ICVTT Feature Poll: Audio Player Upgrade

icvtt

#1

Hey shields,

a while ago I released a prototype app for a 2-Channel-Mixer-App, that I use for my CoC-like table games.

Brief Recap: It allows play two tracks simultaneously and mix the volume balance between both (e.g. move from heavy rain into heavy rain + combat music of varying intensity/volume etc.).

Feature Poll: Do you like to see such a feature on ICVTT?

I’m brainstorming about that for some days now, but I’m not sure how the UI should look like. I don’t want to add a complex mixer UI overlay - a simple UI is still a key concept for our VTT. Also there won’t be support for playing more than two tracks at a time, it’s just about the basic idea of mixing two audio playbacks (e.g. train noises + rain).

My current concept is:

  • Keep the play/stop buttons on the channels (so the user experience won’t be broken too much). Clicking a second slot will add this to the playback.
  • Audio won’t be split into two playlists (as shown in the prototype), but can be selected from the current list of slots.
  • Show a balance fader somewhere when two tracks are playing. But I’m not sure about the spot. I don’t want to move this to the GM drawer, to let e.g. players be their GM’s “DJ” (greetings to @skuk btw)
  • Increasing the number of maximum tracks per game to 6 (previously 5).

Feel free to brainstorm, drop ideas. ICVTT is now a community effort, so feel free to drop your thoughts to improve our VTT together.

Cheers
glocke


#2

Before I say anything, excuse my ignorance. Is ICVTT RHVTT rebranded or something else? Can you provide some background here?


#3

It’s been rebranded and continued as a community effort. See RHVTT is transforming into ICVTT.


#4

Thanks, now I’m up to date (searched the forum for ICVTT posts and read them).

Music is useful, so is mixing them. I applaud your efforts.

My thoughts:

  1. Why are you limiting mixing to two tracks? Because of UI concerns? I’d say, if you have mixing capabilities, let people use them. Mixing multiple tracks results in more distinct sounds.
  2. Keeping play/stop and volume for each channel is required I think. This will make the track lists larger but if you want mixing, that is the way it’s going to be.
  3. Playlists are nice, but introduce complexity. I’m not sure about this one.
  4. Balance fader for volume? See 2) above (individual faders). If there will only ever be two tracks to mix, then it should be above or below where they are playing “together”.
  5. Max # of tracks: 5 or 6, not much of a difference but 6 makes sense if you only want to mix two tracks as 2-2-2.

I thought about this briefly and currently my design proposal would be "let people upload their tracks, and let them adjust the volumes of them individually, and let them mix ".


#5

Thank’s for your feedback!

About 1.
Yes, my main concern is the UI.
But also: mixing three or more sounds becomes a task it itself for the GM (especially since there is no synchronicity of playback, comparing different users). I’m also not sure about server performance when streaming multiple audio tracks, maybe @skippy can give us some “intel angency” :smiley: Having like 4 tracks played at a time, yields up to 40 MB downstream per user in that game. We’re not having a powerful, well-scaled or even distributed system here. Sure, everything could be optimized a bit more.
Lots of coulds and ifs, but maybe my thoughts are unjustified.

About 2. and 3.
I’m not going for playlists at all (the prototype did because of proof-of-concept and clunky design).

About 4:
I’m not sure about the layout.

  • A vertical slider (to balance between two tracks) looks just odd. What’s top? More of the second track?
  • A horizontal slider would lead to repositioning and -designing the music strip into a more horizontal design. Changing too many things at once doesn’t seem like a good idea - but the horizontal mode is probably more intuitive when introducing a balance slider.

glocke


#6

In light of your explanations, then limiting mixing to 2 tracks makes sense, and going for a horizontal design seems like the correct approach.

Tangential to this, where can we post feature requests?


#7

Tangential to this, where can we post feature requests?

Just let me know. There won’t be a specific spot for. Or make a forum post and we’ll see.