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Advanced Settings Tab - Music Objects

The Advanced Settings tab for music objects located in the Interactive Music Hierarchy contains a series of controls that allow you to define the advanced playback behaviors of your music objects. You can define the number of instances that can be played simultaneously per game object, specify the playback priority of each sound object, and determine whether the music will continue to play, will be killed, or will move into the virtual voice list when its volume falls below the volume threshold.

General

Interface Element

Description

Inclusion

Determines whether the element is included or excluded. When selected, the element is included. When unselected, the element is not included. By default, this applies across all platforms. Use the Link indicator (to the left of the check box) to determine or to set platform-specific customizations.

When this option is unselected, the property and behavior options in the Property Editor become unavailable.

Name

The name of the object.

Notes

Any additional information about the object properties.

Controls the Mute and Solo states for the object and shows the implicit mute and solo states for the object.

Muting an object silences this object for the current monitoring session. Soloing an object silences all the other objects in the project except this one.

A bold M or S indicates that the Mute or Solo state has been explicitly set for the object. A non-bold M or S with faded color indicates that the object's Mute or Solo state was implicitly set from another object's state.

Muting an object implicitly mutes the descendant objects.

Soloing an object implicitly mutes the sibling objects and implicitly solos the descendant and ancestor objects.

[Tip] Tip

Hold the Ctrl key while clicking a solo button to exclusively solo the object for which the solo button is associated.

[Note] Note

Mute and Solo are designed to be used for monitoring purposes only and are not persisted in the project or stored in the SoundBanks.

Advanced Settings

Interface Element

Description

Playback Limit

Ignore parent

Determines if the current object and its children are considered part of the parent's playback limit (unchecked) or defined at this level (checked). If the object is a top-level object, this option is unavailable.

Limit sound instances to:

The number of sound or motion instances within the same hierarchical structure that can play simultaneously. This limit applies to the selected list option:

  • Per game object: Each game object, within this node of the hierarchy, individually.

  • Globally: All game objects, within this node of the hierarchy, combined.

When limit is reached:

Determines what happens when the playback limit is reached. You can select one of the following options:

  • Kill voice for lowest priority: Stops playing instance with the lowest priority. When an object is killed, a small fade out of a few milliseconds is performed.

  • Use virtual voice settings for lowest priority: Sets the sound with the lowest priority to adopt its virtual voice behavior. Refer to the Virtual voice behavior section in this table.

    Keep in mind that each entity can override its own behavior so that the virtual behavior of a sound can still be to discard the sound or to continue to play.

When priority is equal:

Determines what happens when the playback limit is reached and there is more than one object with the lowest priority. You can select one of the following options:

  • Discard oldest instance to discard the oldest playing instance with the lowest priority.

  • Discard newest instance to discard the newest playing instance with the lowest priority.

Virtual voice

Override parent

Determines whether the virtual voice settings will be inherited from the parent or defined at the current level in the hierarchy. When this option is not selected, the virtual voice controls are unavailable.

If the object is a top-level object, this option is unavailable.

Virtual voice behavior

Determines the behavior of objects when their volume falls below the volume threshold or when their number goes over the playback limit. You can select one of the following options:

  • Continue to play to continue playing the object even though it will no longer be heard.

  • Kill voice to stop playing the object. No fade out is applied with this option.

  • Send to virtual voice to send the object to the virtual voice list. When an object is sent to the virtual voice list, certain parameters of the object are monitored by the sound engine, but no processing for audio or motion occurs.

  • Kill if finite else virtual to stop playing the object if it's not looping infinitely or, if it is, to send the object to the virtual voice list. For this option, the On return to physical voice behavior is automatically set to Play from elapsed time, regardless of the displayed behavior defined at a parent level.

On return to physical voice

[Note] Note

These options are only available if the Send to virtual voice option is enabled.

Determines the behavior of objects that move from the virtual voice list back to the physical voice.

You can select one of the following options:

  • Play from beginning to play the object from its beginning. This option resets the object's loop count.

  • Play from elapsed time to continue playing the object as if it had never stopped playing. This option is not sample accurate, so sounds returning to the physical voice may be out of sync with other sounds playing.

  • Resume to pause the object when it moves from the physical voice to the virtual voice list and then resume playback when it moves back to the physical voice.

Playback Priority

Override parent

Determines whether the playback priority will be inherited from the parent or defined at the current level in the hierarchy. When this option is not selected, the playback priority controls are unavailable.

If the object is a top-level object, this option is unavailable.

Priority

The importance given to the object in relation to other objects within the same actor-mixer structure.

This value determines which objects will be played when the playback limit has been reached.

Default value: 50 (for SFX), 100 (for Voice) Range: 1 to 100

Objects with a priority of 1 have the lowest priority, and those with a priority of 100 have the highest priority.

Offset priority by x at max distance

Specifies a value by which the priority of an object is offset when it reaches the max distance value specified in the Attenuation Editor.

When selected, an offset is applied to the priority of the object when it falls anywhere within the attenuation max distance value. The amount of offset applied will depend on the object's relative position to the listener.

When this option is not selected, the distance from the listener does not affect the priority of an object.

The priority offset is not applied to 2D objects.


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