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Master Audio - AAA Sound Solution. #1 audio plugin on Asset Store!

Discussion in 'Assets and Asset Store' started by dark_tonic, Jan 28, 2013.

  1. ConcreteIguana

    ConcreteIguana

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    I hear you, Brian. I could be wrong, but what I'm trying to do is take a smallish number of tracks and combine them in different ways to make the soundtrack feel "endless" (in a positive way, not in the way that tower defense game my son keeps leaving running on my desktop machine's soundtrack is endless).

    Here are are some people who've actually done this talking about it:
    http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/152352-Dynamic-Music-Call-for-Feature-Requests

    It looks like Master Audio is ready for this since you already have the mixer concept complete with buses. I'm pretty sure nobody wants to do this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uvClBGhJyA (Unite 2013 talk on "Real-time Audio Synthesis") Check out the comments.

    Thanks for listening,

    Steve
     
  2. jerotas

    jerotas

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    Thanks for the links Steve, I'll watch those and see if this makes any sense to put into MA!
     
  3. jerotas

    jerotas

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    V2.7.6 was just submitted!

    - Added "Loop Clip" setting to each song in the playlist. Removed global loop clip setting.
    - Made mute and solo buttons work on currently playing clips at runtime.
    - Added fade in / fade out settings (seconds) for each group variation.
    - Added 2 "fade out now" methods to variations to fade out sounds early at any time. You can use the existing fade time or specify your own. Usable from PlaySoundResult
    - Added a "FadeOutAllOfSound" method with a time length.
    - Fixed many missing clone properties of weighted variation clones.
    - Added clip loop checkbox for variations.

    Hope you are all enjoying the updates, they have been non-breaking changes lately. Let's hope that stays the same!
     
  4. jerotas

    jerotas

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    V2.7.6 is now live - grab your new "fading" updates :)
     
  5. SeanC88

    SeanC88

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    Hello,

    First off....I love this product. It is so simple and easy to use, I was up and running in minutes!!! And it is so great that you included Playmaker Actions. That was the number one reason I purchased the product and you can be sure Ill be letting the Playmaker Forums know about it!

    I was wondering, is it possible to pause and resume individual groups/entire buses? And is it possible to get that made into some playmaker actions?

    That would round out this tool to perfection if so.

    Thanks!
    Sean
     
  6. jerotas

    jerotas

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    Thank you Sean.

    Edit: V2.8 now has these features, in Playmaker versions as well.
     
    Last edited: Sep 30, 2013
  7. SeanC88

    SeanC88

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    Hey Jerotas,

    Yeah, pausing and unpausing was what i was talking about. For example, if you have a track playing, or a long sound effect, like a wolf howling, and the player pauses the game, you would expect the sounds to pause as well and resume upon unpausing.

    If you got that working it would be so awesome.

    Thanks for the swift reply!
    Sean
     
  8. jerotas

    jerotas

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    Heads up, I'm actually working on some other updates that people have asked for via email. Pretty cool stuff! I do plan to do all the requests in this thread as well as soon as I can get to them. There are more than a few now though. I'll have an update soon.
     
    Last edited: Sep 27, 2013
  9. SeanC88

    SeanC88

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    It would also be awesome if you could control the pitch of buses and groups via playmaker!
     
  10. jerotas

    jerotas

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    There is no pitch of buses or groups. Pitch applies at a variation level only. That way you can have different fixed pitched variations even without using random pitch.

    Edit: added pitch changing of a group or single variation Custom Action in V2.8.
     
    Last edited: Sep 30, 2013
  11. SeanC88

    SeanC88

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    Is it possible to mute/unmute the playlist with playmaker controls? Roght now i think i can only unmute/mute groups.
     
  12. jerotas

    jerotas

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    Edit: This is in the new version 2.8, now submitted to the Asset Store.
     
    Last edited: Sep 30, 2013
  13. jerotas

    jerotas

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    Once again today we received a 3-star review (which I consider terrible) on the Asset Store for Master Audio. 2 stars were knocked off for something that the reviewer is incorrect about (he never emailed us or posted on the forum to find out). Does anyone know how to reach "Ben Throop"? I replied letting him know how to reach us and that what he wanted to do *is* in there. He may never read the reply though as there's no notification system there.

    Also, could I bother some of the happy users of Master Audio to go post a short text review there to get the average review back up to 5 stars? Thank you guys!

    I have a big update coming pretty soon, just wrapping up a couple things and adding a bunch more Playmaker custom actions!
     
  14. jerotas

    jerotas

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    I have a very large update I'm wrapping up now. Here's the changes:

    - Fixed bug with changing playlist when not playing first clip.
    - Fixed bug with bus deletion messing up other bus assignments.
    - Fixed Group and Bus sliders. They weren't modifying already playing clips' volumes.
    - Added methods to add and remove Groups from the music "duck list". Added Playmaker Custom Action for this too.
    - Added methods to create buses at runtime.
    - Added an "auto-remove sound groups" option to Dynamic sound group creator so that at the end of the Scene the Groups will be destroyed.
    - Added variation support to Dynamic sound group creator, including fade in / out times for each variation.
    - Added bus support to Dynamic sound group creator.
    - Added music ducking support to Dynamic sound group creator.
    - Added method to Fade a bus to target volume over X seconds. Added Playmaker Custom Action for this too.
    - Added method to Fade a Sound Group to target volume over X seconds. Added Playmaker Custom Action for this too.
    - Added method to Fade playlist master volume to target volume over X seconds. Added Playmaker Custom Action for this too.
    - Added method to Fade a variation to target volume over X seconds.
    - Made real-time adjustments to Master Audio volume affect already playing clips in every Sound Group.
    - Fixed bug where changing Playlist volume during ducking would return to wrong volume.
    - Fixed bug where changing Playlist volume during cross fading would ignore volume change until next song.
    - Changed all Pitch inspector sliders to range from -3 to +3, like normal Audio Sources.
    - Added a Playmaker Custom Action to set playlist master volume.
    - Added a Playmaker Custom Action to "fade all of sound group".
    - Added methods to pause and unpause all audio in a Sound Group. Added Playmaker Custom Action for this too.
    - Added methods to pause and unpause all audio in a bus. Added Playmaker Custom Action for this too.
    - Added methods to pause and unpause audio in a variation.
    - Added methods to pause and unpause the Playlist. Added Playmaker Custom Action for this too.
    - Added method to change 1 or all variation pitches of a Sound Group. Added Playmaker Custom Action for this too.
    - Removed PlaySoundVariable methods and added the missing volumePercentage field to PlaySound.
    - Renamed PlaySound method with Transform parameter for attaching to "PlaySound3D".
    - Changed order of a couple parameters in PlaySound methods because the grouping makes more sense.
    - Added "fixed pitch value" field to PlaySound and PlaySound3D to ignore randompitch and use the pitch passed in. Added this field to Playmaker Play Sound action too.

    Dayam, that's a big one! With 12 new Playmaker custom actions!
     
  15. jerotas

    jerotas

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    Steve, the "stay in sync" part seems to require that all stem tracks would be exactly the same length. Is that your understanding? By the way, the new version of Master Audio now has the ability to fade in buses and groups over time, and to fade them out over time as well.
     
  16. jerotas

    jerotas

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    Master Audio 2.8 is submitted to the Asset Store! I don't want to repeat the change - they are 2 posts up. This is the biggest update ever with 12 new Playmaker Custom Actions as well!

    Also, I've now got a much nicer and comprehensive API website up for the programmers and DYI-ers using this. Click on this to go to it!
     
  17. jerotas

    jerotas

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    This plus your other request are both in the update I just submitted :)
     
  18. snagglepuss

    snagglepuss

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    Hey Jerotas,

    I find Master Audio very interesting, but I have an important question. I just spent a little time with the demo scene and I can see that there are many Audio Sources created and playing at the same time. My concern is that this will be quite heavy for the performance. Being an Audio Designer I'm pretty sure that programmers will ask that very same question. It's very important because we are to make a game for tablets soon.

    Thanks!
     
  19. jerotas

    jerotas

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    Good question snagglepuss. It can be a performance problem to have too many audio clips playing at the same time, although the number is probably much higher than you think for modern mobile devices (30 or so is generally ok). The amount of audio sources in the scene that *aren't* playing has zero impact on the performance though. Our studio's first game has 120 Sound Groups in Master Audio in the main game scene (which is about 200 Audio Sources) and there is no slowdown on an iPhone 4 from Audio because we play no more than about a dozen at any one time.

    Actually, the original reason I created this plugin was to get Audio performance under control for mobile. For example you can limit the number of each sound that can play, so instead of you having 50 death screams play at the same time if you kill 50 enemies, you can limit it to 1, 3, or whatever number you like. Before we made the plugin that would cause the phone to skip a few frames.

    What in my experience is worse for performance is spawning and despawning Audio Sources so that the actual prefab with the Audio Source goes away when the sound has finished playing (which some other Unity audio plugins do). That's because of two reasons:

    1) A script has to run on each Audio Source to track whether the clip is done playing.
    2) Audio Sources not playing (again) have no performance impact.

    Furthermore, in cases where I actually have to use a script on the Audio Sources (custom fade in and fade out), I made use of less frequently called CoRoutines to keep performance very light, and only when fading is needed is there any performance impact at all from the script. It doesn't run any code in Update or FixedUpdate in either case (no every frame code).

    I hope that answers your question. Let me know if you have more!
     
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2013
  20. jerotas

    jerotas

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    V 2.8 is now live. Go ahead and grab the HUGE changelist. Now it's very feasible to use the single Master Audio prefab across all scenes and dynamically add and remove groups with the Dynamic Sound Group Creator.
     
  21. tr4npt

    tr4npt

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    I was using 2.7 and just updated to 2.8. With both versions, the delaySoundTime parameter doesn't seem to do anything. The sound plays immediately.

    For example, I used:
    MasterAudio.PlaySound3D("M4 reload", 1, 1, null, transform, false, 1.5f);

    The sound always plays immediately no matter what value I use for the delay.

    Also, I like the old parameter order better (with the sound position as the second parameter). Now I have to enter in a bunch of default values just to provide the sound location. Why was it changed?

    Also, it would be nice to be able to quickly preview the sound from the editor. I know I can go to the clip itself, but that doesn't let me hear me the volume and pitch adjustments.

    I'm using Unity 4.2.0 on Windows.
     
    Last edited: Oct 5, 2013
  22. jerotas

    jerotas

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    The parameter order was changed to put volume and pitch together and also to put sound location and "attach to source" together, because those are logical groupings. I kinda just had everything in there willy nilly before with no reason to it.

    We could move attach to source and sound location in front of those others if you (and others) think it's better? And/or maybe move the "variation name" (which I bet isn't used much) to the end. I'll write that down for the next version unless anyone objects?

    I'm installing Unity 4.2 to check it out. It worked last time I tried it.
     
  23. jerotas

    jerotas

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    You are right, I think I broke that code at some point without realizing it. Sorry about that! Fixed it now. I have a few other changes that I was working on that are done now, so I'll go ahead and submit this version as soon as I get the documentation updated (tomorrow likely).

    If you need the version before it's on the Asset Store, just email me with your invoice# and I'll reply with the package.

    Thanks!
     
    Last edited: Oct 5, 2013
  24. tr4npt

    tr4npt

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    Thanks for the quick turnaround! I can wait for the next version. As a workaround, I just added silence to the beginning of the audio clip.

    I edited my original post before I realized you had already replied. My extra comment was, "It would be nice to be able to quickly preview an individual audio clip from the editor. I know I can go to the clip itself, but that doesn't let me hear me the volume and pitch adjustments." This would be nice feature, especially when trying to determine good values to use for the random pitch/volume settings.
     
  25. jerotas

    jerotas

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    Did you know there's a speaker icon on each group in the mixer for "quick previewing", but only when you're playing in the Editor? That may do most of what you want.
    If you'd like one in the variation Inspector let me know and I'll see what I can do.
     
  26. tr4npt

    tr4npt

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    Yes, I know about that one, but that doesn't show me which variation it's playing. I want to tweak the pitch/volume for each individual variation. It would be nice for it to work in edit mode, if that's possible. Once I hit Play, all sorts of sounds start going off as part of my scene, so I have to either wait until things quiet down before testing my sounds, or temporarily disable my other sounds via code.
     
  27. jerotas

    jerotas

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    I think you're missing something - I've built things to take care of that. Just go to the mixer and hit the solo button on the group you want to hear. The rest will be muted automatically, and then you click the speaker icon. If you have music playing and don't want to hear that, you can also turn it off with the Playlist controller volume and/or "start on awake" setting of Playlist before hitting play.

    I'll look into adding the speaker icon for variations though for both modes.
     
    Last edited: Oct 5, 2013
  28. tr4npt

    tr4npt

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    Thanks for the tip! That will certainly make things easier in the future. I look forward to being able to preview individual variations. Thank you for your excellent support!
     
  29. jerotas

    jerotas

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    No problem. That's what I'm here for.

    So I have a question. If I put a preview sound button in the variation (for edit mode), it may not actually be able to take the Group volume and Master Volume settings into account to adjust the volume downwards. Is that a big deal? Or is that even wanted? In other words, if you put the Group volume at .5, the variation should also play at half of the variation volume. This will work at play time, but possibly not in edit time preview. Does it matter?
     
  30. tr4npt

    tr4npt

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    It doesn't matter to me. The main thing I'm concerned about at edit time is that all of the variations are approximately the same volume relative to each other.
     
  31. jerotas

    jerotas

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    Ok, I will make it that way for now. If people want the full volume hierarchy in edit mode and they speak up, I'll try to change that in a later version, if it's possible.
     
  32. jerotas

    jerotas

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    Master Audio V2.8.2 is now submitted to the Asset Store. Here's what's changed:

    - Breaking change: please delete all Sound Groups from Music Ducking section in Master Audio prefab before upgrading. New ducking features added!
    - Removed "Rise Vol. After %" from Playlist Controller ducking section - replaced with a per group setting in sound ducking section in Master Audio prefab.
    - Fixed bug: you could not type in a Sound Group name for Event Sounds after choosing one from the dropdown. This was not good for dynamically created Groups.
    - Fixed bug: OnStart EventSounds can't play a "dynamic" created sound sometimes.
    - Fixed bug: custom ducking percentage didn't work with certain values.
    - Fixed bug: Play Delayed wouldn't actually delay the sound.
    - Added "bulk creation mode" dropdown to Dynamic Sound Group Creator.
    - Added "show group settings" checkbox to Dynamic Sound Group Creator.
    - Added optional "3D settings" section to Dynamic Sound Group Creator variations. There are buttons to copy them to and from the single Audio Source in the DSGC prefab to use the Unity audio widgets for visualization.
    - PlaySound methods: changed order of parameters to put "sound location" and "attach to source" up near the front, 2nd and 3rd position. Moved variation name to the end.
    - Added sound preview buttons to Group and Variations. These work in edit mode also, but fading and random settings are ignored in edit mode.
    - Added Start event to EventSounds.
    - Added Trigger Exit event to EventSounds. Renamed Trigger event to Trigger Enter.
    - Added the rest of the Group controls to Dynamic Sound Group Creator (limits / volume / equalize, etc).
    - Added "bulk creation mode" dropdown for Master Audio prefab. Choices are "One Group per clip" and "One Group with variations". This lets you can choose what happens when you lock and drag multiple clips into the mixer section.

    Most of these were user requests, as usual. If there's anything you'd like to see in Master Audio, drop us an email at support@darktonic or post in this thread please :)
     
    Last edited: Oct 6, 2013
  33. TomasSala-Falconeer

    TomasSala-Falconeer

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    Silly question probably, just got your kit installed. (full version) and as I read and understand sound locations are set either on caller or on master location.
    There is no way to add a different sound location? Most of my code (playmaker) relies heavily on managers and not on components on individual 3D objects. (seemed more logical to me) So at different parts in the manager code I know where I want the audio to be located, but its not the caller per se.

    A workaround would just be to add simple fsm's to objects needing sounds, but I 'm hesitant to add much more playmaker fsms to my scene as the awake is already dreadfully long..

    Any other options i'm missing here (complete noob probably, so sorry)

    -- update, I've already used the eventsounds.cs where I can, but there's a few situations where I would like to trigger a 3D sound from a vector pos or game-object ref. ---
     
    Last edited: Oct 7, 2013
  34. jerotas

    jerotas

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    Not a noob questions at all. I'm not great with Playmaker yet but I do know about managers, so it sounds like you're on the right track.

    You are right, that's not currently possible. I will add a method for this in the next version. Thanks!
     
    Last edited: Oct 8, 2013
  35. jerotas

    jerotas

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    I take it you know the location you want to trigger sounds from because your manager knows where the game object "making" the sound is. If that's the case, I can add an "Owner" property to the PlaySound custom action and you'll be able to set it (running in the FSM in your manager) to the game object that's supposed to be making the sound (as a variable), and Master Audio will use the location of that game object to make the sound.

    Will that work for you? It's an easy change and I can post the custom action here in the forum if so.
     
  36. jerotas

    jerotas

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    muppetpuppet, I've added the "Owner" property to the Play Sound custom action, and it now works so you can point to which Game Object to use the location of. Here's the updated file.

    View attachment $MasterAudioPlaySound.zip

    Let me know if that does the job for you. I believe it will!
     
  37. TomasSala-Falconeer

    TomasSala-Falconeer

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    Woow,, thats some lightning fast support, But that's exactly what I need, thanks.. many endorsements and incomes from assets stores to you good Sir,
     
  38. jerotas

    jerotas

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    No problem, let me know if you find anything else "missing" or cool to add. My to do list is currently empty.
     
  39. tr4npt

    tr4npt

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    Is it possible to override the global retrigger percentage for a particular group? The default value is fine for most of my sounds, but there is one group (gun fire) that needs a very short retrigger percentage.

    Maybe you can just change the "Never Interrupt Clips" into a retrigger percentage slider.
     
  40. jerotas

    jerotas

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    V 2.8.2 is approved and live on the Asset Store. Dynamic Sound Group Creator now is very full-featured to support different Sound Groups in each scene while maintaining a static Playlist Controller.
     
  41. jerotas

    jerotas

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    Actually, I just submitted that change! V 2.8.3 is pending Asset Store review. Changes are:

    - Added "Owner" field to PlaySound custom action.
    - Removed Retrigger Percentage from Master Audio prefab.
    - Added Retrigger Percentage to each Sound Group's Inspector for that Sound Group only. Removed "never interrupt" setting as this is more flexible.

    So again I have zero items in my to do list. Any wild or simple ideas? I've been known to do both!
     
  42. jerotas

    jerotas

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    Super fast! V 2.8.3 is live.
     
  43. EpiKnightz

    EpiKnightz

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    Will the free version be updated soon? I'm planning to use your asset but the "Breaking change" in the new version put me off.
     
  44. jerotas

    jerotas

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    Not likely, I just did an update for the free version very recently. Don't worry, this breaking change only requires about 2 minutes max of rework when getting the update, and only if you've configured ducking sounds. Actually you will likely have to rebuild your Master Audio setup from scratch if you upgrade to the paid version anyway, because the full version includes source code and the free does not.

    The breaking change shouldn't affect you enough to worry about. I would encourage you to check out the free version if you haven't already.
     
  45. nilton_felicio

    nilton_felicio

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    What is the difference of the free version to the Pro version? Besides of course the source code, which would benefit all, Pro version? I'm very interested in buying, so please enlighten me.
     
  46. jerotas

    jerotas

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    Nilton, the free version has no source code and also only allows up to 6 Sound Groups. When you add the seventh, the free version will quit working and tell you to upgrade. It is for evaluation purposes only. Definitely good for trying it out and seeing if you like the UI and workflow (which I venture to say is the best of all Unity audio plugins - it took a few revisions to get there for there). Pretty much no game could be made with less than 6 Sound Groups. Other than that, the free version has all features of the full version, including Playmaker Custom Actions, with the exception of the last couple updates which are not in there.

    I hope that helps!
     
  47. nilton_felicio

    nilton_felicio

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    Thank you for the quick response. I'll need for my project. And support for Playmaker has much to me. It has many assets in the store that would sell more if they support Playmaker. Not everyone is a super programmer. I'll be your customer. I will buy your product. T +
     
  48. jerotas

    jerotas

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    Awesome nilton! There are 31 Playmaker custom actions included. I'm sure this will save you a lot of time. If you come across anything you need that isn't there already, go ahead and post in this thread and I will take care of it!
     
  49. benthroop

    benthroop

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    Hi Brian. I just found this tonight as I was looking through the forum. I apologize for the inaccurate review and appreciate your measured response. When I first downloaded Master Audio I recall seeing a bit in the docs saying that attaching sounds to moving objects was one thing that wasn't implemented yet and I guess I let that form my initial 3-star opinion of the toolkit. As I grabbed updates, though I was looking for it, I didn't see that you had already added support for this feature. My mistake!

    I've deleted my review and updated my rating to 5 stars.
     
  50. jerotas

    jerotas

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    Ah, thank you Ben and welcome to the Master Audio forum! If you see anything you'd like improved or clarification on how to use the plugin, that's what we are here for.

    -Brian