Audio Toolkit v3.0 - major update RELEASED

Any plans for a unity4 update soon? Looks like you're using some deprecated APIs.

 

We haven't had access to the Beta until a few days ago. We are working on the update which should be released within the next few days.

 

Hi thanks for creating the audiotoolkit we're using the paid version on a project now targeted for iOS. Working with 3D sound is not clearly understood using the audiotoolkit documentation. My goal is to use the audiotoolkit with 3D sounds but there are no roll off curve or min max distance properties for auditoolkit audioitems found in Unity's audiosource properties. Can you provide a brief rundown of how to use the audioitems in a 3D game? thanks

 

@theotherstudio13: roll off curve etc. are defined in the AudioSource component of the AudioObject prefab object you specify in the AudioController. This way you can change these properties for your entire world. If you need to do so you can also specify a custom AudioObject per category.

 

I need to set the 3D fields per audioitem. Is this possible ? Can you suggest a solution ? thanks

 

You can only change it per category. I don't think you need to set different settings for each audio item, try to find meaningful categories, this will help you reduce the amount of work for fine tuning the parameters.

 

Hrmm wondering if the toolkit has support for these:

1) Can I reset the sequence on sequenced sound effects? (EDIT: got this answered below)

2) I have 2 files Music Intro and Music Loop, I want to play the music so it plays the music intro first then will loop the loop part

3) I have 4 files of music labelled Clip1, Clip2, Clip3, Clip4, and I'd like to play them in the order Clip1, Clip2, Clip2, Clip3, Clip4 or even better have them play that order but only loop the Clip2, Clip2, Clip3, Clip4 part

4) Playing a music track that randomly alternates between Clip1 and Clip2(alternatively Clips1..N)

5) EQ Levels

None of this is urgent, I'm just having fun playing with the toolkit seeing what I can do with it

EDIT: figured out 1, added this function to the AudioController:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. static public void ResetSequence( string audioID )
3. {
4.         AudioItem sndItem = Instance._GetAudioItem( audioID );
5.         if ( sndItem == null )
6.         {
7.             Debug.LogWarning( "Audio item with name '" + audioID + "' does not exist" );
8.             return;
9.         }
10.         sndItem._lastChosen = -1;
11. }
12.  

I would prefer to have it in officially so I don't have to manually patch it in every update

 

Thanks for the quick feedback. Setting 3D parameters to groups of sound entities / events / sources / items is very uncommon in fact I haven't yet worked with an audio solution that used this approach. Even unity's audio system allows each audio source's 3D settings to be changed independently of one another. It would be great to have this featured added ( setting unique 3D parameters per audioitem) considering sound designers expect this standard feature and to be available. Thanks !

 

How do I find out more about this option ? thanks

 

What's the best (and most performant) way to dynamically set the stop time of an audio object with pools?

 

With the current version of the toolkit (v4.0) you can only do it with a coroutine. Encouraged by your post I just added a second parameter startToFadeTime to AudioObject.Stop( float fadeOutLength, float startToFadeTime ) which will be available in the upcoming v4.1. If you want to test it now, please contact me so I can send you the current beta version of v4.1 http://unity.clockstone.com

 

How to make Audio Toolkit work with JAVA Script?

• Create "Plugins" folder
• Move "AudioToolkit" (NOT Root Folder) and "Shared Auxiliary Code" folders to "Plugins" folder
• Use the following code to get access to C# from Java:

Code (csharp):

1. //create a variable to access the C# script  
2. private var AudioController : AudioController;
3. function Awake()  
4. {  
5.     //Get the CSharp Script  
6.     AudioController = this.GetComponent("AudioController");    
7. }
8.  
9. function OnGUI () {
10.       if (GUI.Button(Rect(200,70,50,30),"Click")) {
11.         AudioController.PlayMusic("MarilynManson");    
12.       }  
13. }

Enjoy!

 

Hi!
Is it possible to fade in or out The Category Volume?
I use this Code, but it not working well

Code (csharp):

1. function ToggleMusicVolumeDown ()
2. {
3.     var setVolume = 100;
4.     while(AudioController.GetCategoryVolume("Music") > 0)
5.     {
6.         AudioController.SetCategoryVolume("Music",setVolume);
7.         setVolume -= 0.2*Time.deltaTime;
8.         yield;
9.     }
10. }

Thanks!

 

Volume ist between 0 and 1, not in %. Also in your code you set the volume to a negative value in the last while loop. Make sure to set it to zero instead.

 

Can you make a few Playmaker actions for this? I would love to integrate it in my project.

 

I haven't worked with Playmaker yet. Maybe we will provide such an action in an upcoming update.

 

Is it possible to set Audio Sub Item Pitch Shift runtime? Not in the editor.

 

@crawler: You have access to all properties. Use AudioController.GetAudioItem("myAudioID") to get the AudioItem, then all subitems are in AudioItem.subItems. See the reference documentation for more info (http://unity.clockstone.com/audiotoolkitreference/Index.html

 

Hi,

does audio toolset work with the unioty webplayer plugin? or would the user have to download an additional file for?

Best

 

The Audio Toolkit supports the Webplayer out of the box. Feel free to download the free version and export the demo scene to the weplayer to verify.

 

Just about to start integration of the Audio Toolkit into my project and have a quick question - I would like to have all of the assets for my title packaged in AssetBundles so that they don't need to be included in the core game package. Have you (or anyone else) tested / worked out a pipeline for working with the Audio Toolkit and assetbundles?

Just curious because the way that the interface seems to be designed doesn't make it clear how I would load audio samples from asset bundles instead of the default resource loading mechanisms.

Ideas? It might be that this is fairly straightforward, I haven't tested it out yet, but I wanted to confirm before I go to far down the pipeline of integration if anyone has figured out any tips or tricks to using the two together (Audio Toolkit + AssetBundles).

At a first glance, I'm going to have to basically ignore the Audio Toolkit editor interface and simply build / load all of the audio files from script, but just wanted to confirm ;}

Thanx in advance,
Mike W

 

Would you mind checking for <= float.Epsilon instead of <= 0.0f, since checking for zero really doesn't work out on iOS and is unsafe in general.

 

@gekidoslair: You can add AudioClip objects (e.g. loaded from asset bundles) at runtime to the AudioController. See http://unity.clockstone.com/audiotoolkitreference/Index.html

 

Checking for zero is not unsafe in general. In which situation did you you have an issue? What code line do you talk about?

 

E.g. AudioController:layAudioSubItem(). My experience shows that especially iOS has a problem with checking for zero. It was just a recommendation ;-)

 

Hi there clockstone!

Bought the toolkit some time ago, I think it is great and will save me some development time. Right now I'm about to really use it so here I am.
Just wondering, is there a way to automatically fade in/out the master volume (I don't mean cross-fade)? I was going to do it myself but if the toolkit already provides that functionality then I don't want to reinvent the wheel. What I have in mind is to fade the master volume from its current setting to another over a period of time. Maybe, maybeeee even queue the fade requests? I know that may be too specific

Thanks in advance, really like your work.

 

There is no automatic way of fading out the master volume. Also, I think in many situations you would actually rather like to fade out specific categories. You can set volume easily with AudioController.SetGlobalVolume() and AudioController.SetCategoryVolume()

 

Hi i have a question Clockstone:

in my scene i have 3 loop music A/B/C

i want my first music loop A then when my character reach a certain point i want to next music loop after A to be B, so is there a way to detect the end of a music？

 

Thank you, I'm aware of those methods. Keep up the good work

 

There is the completelyPlayedDelegate to check if an audio has stopped playing: http://unity.clockstone.com/audiotoolkitreference/Index.html

 

I've been having trouble getting audio which is looping and has gaps in it to stop playing. I'm calling stop with the proper name and the function is returning true to confirm the looping sound effect has stopped yet I can see that the looping sound effect is still going off. Any suggestions? Currently I have the sound loopmode set to Loop Sequence pick subitem mode to random. I have put two copies of the same sound in the audio sub item settings because otherwise the looping doesn't seem to take into account the delay or the random delay on the audio sub item settings.
Please help.

 

I'm also having trouble with the setting Pick Subitem Mode - Sequence. I have two sub item audio clips and only one of them plays. I have all other settings set to the defaults is there a second setting I need to change to make Sequence play two items in a row? If I set pick subitem mode to play simultaneously then both the sounds play. Any idea on what is causing this issue?

 

@wightwhale: I'll have a look at those issues, I'll let you know...

 

@wightwhale:
1) we have reproduced and fixed the bug when stopping looped audio sequences. If you need the bugfix urgently please send me an email. Otherwise the bugfix will be available together with other bugfixes as soon as Unity 4.1 is available (not sure how long it will take).
2) About the "Pick Subitem Mode - Sequence" question: I think there is a misunderstanding about the meaning of "Sequence" in this case. If you just set the pick mode to sequence this means that if you play the audio item multiple times it will pick the sub-items in the same order as specified in the list of sub-items. If you want two items to be played in a row by row without looping there is currently no way to do that. But we are planning to add this feature in the next version too.

 

hey we're using the toolkit with unity pro. If I move a slider or change an AudioItem or SubItemwhile parameter with the game running I don't hear the sound change. Should I be hearing the settings change in realtime ? Do I have to stop the game then restart every time I make a change ?

 

@PC_Seat: Currently only volume changes to a category can be heard in realtime. If you change the volume of an audio item or subitem in the Inspector, it will only become effective for the next time you play this item.
I think what you request would be a nice feature to have though - so I will put in on my list for possible new features for the next toolkit update.

 

realtime works fine if you change the audioobject vol or pan.
xxxxAudioObject.volume = value; for example

 

@sonicviz: Thanks for this clarification. Of course you can change the volume at runtime per script in the way you described. It just doesn't work yet when using the sliders of the AudioController's Unity Inspector.

 

I sent you a private message clockstone but you may not have seen it so I'm posting here to let you know.

 

Hey,
I am looking for a way to play my sound effect backwards, is it possible to do that with toolkit?

 

It's not possible to play sounds backwards with Unity. You should add all your sounds to your project in both ways and then play either the backward or forward version.

 

Actually you should be able to play a sound backwards if you set the audio source pitch to a negative value...

 

That's a good idea - I didn't think of this. But does it really work? If someone tries this please let us know.

 

hi I'm trying to understand how the category / audioItems relationships work, are audioItems child objects of only one category ? I'm trying to flexibly re-assign audioItems to new categories but there doesn't appear to be a way to do this other than rebuilding all the child audioItems. Assigning audioItems to a Category would be more useful if you could (feature request) abstract it from a Parent / Child relationship so as you build up a project with audio content you can assign Categories more flexibly on an as needed basis. If you moved the Category assignment to the audioItems level could it not work in this more flexible method ?

Right now in my current project I realized I need a bus/group volume for a group of audioItems already created in my "SFX" Category. Currently I think I have to delete these audioItems from the "SFX" Category and rebuild them in a newly created "FARTS" Category. That way I can turn the fart sounds up and down idipendantly of the "SFX" Category or as a child bus/group setting the "FARTS" Parent Category to "SFX"

Any thoughts or feedback ? thanks

 

@PC_Seat6: You are right - there should be a way to move items from one category to another easily. We will implement that in one of the next updates.

 

thanks clockstone for the speedy reply and considering adding this functionality.

for other designers on the toolkit I suggest planning your bus / group / category assignments well in advance considering the audioItems only exist as child objects of a category. typically for most projects I plan out content and systems in a spreadsheet first. seeing everything in a spreadsheet before yoiu start adding content might work for other designers using the tookit as well.

 

If it's not possible in unity, I can reverse your sound files for you if you need.

 

Does the latest Version work well with Unity 3.5.X ?
And does it work with PlayMaker?

 

The Audio Toolkit works with all Unity v3 and v4 versions. You can also use it with Playmaker but we don't provide you with the actions out of the box. You have to make them yourself.

 

Hi,

I've started getting frequent crashes when playing audio on iPad. As far as I know everything audio-related we do goes through Audio Toolkit (I have no idea about whether the plugin is at fault, though). As far as I know, no crashes occur in Windows and on Mac. Top of stack trace:

0 0x00fe725e testflight_backtrace + 238
1 0x00fe7f48 TFSignalHandler + 264
2 libsystem_c.dylib 0x3c08ee92 _sigtramp + 42
3 0xffffffff + 0
4 0x01673497 _ZN4FMOD7SystemI26createChannelGroupInternalEPKcPPNS_13ChannelGroupIEbb + 2848675
5 0x01589d63 _ZN4FMOD7SystemI26createChannelGroupInternalEPKcPPNS_13ChannelGroupIEbb + 1892463
6 0x015877e3 _ZN4FMOD7SystemI26createChannelGroupInternalEPKcPPNS_13ChannelGroupIEbb + 1882863

Does someone have an idea about what this might be?

Cheers,
Christian Tellefsen