Expose panning strength parameters #58841

ellenhp · 2022-03-06T17:24:02Z

Exposes tightness/panning strength as a project setting and as properties on the 2d and 3d audio player nodes.

Bugsquad edit: Follow-up to #58823 (can be merged independently). This closes godotengine/godot-proposals#3384 and closes #42358 by superseding it.

scene/2d/audio_stream_player_2d.cpp

scene/3d/audio_stream_player_3d.cpp

Calinou · 2022-03-06T21:21:36Z

Testing project for 3D: test_audio_panning_strength.zip

I think setting Panning Strength to 0.5 by default would be optimal for headphone users (albeit still a little on the strong side, but not nearly as much as 1.0). Maybe the default project settings' values should be halved. It should still provide intense enough panning for speaker users.

Fun fact: Negative values can be set via script, which reverse the stereo panning effect entirely. This can't be done through the inspector due to the range hint.

ellenhp · 2022-04-03T14:53:20Z

Did we ever get to a resolution on how to properly cache a project setting for fast access every frame? Invalidating the cache gets very tricky.

ellenhp · 2022-04-03T15:44:42Z

I just updated the settings to require restart, which is a bummer but not the end of the world. If we want to pursue the caching route someone else might have to tackle it because ProjectSettings is confusing me. :)

@Calinou you seemed to have some opinions on this PR. Did I resolve everything?

Calinou · 2022-04-15T19:33:06Z

doc/classes/ProjectSettings.xml

@@ -304,6 +304,12 @@
 		<member name="audio/driver/output_latency.web" type="int" setter="" getter="" default="50">
 			Safer override for [member audio/driver/output_latency] in the Web platform, to avoid audio issues especially on mobile devices.
 		</member>
+		<member name="audio/general/2d_panning_strength" type="float" setter="" getter="" default="0.5">
+			The strength of the panning effect for AudioStreamPlayer2D nodes.


This project setting doesn't seem to be read when it's changed at run-time, so the effective global panning strength can't be changed at run-time (changes will be ignored). This should be done to make forcing non-positional audio output easier for accessibility. This is not critical for a first iteration of this feature, but in this case, the limitation should be documented in the property description.

See #53296 (review) which added a project_settings_changed signal in 3.x for reference (it's also available in master).

I set it up as a property that requires restart, because I couldn't figure out how to do runtime cache invalidation for project setting caches. The accessibility use-case can be addressed with the use of the Stereo Enhance effect as discussed in #58823

I'll address the rest of these in a bit!

You can use project_settings_changed signal for cache invalidation.

Calinou · 2022-04-15T19:33:15Z

doc/classes/ProjectSettings.xml

+			The strength of the panning effect for AudioStreamPlayer2D nodes.
+		</member>
+		<member name="audio/general/3d_panning_strength" type="float" setter="" getter="" default="2.0">
+			The strength of the panning effect for AudioStreamPlayer3D nodes.


Same remark as above for this project setting.

I think I'd prefer to leave this as-is for now. If we decide that we need to have this update in real-time we can come back and make that change later. It won't break compat so I'm not too worried. Especially considering that we have Stereo Enhancer. Let me know if you'd like me to build in the cache invalidation now though!

Calinou · 2022-04-15T19:36:51Z

core/config/project_settings.cpp

@@ -1207,6 +1207,8 @@ ProjectSettings::ProjectSettings() {
 	GLOBAL_DEF("application/config/project_settings_override", "");
 	GLOBAL_DEF_BASIC("audio/buses/default_bus_layout", "res://default_bus_layout.tres");
 	custom_prop_info["audio/buses/default_bus_layout"] = PropertyInfo(Variant::STRING, "audio/buses/default_bus_layout", PROPERTY_HINT_FILE, "*.tres");
+	GLOBAL_DEF_RST("audio/general/3d_panning_strength", 2.0f);


Property range hints should be added with custom_prop_info[] (as done above) to specify a valid range for the setting.

I suggest allowing values between 0.0 and 4.0 and with a step of 0.01 (same for 2D and 3D).

I'm tweaking the ranges a bit. It's an advanced setting so I'm fine having it be a broad range with a fine adjustment step. Let me know if you're completely sure the ranges should be the same. The defaults are different so it would feel strange to me to have them adjustable over the same range.

Is there a reason the 2D and 3D defaults are different? I find the 2D default pretty good, and I'd like the 3D default to be the same in 4.0. The current 3D default feels way too strong to me. Halving the value in the testing project gives me a good result on headphones, but I haven't tested it on speakers.

Over the years, I've seen a lot of complaints about 3D audio panning strength being too strong in Godot, and many of those complaints are likely coming from speaker users.

The 2D and 3D values control fundamentally different values. I'm exposing the tightness parameter in SPCAP, and then just a scalar for panning in 2D. They're not comparable values, so I don't know how to make them the same.

If we want to normalize the default values for each in ProjectSettings to 1.0 or something we could just hardcode a scalar into the places where these settings are used. Also I think I mentioned in another PR but I'm travelling right now so I'm not in a good position to pick a good default. I don't think I have access to headphones for at least another few days.

If we want to normalize the default values for each in ProjectSettings to 1.0 or something we could just hardcode a scalar into the places where these settings are used.

Sounds good to me 🙂

We can decide changing the actual default 3D panning intensity in another PR.

Cool, made a change to bake defaults into the nodes instead of into the project settings. I think you're right; it looks a bit cleaner that way.

Calinou · 2022-04-15T19:51:30Z

I tested both 2D and 3D functionality rebased on latest master and it works as expected.

Updated testing project (with 2D and 3D test scenes): test_audio_panning_strength_updated.zip

scene/2d/audio_stream_player_2d.h

ellenhp · 2022-06-10T19:39:51Z

What's the status on this PR? Is it blocked on me or does Reduz need to look at it? It would be an enormous win for users IMO because the current stereo panning isn't great. Just want to make sure it doesn't get lost.

scene/2d/audio_stream_player_2d.cpp

doc/classes/AudioStreamPlayer2D.xml

doc/classes/ProjectSettings.xml

akien-mga · 2022-06-11T09:10:42Z

What's the status on this PR? Is it blocked on me or does Reduz need to look at it? It would be an enormous win for users IMO because the current stereo panning isn't great. Just want to make sure it doesn't get lost.

I had this comment pending a resolution: https://github.com/godotengine/godot/pull/58841/files/0be393fcf225eb8197a38b4f6afd1ceed1a787b6#diff-425ab30a63dbbf819f27d912b74dd7cfc929681b8cf68037216b96a607ebb801

And I added a couple more.

Otherwise a quick check from @reduz would have been nice but since it's not happening, I think we can merge.

akien-mga

Looks good to me, aside from a couple nitpicks.

akien-mga · 2022-06-17T11:09:10Z

I force pushed an update to resolve my review comments.

ellenhp · 2022-06-17T15:26:33Z

I force pushed an update to resolve my review comments.

Thank you! I'm on vacation right now and in general I've been very focused on another project so I didn't get to this.

akien-mga · 2022-06-17T16:37:07Z

Thanks!

ellenhp requested review from a team as code owners March 6, 2022 17:24

ellenhp added enhancement topic:audio labels Mar 6, 2022

Calinou added this to the 4.0 milestone Mar 6, 2022

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Calinou mentioned this pull request Mar 7, 2022

Add down-mixer audio effect #58823

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ellenhp force-pushed the expose_tightness branch from 1479e6b to 6ac8b09 Compare April 3, 2022 15:43

ellenhp requested a review from a team as a code owner April 3, 2022 15:43

ellenhp mentioned this pull request Apr 10, 2022

Create a Resource type for audio spatialization models godotengine/godot-proposals#4377

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ellenhp force-pushed the expose_tightness branch 3 times, most recently from 8662dcf to 0be393f Compare April 17, 2022 23:40

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akien-mga approved these changes Jun 11, 2022

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akien-mga mentioned this pull request Jun 11, 2022

Add a Tightness parameter to AudioStreamPlayer3D #42358

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akien-mga added the cherrypick:3.x Considered for cherry-picking into a future 3.x release label Jun 11, 2022

akien-mga force-pushed the expose_tightness branch from 0be393f to c95d06f Compare June 17, 2022 11:08

Audio: Expose 2D/3D panning strength parameters

d384d84

akien-mga force-pushed the expose_tightness branch from c95d06f to d384d84 Compare June 17, 2022 11:08

akien-mga merged commit d2be541 into godotengine:master Jun 17, 2022

This was referenced Jun 17, 2022

Add a property to adjust spatial stereo panning on AudioStreamPlayer2D and AudioStreamPlayer3D godotengine/godot-proposals#3384

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Backport panning strength parameters to 3.x godotengine/godot-proposals#4692

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Calinou mentioned this pull request Aug 7, 2022

Decrease default AudioStreamPlayer2D/3D panning strength #64077

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marcinn mentioned this pull request Aug 18, 2022

[3.x] Backport panning strength parameters from 4.0 #64579

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KoBeWi removed the cherrypick:3.x Considered for cherry-picking into a future 3.x release label Aug 18, 2022

Calinou mentioned this pull request Sep 9, 2022

Add an AudioServer property to force mono audio playback godotengine/godot-proposals#4159

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Expose panning strength parameters #58841

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Expose panning strength parameters #58841

Expose panning strength parameters #58841

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