Spatial Audio
channel node
The rendering engine for producing 3D audio.
See also: Acoustic, Sound, Microphone
The Spatial Audio CHOP is the rendering engine for producing 3D audio. It uses the Sound and Microphone objects to define positional sources and microphones, Geometry objects to define obstructions and Acoustic CHOPs to define sound materials and audio filters.
The first input is an optional lookup table for the volume dropoff over distance. This is required if the Distance Volume Loss parameter is set to Distance/Volume Lookup Table. The second input is an optional 'Environment Filter' which describes how the environment affects the frequencies of sound traveling through it (used with the Distance Volume Loss parameter).
Parameters
Environment
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Microphones |
Specifies the microphone objects to use. One channel is created per microphone. |
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Sound Sources |
Specifies the sound objects to use. |
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Meters Per Unit |
Length of 1 world unit, in meters. |
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Speed of Sound |
The speed of sound of the environment, in meters per second (default speed is for air). |
Effects
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Enable Distance Delay |
Enables delays over long distances, as well as the doppler effect (realistic if on). |
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Distance Volume Loss |
Method for calculating volume loss over distance.
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10m Volume Loss |
How much volume is decreased after traveling 10 meters (.4=40% decrease). |
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Volume Lookup Range |
The range of the distance lookup table; (10,100) means that the table describes how the volume behaves from 10-100 meters. |
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Use Microphone Filters |
Enables or disables all microphone filters. |
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Check For Obstacles |
Turns on the algorithm for obstacle occlusion. |
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Obstacles |
Add geometry objects as an obstacles. The sound material for these object must be defined. The geometry detail should be low. |
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Collision Detection |
Specifies the collision detection algorithm.
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Obstacle Softness |
If an object is between a microphone and a sound source, this parameter determines how abruptly the cutoff is (0 = abrupt, 1 = smooth). |
Echo
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Echo Method |
Computes static or dynamic environmental echoes. |
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Number of Echoes |
The number of echoes to compute. |
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Echo Delay |
The time between echoes. |
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Echo Volume |
Adjusts the volume of all echoes. |
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Dynamic Echo Effect |
Percentage longer that echoes take to arrive than the initial sound (.5 = 50% longer) |
Channel
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Compute Full Animation Range |
Compute using the full animation range, otherwise use the start/end parameters. |
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Preroll |
The amount computed before the start of the interval. |
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Object Sample Rate |
The rate that object are sampled at. |
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Audio Sample Rate |
The sample rate of the audio produced. |
Common
Some of these parameters may not be avaiable on all CHOP nodes.
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Scope |
To determine which channels get affected, some CHOPs have a scope string. Patterns can be used in the scope, for example The following are examples of possible channel name matching options:
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Sample Rate Match |
The Sample Rate Match Options handle cases where multiple input CHOPs’ sample rates are different.
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Units |
The units for which time parameters are specified. For example, you can specify the amount of time a lag should last for in seconds (default), frames (at the Houdini FPS), or samples (in the CHOP’s sample rate). Note
When you change the Units parameter, it does not convert the existing parameters to the new units. |
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Time Slice |
Time Slicing is a feature which boosts cooking performance and reduces memory usage. Traditionally, CHOPs calculate the channel over its entire frame range. If the channel does need to be evaluated every frame, then cooking the entire range of the channel is unnecessary. It is more efficient to calculate only the fraction of the channel that is needed. This fraction is known as a Time Slice. |
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Unload |
Causes the memory consumed by a CHOP to be released after it is cooked and the data passed to the next CHOP. |
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Export Prefix |
The Export prefix is prepended to CHOP channel names to determine where to export to. For example, if the CHOP channel was named Note
You can leave the Export Prefix blank, but then your CHOP track names need to be absolute paths, such as |
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Graph Color |
Every CHOP has this option. Each CHOP gets a default color assigned for display in the Graph port, but you can override the color in the Common page under Graph Color. There are 36 RGB color combinations in the Palette. |
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Graph Color Step |
When the graph displays the animation curves and a CHOP has two or more channels, this defines the difference in color from one channel to the next, giving a rainbow spectrum of colors. |
Usages in other examples
| Example name | Example for |
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