Panning listeners

FMOD Engine
1

Hi all you FMOD wizards!

I have a question regarding multiple listeners. We’re making a 2 player couch co-op game where all the action takes place on one screen, and while a singel listener setup in the middle does work, i thought it would be more interesting to have certain sounds be placed more to the right or left in the stereofield according to the side of the sofa the player will be sitting on.

In my mind the overall sound-design will be heard from the listener in the middle but certain 3D sound close to the player sitting on the left of the sofa would be panned more to the left (even though their player might be to the right of the screen). I’m not even sure that this system would work conceptually but i want to have a go and test it out if at all possible.

So i think my question is, can you pan the output of one listener to one side while still calculating 3D spatial, in essens make the stereofield smaller by cutting off one side?

Thanks in advance
André

2

Unfortunately it isn’t possible to pan individual listeners in the way that you are hoping for. Listeners don’t have individual “outputs” that it mix together but each listener has 3D attributes that it sums together (with listener weights if needs be) with all the other listeners to calculate how much panning and attenuation is needed.

There is a way to get the outcome you are thinking of, but it does involve creating two separate FMOD systems that sync up the same events, etc, and pan each listener how you wish. This does, however, double the amount of resources required and syncing between the two systems is not easy.