Ambience - A visual sound creation tool by Sawhorse [PREVIEW RELEASE]

[eXo0ne (d0nut)]

NOTE: This is a preview release! Report bugs/feedback to:

ambience-feedback@sawhorsela.com

TL;DR:
Ambience speeds up the placement and testing of SFX in Studio!

Ambience

Ambience is a Studio Plugin that makes creating sounds more intuitive with a visualization of their maximum range, roll-off properties, placement, RollOffMode sound curves, and more.

Get Ambience

FEATURES:

• Insert and move your sounds as 3D workspace models
• Visually modify sound properties and behavior
• Tune your sounds in real-time in Run mode
• Manage all sounds from a single window panel
• Create randomized stinger collections

What is the difference between a Stinger Player and a Sound Player?

A Sound Player is a wrapper for a regular Sound instance that visually allows you to manipulate its properties and positioning. These sounds are meant to loop, ideal for any constant sound emitting from an object/area.

Stingers in sound design are “super short snippets of sounds, often lasting no more than 5 seconds.” A Stinger Player is a wrapper for a collection of stingers that will be played at random within the white source’s volume.

Current Limitations

It is possible to set up sounds to be cloned for other objects, but the initial focus is for looping/randomly playing environmental sounds.

Stingers Player only supports playing stingers at random positions within a spherical volume.

How to use

VolumetricAudio must be 'Enabled' in your experience.

Creating a Sound Player

• Method one
  • In the Ambience panel, type or input a sound AssetId in the text box at the bottom
  • Click on the blue Create button next to the text box
• Method two
  • Click (select) a sound instance from the Explorer panel
  • Verify the AssetId populates on the Ambience panel text box
  • Click on the blue Create button next to the text box

Manipulating the sound object

• Sphere handles
  • White resizes the source
  • Pink resizes the RollOffMinDistance visualizer part
  • Blue resizes the Max Distance the sound can reach
• Arrow handles
  • Moves sound position in 3D space
  • Follows current studio Local Space setting
• Arc handles
  • Rotates the sound source
  • Mostly useful for non-Ball shaped sounds (Block & Cylinder)
• Moving sound to mouse position
  • Hold the ‘G’ key to move to mouse position

Previewing/Testing sounds

1. Ambience MUST be opened in the Edit environment
2. Click on Run to start the game
3. Open the Ambience plugin
4. Fly around to preview, create and edit any sounds
5. Deselect sound/click elsewhere in the world
6. Click Save button on the top of the Ambience panel
7. Stop the game to go back to Edit mode
8. Once again, Save to merge your changes to the game

These sounds live in ReplicatedStorage and are audible in-game from there.

Video References

Creating a Sound Player

Select a loaded sound instance from the explorer or type in a sound AssetId.
Ambience for Roblox Studio | Creating a Sound Player - YouTube

Creating a Stinger Player

Select loaded sound instances from the explorer or type in sound AssetIds, separated by a comma.
Ambience for Roblox Studio | Creating a Stinger Player - YouTube

Main panel controls

Show/hide outer visual sections, duplicate, or delete.
Ambience for Roblox Studio | Main Panel Controls - YouTube

Manipulating sound object

Drag to change sound properties visually.
Ambience for Roblox Studio | Manipulating Sound Object - YouTube

Changing properties

Interact with the properties panel to change properties.
Ambience for Roblox Studio | Changing Properties - YouTube

Tooltips

Hover over certain frames to display tooltips.
Ambience for Roblox Studio | Tooltips - YouTube

Previewing/testing sounds

With Ambience either open or closed in Edit mode, Run or Play the place. Fly or walk around to hear the sounds. Open Ambience to instantly edit sound properties.
Ambience for Roblox Studio | Previewing & Testing Sounds - YouTube

Saving sounds

Saving a sound from the Run environment will save to the local Edit environment. Saving from the Edit environment will merge with the game’s sounds.
Ambience for Roblox Studio | Saving Changes - YouTube

CREDITS:

Programmed by @eXo0ne

Additional Support from:
@FriendlyBiscuit
@ChiefWildin
@Stratiz
@unroot
@Octonions
@TactBacon
@Refactor
@skeliphant
@rib3ye

ABOUT SAWHORSE

We are a full-service interactive studio based in Studio City, CA. Our family of awesome in-house directors, producers, programmers, and artists work together seamlessly to create innovative and disruptive multi-platform content.

We are makers of:
• Alo Sanctuary
• Tommy Play
• Stranger Things Immersive Watch Party
• Fashion Klossette by Karlie Kloss
• Elton John Presents ‘Beyond The Yellow Brick Road’

Website: https://sawhorsela.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Sawhorse_Productions/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SawhorseLA

Reel: SH Interactive | Spring 2023 Sizzle - YouTube

[skeliphant]

Ambience by Sawhorse is great for sound design. It’s user-friendly, lets you edit sounds in real-time, and has cool features like the Stinger Player. Definitely worth trying if you want to improve your project’s audio.

[FriendlyBiscuit (Eric)]

10/10, would play boop sound again.

[ailsens (Ails)]

One of the most useful plugins in my opinion, previously I had to go and test it right in the game, in the studio, and now I can fully and in detail regulate it in the studio.
A very good plugin, I wouldn’t even be sorry to give robux for it, but it’s even free.

[SpectroDragon (Stro)]

Very useful plugin! I’m experimenting with it right now and i’m honestly baffled at the things i’m seeing, half the stuff this plugin allows me to configure I didn’t even know was possible!

One minor issue though, for a fun project I’ve been working on there is a nuke that will be heard for ~1000 studs and I tested to see if I could use this plugin to optimize it. Though the plugin really struggles when you have sounds that have a large radius. Anything above 400 already lags my machine, and something like 1000 really makes it unbearable. Of course, cases of sounds with this radius are a minority, but it’s still something to consider.

Something that allows me to view all sounds in the world with a BillboardGui (Similar to Light editor) would also be nice.

I’m gonna follow this because i’ll definitely be using it! Keep up the great work!

[Dede_4242]

Hello, this is very impressive, good work!

One suggestion:
Could there be a way to make it so when you’re at a certain distance from the sound source the sound will be heard with an offset? Like in real life

[eXo0ne (d0nut)]

I appreciate the feedback so far

@SpectroDragon

Though the plugin really struggles when you have sounds that have a large radius

This is due to the RollOff visualizer graph. I’ll definitely optimize it soon, but in the meantime, you can disable the RollOff Visualizer setting on the panel when editing a sound.

@Dede_4242

Could there be a way to make it so when you’re at a certain distance from the sound source the sound will be heard with an offset?

If I understand correctly, this is currently out of the scope of this plugin (we’ll definitely consider it in the future!). In code, you can always get a clone of the already-setup sound in ReplicatedStorage to use and play whenever you’d like.

In the future, I’ll add functionality to simply edit a selected sound instance instead of adding it to the environment.

[Dede_4242]

@eXo0ne

If I understand correctly, this is out of the scope of this plugin. In code, you can always get a clone of the already-setup sound in ReplicatedStorage to use and play whenever you’d like.

Okay, understandable (also just thought it’s pretty easy, just make the radius higher over time)

I wanted to add an idea here but I forgot (-_-)

[SubtotalAnt8185]

This is a great resource. I do have a suggestion though:

Will there be some sort of automatic reverb zones?