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

Porting our game to Switch and noticing that PlaySoundAtVolume function is relatively expensive when used. Noticing that the Dictionary GetItem and Contains item is a decent part of the cost, wondering if there would be any gain to be able to play sounds with a int hash instead of a string, as with animators and shader properties?

 

I'm not sure how we would do an int hash given that they all have string names (Sound Groups). That could lead to weird bugs. Dictionary is the most efficient algorithm to use here.

 

Would probably involve caching their names to int hashes on start and doing hash compare instead of string compare. Then when calling to play a sound you would send the int hash (that was cached on start) instead of the string. Very much how Unity does it with the Animator system where you can set variables to the animators with both string and int hash.

Basically MasterAudio would turn the sound group names into int hashes on startup and users would play sounds with int hashes that matches. Shaders and Animators work with both string and int hash, int hashes are more a pain to work with but way more performant.

Example for how animators work and the performance gain from comparing int hashes vs strings.
https://forum.unity.com/threads/animator-dont-use-setbool-string-name-with-string-parameter.406286/

 

It's not something I'm keen to do, thanks for the explanation though.

If you wanted to try and see what the performance difference would be through your own work, I'll take a look. We haven't heard of this even through our numerous AAA clients using Master Audio.

 

Yeah I get that, just a suggestion as alternative functions to the string functions. Might be worth a try to see how much of a performance difference it is.

 

Yes. I mean I've been through performance profiling many times on Master Audio, and it's pretty performant *on my computer*. We've eliminated all allocations possible that we know of.

I'll put it on the roadmap. Thanks.

 

Yeah on a PC this isn't a problem. Or any decent platform for that matter. I'm porting to Switch however which is basically a glorified Ti-82 calculator.

 

Haha, wow. Takes me back to high school in '91.

Thinking about it, I'm really not sure how we would do this. The thing is, users' scripts already have the Sound Group name, and not some int, when asking Master Audio to play sounds. Without that changing (and it really can't), I'm not seeing how we can obtain the correct int mapped to the string.

 

I haven't checked how it's serialized but you couldn't generate a int hash for all sound groups on Master Audio startup? And you can't convert it for everyone automatically, that is true, but you could generate the hash on start and have it as a alternative function to the regular PlaySound(string) as a PlaySound(int). Then users could chose to use the int hash function if they require the extra cpu performance.

That's how both Shader and Animators have it. Both string and int functions are available.

 

It wouldn't work for EventSounds, which does 95% of the work for most projects. It only knows the names of Sound Groups - it also requires to ability to specify the name of a Sound Group not currently in the Scene (for Dynamic Sound Group Creators to work). It would have no way to know the number of an as yet uncreated Sound Group. And I definitely am not going to have it work 2 ways. I don't think it's feasible unfortunately.

 

Ah yeah then I understand. I see the problem. Well as you said it wouldn't be a huge performance boost anyway. Was just a thought while profiling.

 

Cool, let me know if you see anything else.

 

Hi @jerotas,

Using MA 2022 -> just a heads up, I might have messed up but I don't see how as I deleted all Master Audio folders and re-imported the asset to test.

The master audio prefab was empty like a script error and when trying to add the Master Audio script to a game object it was telling me "it's an editor script"

I figured out after some troubleshooting that your MAScripts Assembly was wrongly set as an editor script (see screenshot)

I tried again deleting all Master Audio folders. Re-imported: Working. Then imported the ASMDEF package: Not working again because the runtime assembly is marked as Editor only.

Can you check on your side if that's the case? not a big deal now that I know

 

Sure, let me know which of the 4 asmdef packages you installed please. Is that the one without addressables and without Core Gamekit?

MA_asmdefs?

 

Oh sorry you're right I forgot that. It's the basic one yes, not one with any integration

 

Ok I'll be fixing it for the next update, thanks.

 

There is a Unity Event, "On Damage Taken ()," on a Damage Receiver object on my character controller. Can I use it to trigger the one time playing of an audio clip that resides in Assets?

 

If you set up the audio clip in a Sound Group in Master Audio, you could write a 1-liner to play the Sound Group with the Master Audio API.

Does that answer your question?

-B

 

Sort of... My issue is that the Damage Receiver event loses its connection to the sound clip (in assets), when the Player dies. So I was thinking that if I set up the audio clip in a Sound Group on my player, I could use the event to call the clip in the sound group, which would continue to be connected after respawn, because the sound group is a component on my Player, (unlike the original clip in the assets). Make sense? Is the sound group a component that can be on my Player Character?

 

Unity Event connections to components on the character controller, itself, survive death/respawn.

 

No. That problem is precisely why audio middleware exists - one of the major reasons anyway. You won't have an audio anything on your player, definitely not a clip. Your Sound Groups exists outside of any "actor" in the Scene, they are their own thing. Your player will just tell Master Audio what Sound Group to play and who/what the actor is (your player).

 

So I created a sound group, but I can't see a simple way to play it. I slotted the group into the OnDamageTaken() event on my player damage receiver which makes various functions available, but no Play(). I can get it working if I use your Event Sounds script and collider OnEnter(), but the sounds are inconsistent, due to the variety of NPCs and their colliders. I really need to fire the damage grunts from the Damage Receiver, if we can do that.

 

I'm not even sure what you're attempting to do here from your description. You won't be able to use EventSounds since OnDamageTaken is not a stand MonoBehaviour event and we have no hooks in there for it.

Do this:
Add a public string for the Sound Group name in your script, decorated with the Sound Group attribute so it will have a dropdown in the Inspector.

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. [SoundGroup]
3. public string SoundGroup;
4.  

Then, on your OnDamageTaken method you can play it, with the standard Master Audio API call.

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. MasterAudio.PlaySound3DFollowTransformAndForget(SoundGroup, this.transform);
3.  

 

Flash sale on Master Audio 2022 today only! 70% discount at only $24 for the full version! Grab it now (or more licenses if you need them).

 

@jerotas -is there by chance, a 2021 v. 2022 feature comparison or (an any level, aka: in depth or overview) feature listing for each package ?
I'm having trouble finding anything of this type and I've been jumping around trying to piece this together on my own.
Thx

P.S. Also, what does "All new for 2022" actually mean ? Did you do a full rewrite of the systems ?

 

There's no full rewrite. The part that's all new for 2022 is just the ability to loop a section of a song, plus the dozens of bug fixes.

As far as a comparison of the other products, well:

1) We removed the Multiplayer version from the Asset Store. Free upgrade to MA 2022 will be available for users of that package indefinitely.
2) Master Audio 2021 will be removed from the Asset Store in about a week. Upgrade to MA 2022 will be available to users of that package indefinitely for $20.

Really, the intention is not to keep selling the old version(s) as bug fixes and more are only done in the newest version.

Thanks,
-Brian

 

Thank you for the clarifications Brian. I appreciate your time.

 

Of course!

 

I understand what you are advising, but I can't get the script right. If you help me, I will pay, or I could buy another seat for one of your assets. Here is the script:

using UnityEngine;

namespace NullSave.TOCK.Stats
{
[HierarchyIcon("damage", false)]

public class DamageReceiver : MonoBehaviour
{

#region Variables

[SoundGroup]
public string SoundGroup;

public DamageRecieved onTakeDamage;

#endregion

#region Properties

public StatsCog StatsParent { get; set; }

#endregion

#region Public Methods

public virtual float TakeDamage(DamageDealer damageDealer, GameObject damageSourceObject) { onTakeDamage?.Invoke(damageDealer, damageSourceObject); return 0; }

#endregion

 

No need. Here, I believe what you want to do is this:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. public virtual float TakeDamage(DamageDealer damageDealer, GameObject damageSourceObject) {
3.        onTakeDamage?.Invoke(damageDealer, damageSourceObject);
4.        
5.        MasterAudio.PlaySound3DFollowTransformAndForget(SoundGroup, this.transform);
6.  
7.        return 0;
8. }
9.  
10.  

 

Do I need a using Master Audio or something at the top?

 

Yes, using DarkTonic.MasterAudio;

 

I don't get a dropdown?

 

Even with no MasterAudio game object in your Scene, you'd still get a dropdown with 2 options: [Type In] and [None].

 

I have Master Audio in my scene, and unfortunately, the MA_Player Control (Script) provides no Sound Group slots. They just aren't there.

What if we forget the drop down, and I hard code the sound group name into the function? I have the Master Audio and a sound group GruntsPlayer correctly setup in the scene. What's the script line to play the group? I tried swapping "GruntsPlayer" in place of "SoundGroup" in the line you provided, but that did not work.

 

It doesn't have to be that script, that's just where I added the following:

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. [SoundGroup] public string SoundGroup;
3. [/code
4.  
5. The SoundGroup attribute becomes a dropdown in the Inspector.

 

I tried exporting the demo scene from the latest Master Audio 2022 asset to WEBGL but getting a bunch of errors when Unity webgl player is initialized in the browser.

Unity 2021.3 LTS windows 10

Can you confirm that this asset works correctly for WEBGL?

Cheers

 

I just installed WebGL for the newest Unity, did "build and run" and the example Scenes seem to work fine. Did you try Build and Run?

 

Does Master Audio 2022 currently work with Unity's first party networking solution (Unity Netcode for GameObjects, formally MLAPI)?

If not, is there a plan to produce a "MAM_UnityNetcode" file?

Thanks!

 

No. Last I heard, that's not a full networking solution. Further things need to be built on top of it to be a full network solution. If my info is out of date, let me know.

 

Thanks for getting back to me on this.
Unity Netcode for GameObject is indeed a full networking solution - it is very similar to Mirror and UNET and it has become a lot more stable since version 1.0.0 got released.

 

Ok. Does it have RPC's? If so, it may be fairly easy to adapt. Also, do we know popular it is compared to Photon and the like?

 

Master Audio 2021 package is now deprecated and removed from the asset store. There will be no further updates, although upgrades will be available indefinitely to Master Audio 2022. Currently that upgrade price is $20.

-Brian

 

https://docs-multiplayer.unity3d.com/netcode/current/advanced-topics/messaging-system

Essentially you need to call RPCs from a NetworkBehaviour script sitting on an object that also has a NetworkObject component and then they look like this for Server/Client respectively

[ServerRPC]
void ExampleServerRpc() {} // needs to end with ServerRPC

[ClientRPC]
void ExampleClientRpc() {} // needs to end with ClientRPC

Re popularity: it's hard to say, 1300 are on the Discord server and in the last 2 updates Unity featured quite a few studios working with it or updating their UNET games to Unity Netcode for GameObjects. I expect it to grow quite a bit when it becomes built-in for 2022 LTS.

 

Thanks, I ask about the popularity because this is basically the 3rd multiplayer system we've been asked to support in the last month. Also FishNet and Photon Fusion. And we need to prioritize them in order of popularity.

-B

 

I figured: I can probably help you a bit with the addition of Unity's Netcode for GameObjects.

FishNet is basically a better Mirror and it has a built-in converter to help convert existing Mirror projects to FishNet so that should help.

 

Sure, any assistance you can provide would be wonderful.

 

I'll work on a first quick and dirty version this week.

On another note: I just replaced a bunch of SFX triggers done with my own system with their MasterAudio equivalents and I'm seeing quite a bit of lag between the button being clicked and the SFX playing. Any idea how I can improve that?

 

There is no latency unless you're deploying to Android. We even warm the code with a silent play of a sound effect during startup.

So, can't reproduce over here.

If it's compressed audio, that's a no-no, but that wouldn't be working faster with your code either.

You'd need to send me a specific example scene for me to dig in.
-B

 

I just tried switching Audio Origin to "Clip" instead of "Addressable" and I don't get the above-mentioned delay.

These are the settings on my sound effects: