Dev Blog 3 - 01/17/2014

Successfully implemented an OGG solution for PC, working on applying the same type of solution to Android. Haven’t heard from FMod. Ronny, Sean & I are doing preliminary research and discussion on implementing a solution to detect BPM and frequency of the MP3/OGG files. The method AudioListener.GetSpectrumData() looks promising. I will likely have Sean and Ronny work on implementing that, depending on how soon I can finish runtime imports of MP3/OGG files for all 3 platforms.

Dev Blog 2 - 01/16/2014

After a lot of research on the Unity Forums and Unity Answers websites, I’ve learned a lot. First a foremost, I’ve learned that Unity doesn’t have a license to decode MP3 files for PC standalone builds, only for mobile iOS and Android. PC standalone builds can only take OGG, which is essentially a free version of MP3 (and it’s also just better, technically speaking) but not widely used. This makes things more difficult. I looked into a number of different solutions, all of which require money (not ideal). I could buy a Unity Pro license and write a Unity plug-in to convert an MP3 to OGG at runtime. I could buy an FMod Commercial license (an MP3 decoder) and use it to read and decode MP3 files for the PC platform. I could drop the PC platform entirely. I could drop the 2nd gameplay mode entirely. I could have the 2nd gameplay mode a mobile-exclusive feature. I could have the 2nd gameplay mode on mobile, and implement and OGG solution for PC and show PC users a little message saying “Hey sorry, but you’ll have to download Audacity, a free tool, and use it to convert your MP3 files to OGG to use this game mode”.

At the moment I am leaning towards implementing an OGG solution for PC and showing the apology message, or buying an FMod license. It’s $500 for a commercial license, free for non-commercial. I was given a tip by a fellow Unity developer - since Unity comes with FMod pre-packaged, and since I’m an indie developer, if I contact the nice people over at FMod I might get a license for cheap. I sent them an email, depending on the % discount I will be going with one of these 2 options. For now I’m working on an OGG solution.

Dev Blog 1 - 01/15/2014

Thus far the most difficult challenge has been finding a cross-platform solution to take player-provided MP3 files and working with them. So far I’ve implemented a file browser system and a way to download a given MP3 for Android using WWW. However, WWW is incompatible with Standalone Desktop PC builds, as well as iPhones. I am working with Sean and Ronny to come up think of a solution - it will likely have to be a multi-pronged process, each prong being platform specific.