Quick(er) way to copy automation curves to multiple events?

[EdGray]

I’m working on a 3d adventure game where the camera sometimes hangs back a fair bit from the character. This means that some environmental noises get v loud when they’re just behind the camera yet a long way from the char.

The solution I found was to automate the event volume with the direction parameter - seems to be working great so far.

The only issue is I’m now staring down the barrel of having to apply this same automation curve to a lot of events - a fair few of which have already have automation on their volume parameter so I can’t just paste this new automation over the top.

Is there a way to ‘append’ paste properties from the clipboard? If not, might that be a feature request? It could be useful also in other situations to copy the automation/properties from one thing and add it to another without overwriting what’s already there.

In the meantime is there a quicker solution than manually adding the automation to each event and pasting the curve in?

[jeff_fmod]

There are a few potential solutions here:

1. Rather than automating the event volume to make every sound quieter, you could pass the character’s position as the attenuationposition to your Studio::System::setListenerAttributes. With this, the listener on the camera will still be used for spatialization, but they will play at the volume the character would be able to hear them at.
2. Alternatively, if you were automating a Gain plugin instead of the event’s Fader, you could convert the automated gain plugin to a preset effect by right clicking on it and selecting Convert to preset
   
   You could then add the preset to your other events by right clicking in the deck and selecting Add Effect → Preset Effects → (Your preset)
   
3. To answer your actual question about appending automation curves without overwriting existing automation, you can add multiple automation curves to a property and their values will be combined.

[EdGray]

@jeff_fmod

Rather than automating the event volume to make every sound quieter, you could pass the character’s position as the attenuationposition to your Studio::System::setListenerAttributes. With this, the listener on the camera will still be used for spatialization, but they will play at the volume the character would be able to hear them at.

This is a very interesting idea and could work really nicely. I can just drag the player object to the Attenuation Object field in the Studio Listener to do this, right?

@jeff_fmod

Alternatively, if you were automating a Gain plugin instead of the event’s Fader, you could convert the automated gain plugin to a preset effect by right clicking on it and selecting Convert to preset
You could then add the preset to your other events by right clicking in the deck and selecting Add Effect → Preset Effects → (Your preset)

Nice, I can see this as a really useful alternative

@jeff_fmod

To answer your actual question about appending automation curves without overwriting existing automation, you can add multiple automation curves to a property and their values will be combined.

Hmm sorry if I didn’t explain myself well enough for this. Say I have a bunch of automation curves & modulations attached to Volume. I can Copy Property, and then paste that on a volume control on a different event to apply those same automations and modulations, right? But if there’s existing automations/modulations on that second event then they’ll be overwritten. I’m wondering if a useful feature would be to offer a way to append the properties without overwriting existing ones? Or perhaps even a little pop-up so you can select which properties you’d like to append?

[jeff_fmod]

@EdGray

I can just drag the player object to the Attenuation Object field in the Studio Listener to do this, right?

Correct! That should be all you need to do- I think this is the simplest option.

@EdGray

I’m wondering if a useful feature would be to offer a way to append the properties without overwriting existing ones? Or perhaps even a little pop-up so you can select which properties you’d like to append?

Okay, so more like pasting the individual nodes, wherever they may be, as opposed to doing a merge of the two curves?

[EdGray]

@jeff_fmod

Okay, so more like pasting the individual nodes, wherever they may be, as opposed to doing a merge of the two curves?

No a bit wider in scope (although that’s also a cool idea!)

Say we have two events Event A & Event B and their master volume has these properties:

Event A: Automation parameters A & B, & an LFO C
Event B: Automation parameters D & E, & a Sidechain F

I Copy & Paste Property from Event A to Event B. The current behaviour results in:

Event B now has: Automation A & B, & an LFO C

I’m proposing an ‘Append’ Properties option that would result in:

Event B now has: Automation A, B, D & E, and an LFO C, and a Sidechain F

And going a step further it might be useful to be able to choose which properties to apply when you append paste (e.g. include Automation A but not B).

[jeff_fmod]

Thanks for bearing with me, I can see what what you mean now, and I can certainly see how appending properties when pasting instead of overwriting them would be preferable.
I have passed this onto the Dev team for consideration. Thank you for the suggestion!