Sorry if this has been asked before, new to FMOD and I am trying to set up the music for the game. I have the trigger quantization set up for all of my music tracks and everything is triggering the way I want it to (based off of Intensity values that I have set). However, I notice that if I change the intensity value to be outside the range of a track’s conditions, it will completely stop playing and there will be silence until the new bar is reached (quantization is set to 1 bar in this example). Is there a way to delay the stopping of the track until the bar is reached, so there is no silence between tracks? Thanks
Unfortunately, I don’t have enough detail about your event to have a clear picture of how it’s set up. What sound modules or logic markers have you applied quantization to? And is this ‘intensity’ a parameter, or are you using snapshot intensity?
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So basically my music track is set up so that there is a main loop that plays over and over, with multiple percussion tracks under that loop. I then created my own parameter, Intensity, to trigger the playback of certain percussion sounds (ex. once the intensity value reaches 2, the light percussion sound plays; once it reaches 4, the heavy percussion sound plays, etc). I also have the percussion sounds quantized so they start at a new bar, therefore always in sync.
So the idea is that the main loop will play the entire time, and once the main character gets to a certain point of the game, the intensity level will then change from 1 to 2 and the percussion track will accompany the loop. Once the character gets further, the intensity value rises again and then the heavier percussion track will take over (starting at the next bar). However, I noticed that if the intensity value/parameter changes in the middle of the bar (ex. changes from 2 to 3) then the light percussion track will immediately stop playing and the heavier percussion track will start at the next bar, but this leaves a gap (ex. if the value changed on the 3rd beat of bar 24, then there are 2 beats of “silence” until the next percussion sound triggers at bar 25).
So using that last example, how can I have the percussion sound continue playing through bar 24 and then have the next start at bar 25, so that way there is no gap in the sound?
There is currently no way to quantize the stopping of a sound module at this time. I’ve added this to our feature/improvement tracker, so it’ll be discussed and potentially scheduled at our next quarterly roadmap meeting.
As an alternative, you could make use of FMOD Studio’s transition markers, positioning them such that transitions only occur on bars. This will a,low you to ensure that you have no awkward silences. (If you do this, I recommend against adding transition timelines to your transition markers; Transition timelines are a powerful tool, but probably not necessary in this case.)
If you would prefer not to use transitions or are not in a position to restructure your event, a possible alternative would be to add AHDSR modulators with long release times to the volume properties of your percussion sound modules? That would ensure that they fade out when their parameter conditions cease to be true, allowing you to avoid the sudden silence.
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Thank you for your answer! It would be nice to have the feature added in, from a musical standpoint…
I will try the AHDSR idea and see how that works. Unless I am not thinking correctly, I’m not sure if the transition markers idea will work the way I want it too, however, I will experiment with that as well. Thanks again!
Follow-up: I made it work with Transition Regions, thanks for that suggestion! Everything is operating perfectly as I wanted it.
One suggestion though: I know you guys have a “snap to grid” function implemented, but could you possibly let us set the value it snaps to? (ex. only snap to a bar or major beat) My first pass at the Transition Regions wasn’t working, and I realized it was because I thought my regions were snapping to the bar, however they were snapping to micro-beats just right before and after the bar, causing it to not operate correctly. I had to zoom in until the beats were displaying decimal values as well (32, 32.1, 32.2, etc.) in order to make sure it was snapping right on the bar. Thanks!
Currently, ‘snap to grid’ snaps to the visible ruler notches, and the visible ruler notches change depending on your zoom level, so you shouldn’t need to zoom in in order to check what your modules have snapped to. Could you please send us a screenshot of your event editor window after snapping a trigger region to an invisible beat marker? It might help us diagnose this issue.
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