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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
Microphones
Specifies the microphone objects to use. One channel is created per microphone.
Sound Sources
Specifies the sound objects to use.
Meters Per Unit
Length of 1 world unit, in meters.
Speed of Sound
The speed of sound of the environment, in meters per second (default speed is for air).
Effects
Enable Distance Delay
Enables delays over long distances, as well as the doppler effect (realistic if on).
Distance Volume Loss
Method for calculating volume loss over distance.
None
Distance does not diminish sound.
Realistic Distance Dropoff
Natural volume dropoff (1/d^2)
.
Distance/Volume Lookup Table
Determine from the lookup table connected to the first input.
10m Volume Loss
How much volume is decreased after traveling 10 meters (.4=40% decrease).
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.
Use Microphone Filters
Enables or disables all microphone filters.
Check For Obstacles
Turns on the algorithm for obstacle occlusion.
Obstacles
Add geometry objects as an obstacles. The sound material for these object must be defined. The geometry detail should be low.
Collision Detection
Specifies the collision detection algorithm.
Object Bounding Box
Uses the bounding box of the entire object as the collision object (very fast).
Primitive Bounding Box
Uses a bounding box per primitive. Good for objects that consist of separate geometries.
Object Geometry
Uses the actual geometry as the collision object (slowest & most accurate).
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
Echo Method
Computes static or dynamic environmental echoes.
Number of Echoes
The number of echoes to compute.
Echo Delay
The time between echoes.
Echo Volume
Adjusts the volume of all echoes.
Dynamic Echo Effect
Percentage longer that echoes take to arrive than the initial sound (.5 = 50% longer)
Channel
Compute Full Animation Range
Compute using the full animation range, otherwise use the start/end parameters.
Preroll
The amount computed before the start of the interval.
Object Sample Rate
The rate that object are sampled at.
Audio Sample Rate
The sample rate of the audio produced.
Common
Some of these parameters may not be available on all CHOP nodes.
Scope
To determine which channels get affected, some CHOPs have a scope string. Patterns can be used in the scope, for example *
(match all), and ?
(match single character).
The following are examples of possible channel name matching options:
chan2
Matches a single channel name.
chan3 tx ty tz
Matches four channel names, separated by spaces.
chan*
Matches each channel that starts with chan
.
*foot*
Matches each channel that has foot
in it.
t?
The ?
matches a single character. t?
matches two-character channels starting with t.
r[xyz]
Matches channels rx
, ry
and rz
.
blend[3-7:2]
Matches number ranges giving blend3
, blend5
, and blend7
.
blend[2-3,5,13]
Matches channels blend2
, blend3
, blend5
, blend13
.
t[xyz]
[xyz]
matches three characters, giving channels tx
, ty
and tz
.
Sample Rate Match
The Sample Rate Match Options handle cases where multiple input CHOPs’ sample rates are different.
Resample At First Input’s Rate
Use rate of first input to resample others.
Resample At Maximum Rate
Resample to highest sample rate.
Resample At Minimum Rate
Resample to the lowest sample rate.
Error if Rates Differ
Does not accept conflicting sample rates.
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.
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.
Unload
Causes the memory consumed by a CHOP to be released after it is cooked and the data passed to the next CHOP.
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 geo1:tx
, and the prefix was /obj
, the channel would be exported to /obj/geo1/tx
.
Note
You can leave the Export Prefix blank, but then your CHOP track names need to be absolute paths, such as obj:geo1:tx
.
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.
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.
See also |