Hi,
Now that Studio is no longer in the developer preview stage (I assume this means that it’s at/almost at feature parity with Designer), I ran an importer test on a current fdp of mine to see how well the import process works. I’d like to switch a couple projects over to Studio ASAP, but some enhancements to the importer would help streamline that process for me. Here’s some feedback on the importer, based on my novice knowledge level of Studio:
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2 Reverbs sends are being added to my events (1 pre fader and 1 post fader). I’m guessing that these belong to the event properties (i.e. ‘Reverb Wet Level’ or ‘Reverb Dry Level’)? Will setting these to -60 eliminate the sends during the import?
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The ‘Reverb’ portion of the ‘Occlusion’ effect is getting discarded. I had originally thought that one of the above mentioned reverb sends was for the Occlusion reverb, but I don’t believe it is because I also get those two sends on events without Occlusion. I’m also not sure how Reverb presets/emitters will work in Studio.
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The ‘Direct’ portion of the ‘Occlusion’ effect is getting reduced to just volume automation. I’m not sure what the plan is for the LowPass filter part of the Occlusion effect or the ‘3D Auto Distance Filtering’. Is this being replaced by adding an EQ to each layer of a positional event or, if that’s too CPU heavy, will there be something analogous to Occlusion added? It would be great to have the filtering part of the Occlusion/3D Auto Distance Filtering effects brought over during the import process. Perhaps a prompt could be added to ask the user if they want Occlusion to include LP filtering (and HP filtering, if that’s going to be added), since I assume some games may not want to use the LP/HP filtering.
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I occasionally have events that basically contain two timeline parameters. E.g. one timeline to handle modulation/automation of a looping sound, and the other to handle a sustain point and keyoff automation for that same looping sound. I’m not sure how to go about doing this in Studio without setting a velocity on a 2nd parameter (i.e. turning it into a 2nd timeline). Is it going to be possible to set a velocity on non-timeline parameters, or is there a different way to accomplish what I’m describing? I’m thinking that maybe I can put the above mentioned looping sound in an Event module (nested within the primary event) and use that module’s timeline to modulate/automate the sustained loop, and then set up the sustain point & keyoff automation in the primary event’s timeline?
As a side note, when our game code tries to keyoff an event, it does so on a parameter that I arbitrarily call ‘Key’. I suppose we
can just have the code do this on ‘Timeline’ instead of ‘Key’, but I’m not sure how this will work when it needs to keyoff in an Event module.
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For surround events, I often have one or more layers that cover just the front channels (and sometimes I add some centre channel to the front layer) and one or more layers that cover just the rear channels. I use Designer’s ‘Speaker Level’ effect to assign each layer to the front, back, center or LFE. Studio is importing those layers as stereo and discarding the ‘Speaker Level’ data/automation. Is a similar Speaker Level effect in the pipe? If not, is it possible to have Studio import this data in some way? E.g. if the automation is just a flat line (one point), set the layer to use the surround panner, and deactivate any surround channels that are set to a Speaker Level value of 0. Beyond that I’ll have to figure something out for layers that have Speaker Level settings that are somewhere in between 0 and 1 (or use multiple points for the automation), unless you guys know a good way to deal with that automatically?
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I use the ‘Surround Pan’ in Designer to automate front/back and left/right panning sweeps. This data is discarded during the import. Can this data be translated to use the automation features of Studio’s surround panner?
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Can ‘trigger delays’ in sound definitions be brought over to their corresponding modules?
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Can sound definitions that have spawn times above a certain value be imported as sound scatterers? I figure that very low spawn times, such as 1ms, are likely to be indicative of granular synthesis, and those sound definitions should be imported as multi sound modules and setup for granular synthesis. If automating this isn’t practical, maybe implement a prompt to let the user decide what sort of module to assign each sound definition to? It may also be handy to be able to be able to switch a Multi sound module to a Scatterer (and vice versa).
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The import of the ‘Priority’ setting for an event seems to be inverted. In Designer, lower values represent higher priority, but the importer seems to have this backwards (e.g. a Designer event with a priority of 100 gets a Studio priority of ‘Low’, instead of ‘High’.
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Additional volume effects/automation on a layer get discarded. Are there still plans to add a volume/gain effect, so that you can stack multiple volumes/gains on the same layer? I often use one volume effect for modulation and the other to set the overall volume of the layer. Studio is only retaining one of the two volume effects. It would be great if Studio could import this. If adding a volume/gain effect isn’t practical, could the importer take secondary volume effects that are just one point of automation data (flat lines) and place them on a new parameter (that the importer auto generates)?
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FMOD Lowpass effect automation is discarded. I assume this can be mapped to Studio’s ‘FMOD Lowpass’? Highpass is being imported fine.
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My Tremolo effect automation was discarded from the Distance parameter. If the Tremolo effect is the same in Studio, I assume this can be carried over?
That’s all for now. Let me know if you need clarification on any of this or would like my fdp.
Thanks,
Sean