I still use the old audio system, but I was contemplating moving to the new system since it’s much more versatile. However, I found that a big pain point in the transition is that I can’t preview the audios without connecting them to some sort of device output first.
It would be great to have the audio default to raw audio output if it’s not connected to anything.
Hey @VegetationBush – we’ve discussed this within the team and probably need to make some adjustments to the preview widget. The current behavior previews the AudioPlayer exactly as it would play in-world – but we definitely need another option that just bypasses all of that and renders directly to your speakers
It would be as easy as having the same preview button for Sounds, but when pressed, internally connects itself to the user’s Output instance. Or maybe it’s not that easy, but it’s what I would do
I can see use cases for both
Do you think it’d make sense to add an extra button to toggle back & forth?
The best UX from this behavior you can make is indeed a switch. One preview button, one “switch” button. 2 modes: composited and, well, default? I’ll let the names up to you, but this would be a better approach than 2 preview buttons (one for each mode).
Or ofcourse you can make a dropdown ordered by effects so you can hear the sound at any wire, that way you can an incremental knowledge of how effects are applied on it
Both options would be nice. But, I think I should mention this one edge case:
One audio player can output to as many wires as required, so there are instances where there can be multiple paths of effects that affect how the audio is played.
I’m not sure how this would be remedied, but my solution would be something like this.
Only one extra property is added, and it would be an object value called “TailEffect”. This is a studio-only property that determines the endpoint of the effects. If:
… then play the audio along the first connected output pin.
This way, there wouldn’t need to be another preview button, and only one property is added.
It would make sense if there was a built-in plugin that allowed you to preview the audio being streamed through any node. It would have the ability to activate source nodes like AudioPlayer and then “listen in” on any node as part of some graph visual.
Perhaps you would have to select a source node for the visual graph of all connected nodes to appear.
The plugin idea also lets you easily bypass any node if wanted which can be nice.
i don’t know about runtime, but this use case i’m suggesting is for Studio, as of right now you have to connect every single audio player in storage to an output so you can review them easily.
which is extremely annoying and bothersome, even with saved commands you have to run the command every time a new audio has been added to the collection.
the solution could be very easy without adding more bloat to the properties tab.
on preview (Studio), check for the last output node and see if it is connected to an output. if it is, then do the default behaviour. if not, then connect it to a temporary one made specifically so the preview can be played and reviewed in Studio.
this way, if an audio player has no output node connected to it, it would play normally, and if it does, then there are no changes needed, eliminating both issues in one strike.
i love the new audio system but this flaw has been pretty annoying and has been a massive time sink.
