itch.io

Hello,

Sorry, this message kinda duplicates the previous one. I thought it would be interesting to give a big picture about instructions and atmospheres.

Here's what it would be nice to have to be able to create beautiful ambiences (I'm sure many of these elements can be reused for live mixes):

1. Several instructions should be able to stack on top of each other. This would make it possible to compose moods on the fly (example: office building + people chattering + random thriller music).
For the moment, launching an instruction stops the previous one.

2. An instruction must be able to play several types of sound:

1. A sound that plays once and then stops <- implemented
   
2. A sound that plays once and then stops, but with a fixed or random delay (between min and max)  <- implemented
   
3. A sound that loops without delay <- implemented
   
4. A sound that loops, but with a fixed or random delay between each loop (between min and max) <- implemented, but a nested instruction is necessary

3. The sounds in an instruction must be playable:

1. Sequentially  <- implemented, but nested instructions don't loop
   
2. Simultaneously  <- implemented, but nested instructions don't loop
   
3. Randomly <- implemented, but nested instructions don't loop

4. An instruction must be able to read another nested instruction:

1. With or without delay  <- implemented
   
2. Looping or not

______________________

Here's an example of what can be achieved with these features:

I want to create an office atmosphere. I know in advance that I need two separate instructions:

1. An instruction for the ambience itself
   
2. An instruction that adds atmosphere and plot elements when needed.

1. Office ambient (all elements of the instruction are played simultaneously):

1. A sound that plays a typical empty office noise (white noise, fans, ringing telephones, etc.). Looping without delay.
   
2. Several printer and chair sounds played randomly and with a random delay between each track to add substance to the ambience.
   
3. A bell sound followed by an announcement played randomly and with a random delay. Note that this bell sound can be played at the same time as the rest of the other sounds, which is why it is not included in 2.
   
4. Road traffic sounds in the background for added realism. As for 2: randomly and with a random delay.

2. Atmosphere:

1. A continuous sound loop to add tension
   
2. Random sounds played with a random delay to add plot elements

At first, the office atmosphere is played. Then, as the scene becomes tense, atmosphere is added on top.

______________________

Not mentioning other SoundShow capabilities that are awesome. Like the fact that instructions can hold before going to the next step. Not really mandatory for ambients and atmos, but still very useful.
This post is first and foremost about minimum tooling to build ambients. A lot more can be said about that subject, but SoundShow is very close to make this possible.

Hello, here is another potential issue:

Given an instruction that plays sounds randomly in a loop (auto start: true, random: true, loops: 1000).

If this instruction is played, everything works correctly. The sounds (auto start: true) are played in a loop and in random order.

On the other hand, if this same instruction is played from another instruction (auto start: true, loops: 1000, Max instructions: 1000), then it never loops.
Once all sounds have been played, the nested instruction stops, regardless of the number of loops on the parent or child instructions.

EDIT: would be nice to have an “infinite” option rather than specifying a high value in the "loop" and "max instructions" fields. A button or maybe the value "-1"

Hello. There is a problem when exporting a library. If it contains an instruction with sounds and these sounds are not themselves included in the library (in the form of buttons), then when exporting the library, the instruction's sounds are not exported.

To reproduce :
- Import some sounds
- Create an instruction and import previous sounds into the instruction
- Delete the sounds (but keep the instruction)
- Everything works as expected, and it is now possible to execute the instruction that will play back the previously deleted sounds
- After exporting the library, the folder containing the audio files does not contain the deleted sounds