Audio Toolkit v3.0 - major update RELEASED

Hi,
Unity4.1 is out with some interesting and useful audio updates.

Audio: Added scripting API support for sample-precision stitching of audio clips and synchronized DSP effects (AudioSettings.dspTime, AudioSource.PlayScheduled, AudioSource.SetScheduledStartTime, AudioSource.SetScheduledEndTime)

Pasted from <http://unity3d.com/unity/whats-new/unity-4.1>


esp
http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/ScriptReference/AudioSource.PlayDelayed.html

Update of AudioToolkit coming soon?

ty!

 

We are already working on an update which will support the new audio features of Unity v4.1. Update is planned to be available in the assetstore by the end of this week.

Best Regards,
Michael

 

FEATURE REQUEST

Thanks for making the AudioLogView is very useful. I have 2 simple improvements that are feature requests. This is based on my experience working with the toolkit on a project with over 500 audioItems and 1400 audio asset files over the past few months.

1 // Add a "find" to the AudioLogView that works the same as the find in the Hierarchy and Project panes
2 // Add the functionality of the "Select" button found on the AudioItem Overview to the AudioLogView, where we see a select button next to each entry including when sorted by a "find". Pressing Select would focus the Manager to that AudioID.

One last request

3 // Allow us to sort the AudioItem Overview list by Item Name

Thanks

 

Sorry, I may have missed this simple functionality, but how do you specify a location specific audio file - such as a door opening? I have it playing through the AudioToolkit currently, but it is not geo-spacially placed. It is just playing through the system. I need the AudioSource at the door, not necessarily where my character is.

Q

 

Sorry for my late response. It seems like I missed a few emails due to our mail server upgrade.

@PC_Seat:
We are working on a major v6.0 update. I willl see to have your requested features implemented, as I think they would really make sense.

@Q:
Use AudioController.Play( "MySfx", parentObject.transform );
or AudioController.Play( "MySfx", worldPositionVector3 );

 

Hi,

I'm running into a few annoying issues as a result of the looping audio bug - any update on when the next toolkit update will be available, or whether it's possible to get details for a quick fix?

Also, the pause/unpause category functionality has some issues - pausing works correctly, but unpausing fails to find the audiosources to unpause (since they are no longer playing). I've worked around this for now by storing my own list of the sources that were paused. It would also be nice if sounds that are started in an already-paused category would automatically be started paused (at the moment, sounds which start playing later in the same frame the pause category command is run still play, which means I would need to wrap all calls to AudioController.Play() in an if (!categorypaused) check).

Thanks,

Jesse Neave
Vanguard Games

 

Hi,
Awesome toolkit! But i have some troubles with this. So when i try to play more than 1 sound at same time in example - it's work fine, but in my own project when i try do same - sound just crossfade each other and play only one at same time, and i don't know why. This code which i try to get work:

if (GUI.Button(new Rect(Screen.width - 250, 0, 50, 30), "Audio"))
{
AudioController.PlayMusic("ActionSlow");
}

if (GUI.Button(new Rect(Screen.width - 250, 50, 50, 30), "Audio"))
{
AudioController.PlayMusic("PlayerGetDamage");
}

Thanks,

Abramenkov Dmitry.

 

@Dmitry: AudioController.PlayMusic is for music. It guarantees that only one music file is playing at a time. Use AudioController.Play(...) for sound effects.

 

Oh, i'm so inattentive... Thank you very much! You save a lot of my time!

 

Audio Toolkit update v6.0
I'm sorry - it took a bit longer - finally our major toolkit udpdate v6.0 is online! I am proud to announce our new major features:
- support for new Unity v4.1 audio functions (PlayScheduled, etc.)
- full support for gapless audio chaining (including random variations!)
- support for multiple AudioControllers per scene
- several bugfixes and performance improvements
- audio inspector improvements: tooltips, move items to other categories
- search audio items by name in audio view

 

Awesome update! Thanks for all the hard work~

 

I've been having an issue where when playing a lot of sounds at once through gameplay for a few minutes occasionally the audio gets corrupted or something. The track in question will stop playing and play a staticy corrupted audio noise but it only seems to happen on the iOS devices. Is it possible that the memory is running out for the audio? I'm not really sure what may be causing this issue. This is on the version you sent me a while ago.

Also is your new audio toolkit v6 compatible with unity 3.5x?

 

I have the same question about unity 3.5x compatibility

 

Can you explain how the probability % works in the AudioSubItems ? I have an audioItem with a pool of 5 sub items (character voices). These play in game when you hit bad guys .. ouch ..ugghh .. blarrggg .. etc ... After playtesting we feel like hearing the voice play every time is too much, we'd like to only hear the bad guys voice randomly about 10-15% of the time he gets hit. I set each AudioSubItems probability % to 15% but the voice still plays everytime we call the audioItem name. Can you suggest the proper use for probability % in our case ? How does probability % work ? What is the intended best case use for this feature ?

thanks

 

Here's a screen shot if that helps

 

Hi!

We have just integrated AudioToolkit into our project, great time saver so far

I have a question about MaxInstanceCount. It seems to not be working as expected for my case though. I have 2 clips for footsteps in one category. one is for running and the other for walking. I set the instanceCount to be 1 on both, but as the callbacks from my character come in, i notice that I have 2 audio objects created both playing the same clip. also, i guess it kills the last one and starts a new one every time, where I would actually like to have the newer ones ignored if I call play again and am exceeding the maxInstanceCount.

Side note - looking at the screen shot above from PC_Seat_6, it appears that they have implemented a solution for that, I was wondering if that is available ( I can implement that myself no problem as well).

Another question will be if this is even the right approach. In fact what I would like is to play one sound per category. that is, if I start playing walking footsteps, and then call play("Running"), it will stop the walking sound automatically and replace it with the running sound. is there a better way of achieving this behviour?

--Edit

I would also suggest adding a StopCategory() function to the API. I have implmented one for our needs (using the PauseCategory as reference), but that should probably be a standard feature.

 

Just a quick heads up that the basic functionality of "Max instance count" isn't confirmed working for us we're still getting audio items with a max count of 1 playing more than one instance. That might be related to our added feature "Max instance mode". I'll post once I get this sorted.

Overall I have to say the Audio Tool Kit is working great and Clockstone has been responsive to fixes and change requests which has been amazing.

 

Yeah, I've noticed that as well, but it isn't because of your functionality. If you look at the code that calculates the maxInstances, it actually sets a delay on the stop, so that can account for the multiple instances. haven't tested this yet, but I have a hunch that is the issue.

 

Any plans for implementing multiple AudioListeners? It would be nice if this was builtin and kept behind the AudioToolkit facade that way whenever Unity adds native support for multiple AudioListeners our games code could remain the same.

 

I've added a script to our project that allows my designers to place audio items in world.

This all works well, and I can get the list of categories and audio items available, but I'm also getting an error since the singleton is being woken in edit mode:

!IsPlayingOrAllowExecuteInEditMode ()
UnityEngine.Component:SendMessage(String, SendMessageOptions)
UnitySingleton`1:_AwakeSingleton(AudioController) (at Assets/Scripts/AudioToolkit/Shared Auxiliary Code/UnitySingleton.cs:153)
UnitySingleton`1:GetSingleton(Boolean, Boolean) (at Assets/Scripts/AudioToolkit/Shared Auxiliary Code/UnitySingleton.cs:98)
SingletonMonoBehaviour`1:get_Instance() (at Assets/Scripts/AudioToolkit/Shared Auxiliary Code/UnitySingleton.cs:215)

Is there a better way of accessing this information without triggering the error?

-- EDIT

Never mind. I figured it out. Just don't call .Instance from an editor script, but rather find the object itself using FindObjectOfType()

 

Hello,

I purchased AudioToolkit not too long ago and am really enjoying the workflow it provides. I had a question though. Currently I am working on a car racing game and am trying to use a single AudioController to play back music and sound effects. Basically when the race starts I am trying to play an idle sound for each of the cars. So, I just instantiate the audio like this for each of them:

Code (csharp):

1.        
2. if(!AudioController.IsPlaying("Idle"))
3.         AudioController.Play("Idle",this.transform);
4.  

The only issue with this setup is that I am trying to use "Idle" for each car since they are all controlled by the same CarController script. So perhaps I am missing something but is there a way to get a unique id of each "Idle" sound I play? I could make separate sounds for each car but I was trying to leverage the pooling aspect if possible to limit my memory hit.

Also, more specifically I am trying to be able to modify the idle sound's pitch for each car to simulate acceleration. So this pitch adjustment should only be done to the audio that is attached to each car's transform.

Thanks in advance,
Andrew

 

Ok, I figured it out. Just had to peruse the docs a little more. :wink:

For anyone interested, this was the code I was looking for:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. var soundFX = new PoolableReference<AudioObject>( AudioController.Play( "someSFX" ) );
3.  
4. // some other part of the code executed later when the sound may have stopped playing
5. // and was moved back to the pool
6. AudioObject audioObject = soundFX.Get();
7. if( audioObject != null )
8. {
9.     // it is safe to access audioObject here
10.     audioObject.Stop();
11. }
12.  

Only other issue I am having is the AudioController not saving changes I made when editing it as a prefab. I'm in Unity 3.5.7 if that helps. Otherwise, thanks again for making such an easy to use plugin!

Edit: Also is it possible to have a playlist that play the first song once and the next gets played in loop? I was hoping that the audio item's respect their loop settings but I guess that isn't the case.

 

Also I was curious were there any plans to add an audio ducking feature so that sound effects could dip down the music's volume?

 

Hi clockstore,

Can you explain a bit more? I have difficulty understanding this. Or do you have a small example how to access the pitch from script?

Cheers, Roy

 

There doesn't seem to be a version of Play that can take a vector and NO transform.

 

you can just set the transform to null at it will not be parented, just moved to that position.

 

+1

 

I really suggest that you should change the title of this thread, cos it says it's audio toolkit 3.0 but actually it's already 6.1, which makes people confused alot...

 

I'm doing an evaluation of the Audio Toolkit. It appears that 3D sound settings (such as min distance, max distance) are set per category, rather then per AudioItem. In a 3D game, in-world 3D sounds will generally all have their own specific 3D sound settings, so it's not practical to have them all in different categories.

Audio Toolkit already allows over-riding of 2D settings in the AudioItem, so in theory it wouldn't be hard to also allow over-riding of the 3D settings? If so, I would like to request this feature. Without it, AudioToolkit isn't an option for my project, and I can't imagine it being practical for games that utilize 3D sound in general.

 

I've learned that you can override the min/max distance (by enabling the Override AudioSoure Settings checkbox). Min/Max distance are the most important properties to control per 3D sound, so Audio Toolkit has this covered.

 

Could you please add a 'infinite' option to Max Instance Count?

 

@silentneedle - If you set the count to 0, it is disabled, and thus infinite

 

UnPause is not working for me,
Heres the code:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. AudioController.PauseAll();Debug.Log("pause");
3. AudioController.UnpauseAll();Debug.Log(" UNpause");
4.  

Pause works just fine, but UnpauseAll does nothing. Both logs print fine so it really means the calls are being made.
BTW, same goes for pauseCategory and UnpauseCategory, pausing works fine, but it never goes back to play

 

The unpause problem was fixed by updating to the version 6.x

 

Just switched our project to Audio Toolkit, been pleased with the results so far!

There is one feature I hacked in: I store the original pitch on Play(), so I can scale the pitch to match our global time scale (we do a lot of time events, and the "slowdown" noise helps convey the time scaling effect). I apply the pitch change when time is scaled via:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. foreach (AudioObject playing in AudioController.GetPlayingAudioObjects())
3. {
4.     playing.primaryAudioSource.pitch = playing._originalPitch * pitchScale;
5. }

 

Hi,

This is awesome pkg. But i was wandering about 5.1 or 7.1(Dolby digital 7.1 or etc..) future inside this pkg. Because not any audio pkg have this type of future. If you have any Idea about this help me.


best wishes,
play_edu

 

Is it possible to load and play a sound from the Resources folder using AudioToolkit?

 

So, with some help from Clockstone, here's what I came up with to play a sound loaded from the Resources folder:

Code (csharp):

1. // determine if sound is loaded
2. AudioItem audioItem=AudioController.GetAudioItem(soundName);
3. if(audioItem==null){
4.     // load if necessary
5.     AudioClip audioClip=Resources.Load ("Audio/Quiz/"+soundName) as AudioClip;
6.     AudioCategory audioCategory=AudioController.GetCategory("VO");
7.     AudioController.AddToCategory(audioCategory,audioClip,soundName);
8. }
9. // play if not already playing
10. if(!AudioController.IsPlaying(soundName)){
11.     AudioController.StopAll ();
12.     AudioController.Play (soundName);
13. }

 

Any chance you have plans to update this to run as Windows 8 and Windows Phone apps. I get compilation errors.

 

Yes, we will make it compatible with Win8 and also Blackberry. Please wait for the next update.

 

Hi,
Bought Audio Toolkit a while ago, and now testing it out.
To me it looks like a powerful/smart solution for what i want to do.

I followed the video, but it's based on code where one clicks on a button to activate sounds/music,
and i'm interested in testing it out for background music that plays when a scene begins and is persistent between scenes.

I dropped the audioController into my scene.

As far as i can tell, i've followed the video to create a playlist, then a category, then audio items, then sub-items.

when i play the scene, the audio does not appear to be playing or i can't hear it.

Do i need to add a script to trigger this on?
If yes, can someone please post the whole script to do this?

I'm not a coder, per se, and not very familiar with C#.

Thanks very much!

- shwa

 

Hi!
Like the asset a lot, but would like to use it for the Win 8 Phone competition that ends in september. Any ETA on the update?
Best Regards
Lukas

 

Where do you expect this update to be ready?

 

@shwa: You need to call one of the Play(...) methods of the AudioController in your scripts to play audio files defined in the AudioController. See our online code reference http://unity.clockstone.com/audiotoolkitreference/Index.html or have a look the Demo Scene scripts or the video tutorial.

 

@kenlem: Does your compilation error show up when you make the build, or when you start the win 8 app? What compilation error do you get? We are working on the update right now.

 

Pretty sure it's when Unity tries to build right in the editor. I'll have to wait until tonight to get in front of a Windows machine to get you the exact error messages. You'll see it if you set your target to Windows 8.

 

Update: We fixed the compiler errors related to win8 apps. Please email me if you would like me to send you the current Beta Version of the Audio Toolkit v6.2. Update on the Assetstore is scheduled for next week.

 

Just sent you a private message. Thanks.

 

I am using Audio Toolkit 6.1 and Unity 4.2
When Open Show Item Overview
Category | Item | SubItem
Music | BacgroundMusic | CLIP: bg
SFX | . | CLIP: button_tap
. | TaskComplete | CLIP: task_complete
. | ItemDrop | CLIP: item_drop

SFX's Item should contain ButtonClick, TaskComplete and ItemDrop

 

@yuewahchan: I don't think I understand what you are saying...please explain