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Creating Events

Every object in your game is driven by an Event. The Event creation process involves the following steps:

To give you additional control and flexibility, Events can either perform one Action or a series of Actions. The management of Events is done using the Event Editor.

When authoring across platforms, you may want to exclude certain Actions from a specific platform. By default all Actions are included in an Event, but you can customize this per platform. For more information on authoring across platforms, refer to Excluding project elements from a platform.

If you are working as part of a team on the same project, you can assign the Events to different Work Units so that each member of the team can work on different Events simultaneously. For more information on working with Work Units, refer to Dividing your project into Work Units.

Creating a new Event

When creating a new Event, you can do any one of the following:

  • Create an empty Event that includes no Actions or targets.

  • Create an Event that includes a particular Action.

  • Create an Event that includes both an Action and a target.

[Tip]Tip

You can also create Events by right-clicking in the Event Viewer. When adding Events from the Event Viewer, you must also assign the Event to a particular Work Unit.

To create an empty Event:

  1. In the Project Explorer, switch to the Events tab.

  2. Do one of the following:

    • Select a Work Unit or Virtual Folder and click the Event icon in the Project Explorer toolbar.

    • Right-click the Work Unit or Virtual Folder and select New Child > Empty Event from the shortcut menu.

    A new Event is created within the Work Unit or Virtual Folder you selected in the Project Explorer.

  3. Replace the default name with one that best represents the Event.

    [Note]Note

    Event names can contain only unaccented Roman letters, numbers, and underscores. They must also start with either a letter or underscore.

To create an Event with an Action:

  1. In the Project Explorer, switch to the Events tab.

  2. Right-click the Work Unit or Virtual Folder to which you want to add the Event.

  3. From the shortcut menu, select New Child to display the Event Action list.

  4. From the Action list, select an Action category or an Action. (In the former case, a submenu with a series of Actions is displayed; select one.)

    A new Event that includes the Action you selected is created within the Work Unit you selected in the Project Explorer.

  5. Replace the default name with one that best represents the Event.

    [Note]Note

    Event names can contain only unaccented Roman letters, numbers, and underscores. They must also start with either a letter or underscore.

To create an Event or Events that include both an Action and target:

  1. From the Audio tab in the Project Explorer, select one or more targets that you want to include in the Event and then right-click the selection.

    A shortcut menu is displayed.

  2. Select one of the following options:

    • New Event to create an Event that includes the selected object.

    • New Events (One Event per object) to create one Event for each object selected.

    • New Event (Single Event for all objects) to create one Event that includes all the selected objects.

  3. From the Action list, select an Action category or an Action. (In the former case, a submenu with a series of Actions is displayed; select one.)

    One or more Events are created in the Event Editor with the selected Action and object(s).

  4. In the Name field, replace the default name with one that best represents the Event.

    [Note]Note

    Event names can contain only unaccented Roman letters, numbers, and underscores. They must also start with either a letter or underscore.

Adding Actions to an Event

You must define the Actions that you want to be included in your Events. Each Event can contain one or several Actions.

To add an Action to an Event:

  1. In the Event Editor, click the Add >> button.

    A list of Actions is displayed.

  2. From the Action list, select an Action or an Action category. (In the former case, a submenu with a series of Actions is displayed; select one.)

    The Action you select is added to the Event.

    You can now assign a target to the Event Action or continue to add Actions to the Event.

There are a few other ways to add Actions to an Event, such as:

  • Dragging one or more elements from the Project Explorer to the empty space in the Event Editor's Event Actions pane. This will result in an Action appropriate for the element, but you are free to change it.

  • Selecting the New Action option from the shortcut menu, when it is opened from the empty space in the Event Editor's Event Actions pane. This will present the same options as clicking the Add >> button, as described in the "To add an Action to an Event" list above.

  • Copying and pasting one or multiple Actions at a time using the standard Copy and Paste shortcuts or shortcut menu options.

Assigning targets to Event Actions

Most Event Actions must be assigned to a particular object, structure, or game sync. Events that contain one or more Actions without an associated target are called orphaned Events. These orphaned Events will appear in the Orphans tab of the Event Viewer. They also appear when you generate an integrity report for your project.

To help you identify the status of objects within an Event, the object name will appear in one of the following colors:

  • White - For included objects. (In the current platform.)

  • Gray - For unincluded objects. (In the current platform.)

  • Red - For Event Actions that are missing an associated object or objects that are missing from the current project.

  • Yellow - For objects that are currently unloaded from the current project.

[Note]Note

When assigning a music object to certain Actions, such as Trigger, Set Switch, and Set State, be aware that the result of these Actions may be delayed due to pre-defined points in the music object where these specific Actions can occur.

To assign a target to an Event Action:

  1. In the Event Editor, select the Action for which you want to assign a target.

  2. Click Browse.

    The Project Explorer - Browser is displayed.

  3. Navigate through the hierarchy and select the object that you want to assign to the Action.

  4. Click OK.

    The object is assigned to the Action.

[Tip]Tip

You can also assign an object to an Event Action by dragging it from the Project Explorer to the Action in the Event Actions list.

Defining the Scope of Event Actions

When creating an Event, you must define the Scope for each Action. The Scope specifies the extent to which the Action is applied to objects within the game. The Scope can either be applied globally to all game objects or the specific game object that triggered the Event. For some Actions, you can choose the Scope; for other Actions, the Scope is predetermined.

For example, let's say you created an Event for when the player leaves the game to enter the menu. This Event will play the “Enter_Menu” sound, pause all the sounds related to the player, and set the State to “Menu.” In turn, the "Menu" State is set to decrease the volume of the Master Audio Bus by 20 dB, but to increase the volume of the "Music" Audio Bus by 20 dB.

The scope for each of these Event Actions would be as follows:

Event Action

Scope

Comments

Play > Menu_Enter

Game Object

The scope is set to Game Object because Play Events are always triggered by a single game object.

Pause All

Global or Game Object

The Game Object that would call the Event in our scenario would be the player. Pausing the sounds related to the player would remove any annoying distraction while going through the menu. So, although it would be possible to specify a Global Scope, a Game Object Scope would in this situation allow the player to still hear the other sounds in the game.

Set State > Menu

Global

The scope for a Set State is always Global because it applies the State wherever it is found in the project. In our scenario, we have a "Menu" State set up on the Master Audio Bus and our "Music" Audio Bus. The former has its volume decreased, and the latter increased.

[Note]Note

This example is intended to illustrate Scope, not the best audio design choices. In reality, if both busses are mixing, there could be a very short delay in the application of the volume changes, which would likely result in some variety of click or buzz. Moreover, the maintenance of a constant volume for the "Music" Audio Bus would not be certain if it had any linear Effects. In that case, however, we could also use a Bypass Effect Action.


To define the Scope of an Event:

  1. From the Scope list, select one of the following options:

    • Game object to apply the Event Action to the game object that triggered the Event.

    • Global to apply the Event Action to all game objects.

Setting properties for Event Actions

Each Event Action has a set of related properties that you can use to further refine your game's sound, music, and motion.

Each Action contains different properties, but they all fall into one of the following categories:

  • Delays

  • Transitions

  • Bypass effect properties

  • Volume, Pitch, LPF, Game Parameter, Seek, State, or Switch settings.

[Note]Note

When setting the delay properties of certain Event Actions, such as Trigger, Set State, and Set Switch, that involve a music object, be aware that the actual delay may be longer than the one specified due to pre-defined points in the music object where these specific Actions can occur.

For a complete description of each of the Action properties, refer to the Event Actions List.

To set the Action properties of an Event:

  1. In the Event Editor, select an Action from the Event Actions pane.

    The properties associated with the selected Action are displayed in the Action Properties pane (to the right).

  2. Specify the values, as desired, for the associated properties.

Playing back Events

At any point in the creation process, you can audition an event.

[Note]Note

To audition motion, the corresponding motion device must be connected to your workstation.

To play back an Event:

  1. Do one of the following:

    • Select an Event in the Event Viewer.

    • Load an Event into the Event Editor.

    The Event is loaded into the Transport Control.

  2. Click the Play icon in the Transport Control.

    The Event is played back.

[Note]Note

You can also play back Events using the Soundcaster. For more information on using the Soundcaster, refer to Auditioning in the Soundcaster.

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