Hello all. I am extremely new to FMOD, and I have been instructed to make two snapshots that are called Normal and Underwater. In the underwater snapshot, there is a lowpass filter that makes it sound, well, underwater, and there’s nothing in the normal snapshot except 0s on all the gains. I’m in the event editor, and sometimes when I play the event, the sound sounds underwater despite me clicking normal in the snapshot menu. Obviously, if I apply a snapshot instrument, it will sound like the corresponding snapshot for the duration of that instrument. However, immediately afterwards, it will revert back to the underwater snapshot which it considers to be “active”. Clicking a different snapshot in the mixer view does not seem to do anything. It still sounds underwater even though I clicked normal. Can anyone help?
I may have fixed it-- I clicked the play button on the snapshot. But still kinda weird.
Nope, weird stuff is still happening. When I put a snapshot instrument down, it doesn’t seem to do anything.
To address a point of confusion, neither of the snapshots is active by default. Snapshots are treated like events: They’re instance-able, and the default number of playing instances of each snapshot is zero.
Triggering a snapshot instrument creates and plays an instance of the associated snapshot, in exactly the same way that triggering an event instrument creates and plays an instance of the associated event.
When instances of multiple different snapshots that affect the same properties are playing, the top-most snapshot in the snapshots browser is the one that takes priority. (This is a simplification, but is correct for many simple cases.)
I reccomend reading our documentation on snapshots to learn more about them. That being said, the problem you’re experiencing is something more fundamental.
Snapshots can only adjust property values; they cannot add new effects to the project. The lowpass effect you added is therefore just part of your project’s mix; if you look at it in the mixer window, you’ll see it is present regardless of which snapshot you have selected.
The “underwater” snapshot is being started and stopped correctly, but does not have the effect on your mix that you want it to have.
If you want the lowpass effect to only affect your mix when the “underwater” snapshot is playing, there are a few possible ways to do that.
If you’re using version 2.03.00 or later, the easiest is to right-click on the lowpass effect and select “Enable Wet/Dry.” This will cause the effect’s wet/dry control to appear. Set this property to “all dry” in the baseline mix, then scope it into your “underwater” snapshot and set it to “all wet.”
If you’re using an earlier version of FMOD Studio, the easiest option is to set the lopass filer’s cutoff to a value where it has no discernible effect on the baseline mix, then to scope it into the underwater snapshot and set it to the value you want it to have.
Either way, you do not need the “Normal” snapshot, and can safely delete it. If you want normal behaviour, just stop all instances of snapshots that are playing, and your game will revert to its baseline mix.