Audio Manager Progress Update

Audio Manager Progress Update

,

Hi all. Been a little while so I thought I’d just update y’all on where Audio Manager 3 is at and when to expect it at this point.


Is it nearly done? yes. The code is like 90-95% done. As normal the last 5% takes most of the time xD. I found a few bugs which took me a week or so to work out in the spare time I had recently. I think I’ve got them at this point. I also had to add in a new system for an inspector player for audio. Something I couldn’t really leave out of the initial release. A little sneak peak above (right). Its more flexible than the 2.x solution with the option to use mode edit modules from the inspector and choose as few or as many as you’d like to use.

I’ve got one more script to write for a music player inspector, but after that is done it is just a matter of sorting a few small demo projects, testing & finishing the documentation. The docs I have already started writing. I’m hoping it’ll be ready before 2024, but I’m annoyingly busy at the moment on the weekends where I can get the most done. So we’ll see if that happens….

Also new logo! All the assets have a new logo design as of this weekend. I’m slowly updating them everywhere as I get the time to do so and I’m not in a coding mood…. Audio Manager’s logo below:

That’s all for now xD

~ J,

An Update

An Update

, ,

An update on the whole Unity situation for Carter Games.


Just a quick post to update y’all on the whole Unity thingy. So as you’ll have likely seen by now they have announced they were reverting pretty much every change with the runtime fee thingy. The news is pretty good actually. Had they announced that to start with everyone would’ve liked it for the most part. Sadly they didn’t and the damage in trust is done. The fact that the original plan was what they though was good, despite their insiders from the community & staff supposedly warning them it wasn’t, just shows what matters to Unity as a company. Money & greed.

I’ve never been a fan of public companies & shareholders etc. Being a shareholder should mean taking the risk of paying out when a company is doing bad as well as getting some extra money when its doing well. Not just free money which it seems to be treated as today. I could rant about that for ages, but you get the idea.

As for Carter Games and its future developments. I’ll still be working in Unity for now with the assets I’ve made. Sadly other engines don’t quite have the things I like about Unity in them in quite as nicer setup. I’ve given both Unreal & Godot a go over the last few weeks. Godot certainly has promise, but its missing some key things for me currently. Those being a more in-depth inspector for exposing data classes, world space UI & some 3D bits that are early days. I do like the whole node setup though, that is nice. As for Unreal, looks good, but like 0 docs for C++ code which is a bit annoying. Blueprint is good and all, but I’d prefer to do the C++ a little if I went that route.

So future plans. I do plan to keep with Unity development stuff for now. So Audio Manager 3.x is still on the books to be released this year with an update to Leaderboard Manager sometime early next year. Next year is still in the air for what I’m doing, I do have some active side projects I want to finish as well as a game idea or two to flesh out and maybe prototype. But more specifics will be posted in the year in review post for this year. As for porting asset and stuff to other engines, some of them may be portable in a slightly different setup to Godot. But I’d need to do a lot more research. I’m also not sure I’d be able to make the same quality of asset automation in other engines, but we’ll see, it’s not totally off the table in the future. Audio Manager 3.x will likely be a bit delayed again…..I know, its a pain, but I want to get it right. That and it just takes time to develop, just like how games take a long time to make. I’ll keep y’all up to date on how that’s going.

That’s all for now xD

~ J,

Common Library

Common Library

, ,

A new release of my personal code library that I’ve been using in some assets and had public for a while.

What is this?

The common library contains a load of useful scripts for game development in Unity. Previously known as Scarlet Library. I’ve been adding to it as and when I found a feature I needed, wrote a solution for and found that I could use in other projects. Some bits are complete systems to aid with a specific problems while others are just helpers to save writing loads of lines of code. The library is a work in progress and will have some scripts not written fully occasionally in the code. But features are tested before they are added so it should be stable enough to use in projects.

Used in assets

I’ve been using some of this library in the asset store updates I’ve been making recently. You’ll notice the events system & serializable dictionary are in the latest Save Manager updates for example. I also use the same settings setup for storing the settings for the library as I do with assets.

Get the library

Only on GitHub: https://github.com/CarterGames/Common

Key elements

Some of the key features of the library so far include:

Data Setup
A setup that allows you to reference a scriptable object at runtime without a direct inspector reference. Handy if you are working with a lot of data. You just inherit from a base class that is just a standard scriptable object and your good to go.

Events System
A well used system that essentially just handles unsubscribing from a standard system action when you subscribe to it, helping to avoid over-subscription by mistake. The system also allow you to add identifies to anonymous listeners so you can remove them as well when needed if you don’t want to match the method params for the event etc.

Runtime Timers
A handy setup to let you run logic after some time. Can be used even in static classes without any issues. Handy if you can’t write a coroutine or just want some logic to run after a short pause.

Game Ticks
A handy optimisation feature that lets you run logic on update but not every frame. By listening to the tick instead you get updates every x frames instead of every frame. Helping with performance. You can use a global tick or instantiate instances for different systems.

Custom Time
Make instances of time, instead of using delta time for everything, you can set systems to use a custom time setup. Making things like pausing your game trivial without needed to pause the global timescale for everything and running into further issues due to that.

Random
A system to help generate random numbers, with options to choose a provided from Unity Random.Range, System Random and Alea PRNG.

Referencing
A handy helper setup to reference object in a scene or all scenes. Also comes with a CacheRef class to help making properties that are ensuring a reference is made if one isn’t already. Saving some typing.

Static Instancing
Love it or hate it, its handy to have some things static. You can have a class have a static reference without the whole class being static, use a base singleton class or run coroutines from a static instead generated at runtime.

Hierarchy Headers
A small editor tool to add header/separators to your hierarchy. These are really clean and easy to setup, making it easy to organize your hierarchy.

Panels
An easy way to have a popup in your game. Just inherit from panel and you’ll have ways to listen to when the panel is opened/closed and be able to track all open panels in your game.

And lots more!


There is a lot more to the library including extension methods galore, string formatting help and more. But if was to cover every script I’d be hear like all day writing this post. There is documentation some systems, but as this library is still in development, only some sections have links to documentation. When the library hits 1.x all setups will have docs, but its takes a while to write it so bare with as it gets written.

I am still working on Audio Manager 3.x as well. Currently testing to core logic as I refactored how it worked to accommodate different playing options for groups. I have also got some life admin to do over the next week or so as my car broke down… A bit stressful to deal with so I’ve been taking it easy the last week or so. But Still hoping to reach that end of September deadline if I can….

I’ll update you’ll soon on the progress of the Audio Manager update when I have more the share. Speak to y’all soon

J,

Quick Tools Update

Quick Tools Update

Hi all,

Just a quick update to let you all know that it is likely that the Audio Manager release will be delayed a tad. Currently its got a few major development hoops to get through and I’ve not had a massive amount of free time to work on the asset. I will try to avoid any massive delay, but I cannot grantee that it will be ready by the end of August at this time. At-least, not without cutting major features that were in the old 2.x version. I’ll update you all on any updates to a release window as and when, but its now likely to be in September instead of August.

Today I’ve been back-porting a fix to the asset indexing system, used in Save Manager & Build Versions currently. There was a bug with its initialization causing overriding assets to be generated when you already had them in the project. So you’d lose settings & data. This should now be resolved in 2.0.9 & 1.1.6 respectively which are both out on Git & Itch with the asset store early next week.

J,

Save Manager (2.0.9)


Github: https://github.com/CarterGames/SaveManager/releases/tag/2.0.9

Itchio: https://carter-games.itch.io/unity-asset-save-manager

Asset Store: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/utilities/save-manager-cg-176437

Build Versions (1.1.6)


Github: https://github.com/CarterGames/BuildVersions/releases/tag/1.1.6

Itchio: https://carter-games.itch.io/build-versions

Asset Store: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/version-control/build-versions-cg-205184

Audio Manager 3.x Progress

Audio Manager 3.x Progress

,

Its been a while since I updated you all on the progress so far. So far the progress has been good. So here’s how things are shaping up:

Library Editor

Library Tab

The main library tab of the library editor has had a few changes to it. The main layout hasn’t changed much since I last showed it, but there are some subtle changes.

  • Update clips struct button, lets you update the Clip.??? struct with the latest data. You can edit the keys for the clips in this version so the entries in the struct need updating often. This is one feature I’ve yet to work out a good way to automate. So for now it and any other struct will have manual updates with the exception of when a new clip is scanned where it will happen automatically.
  • Clip Dynamic time preview. I’ve managed to actually draw on the waveform the time currently set for the dynamic start time. This system still needs work to make it more user friendly, but visually its where I wanted it to be.
  • Hints, these are on each main button and can be toggled in the asset settings. They are just to aid with new users to help them understand what important buttons do.

Groups Tab

The groups tab has been updated with some extra buttons and has been fixed up. Previously editing any clip would only edit the last one in the list and there were some issues with keeping the data in sync with the library asset in the project. This tab has the same struct generation button which you’ll see in all the tabs and will update the Group.??? struct.

Mixer Tab

The mixer tab is legit just a button to update the Mixer.??? struct & a button to access the mixer in the project. I have attempted to add the inspector of the mixer to the tab. However it didn’t really play ball. So for now its just a link to the asset in the project with room to extended it down the line.

Music Tab

This is still in development as I’ve only just started the music side of the new version as of writing. So it has the music struct button for Track.??? but nothing else at the moment as I work out how its all going to work xD

Music Management

Like with the audio manager in 3.x, the music setup is going to work mostly if not entirely static. The idea is to allow for a modular setup with the option to transition between tracks. Setup layed tracks which you can sync & transition between as well as playlists etc. Still need to work out the particulars, but it should be good if it all comes out as planned. I may also have a component for use in scenes to set some of this up. But its likely to be mostly a code based solution this time around for the flexibility.


That’s about it for now, so far its on track for end of August, but we’ll see how I do over the next month or so. I’ll post another update when its near release.