melodic, never drawing attention, but its absence is immediately felt. Players don't notice an ambient bed; they notice the silence when you forget one.

This is not music. Use summer_generate_audio({capability: 'sound_effects'}), not {capability: 'music'}. SFX renders textures; Music renders melody. You want texture.

Generated at 15–22 seconds (the SFX duration ceiling) and looped with a Summer Engine import loop point and optional crossfade.

When to use

• Location bed for a level, room, biome, or zone.
• Background hum / drone under dialogue scenes.
• Atmosphere layer that complements a music track.

When NOT to use

• Short event SFX (<5s) → audio/sound-effect.
• Music with melody / chord progression → audio/music-track.
• Voice barks → audio/voice-line.

Steps

1. Read the audio bible

Read .summer/audio-bible.md

The bible's Ambient layer SFX class names the character — usually "continuous, low presence, no looping melody". Honor it. The mix rules sit ambient at the bus level the bible defined (typically Ambient bus around -12 dB).

2. Identify the location

Ask if it's not pinned by context:

Which location's ambience? Be specific — "forest at dawn with light wind and distant birds" beats "outdoors". The model needs the time of day, the weather, and 2–3 sound sources.

3. Build the prompt — environment + time + weather + 2–3 sources + density + duration

ElevenLabs SFX renders ambient textures well when the prompt names sources, not vibes.

Prompts that work:

forest at dawn, gentle wind through leaves, distant bird calls every 6 seconds,
soft creaking branches, no music, no human sound, 22s seamless loop

stone dungeon corridor, distant water drip, low rumble, faint draft, no music,
no creature sound, 22s seamless loop

spaceship corridor, low hum at 60Hz, occasional electronic chirp, ventilation
whoosh, no human voices, 22s seamless loop

medieval marketplace at noon, distant chatter, footsteps on stone, occasional
horse, distant blacksmith hammer, no recognisable words, 22s loop

ocean cave, slow waves entering, low rumble, water drip echoes, no seagulls,
22s seamless loop

night swamp, crickets, distant owl, slow water lapping, occasional frog,
22s seamless loop

abandoned office building, fluorescent hum, distant air conditioning, faint
paper rustle from a vent, no human sound, 22s loop