The FMOD development guide now contains a link to the FMOD starter project generator.

If you want to make an aircraft that is FMOD enhanced, you must start with this starter project! If you already have an FMOD project, please copy the events into this new starter project.

When can an FMOD project be shared?

  • Use only one starter project for an entire family of .acf files that share an ACF folder. These ACF files will share the master bank in the FMOD folder, so you need one project for all aircraft. (Each aircraft gets its own .snd file in the FMOD folder.)
  • You must use a new starter project fore each aircraft in a new folder – you should never have a single project with banks copied into two different FMOD folders!

We are working on more documentation on how to use FMOD, but with the sample project, you have everything you need to create an FMOD-enhanced aircraft.

About Ben Supnik

Ben is a software engineer who works on X-Plane; he spends most of his days drinking coffee and swearing at the computer -- sometimes at the same time.

22 comments on “The FMOD Starter Template Is Available”

  1. Hi, Ben! Thanks to the team for making the starter FMOD projects available! Unfortunately, I’m not having any luck with the download link. I think the URL needs a little tweaking…
    It’s trying to download a 13.5KB file called “?project_type=fmod”. If I try to save the download as “MyAirplane.fspro”, the error is “MyAirplane.fspro could not be downloaded”.

    1. Hi Walker,

      I’m Tyler, the developer who set up the download of the FMOD starter project. I’ve sent you an email with the info I need from you in order to figure out why the download isn’t working for you.

  2. For anyone else who was having trouble getting the download working, give it a try now. You may need to refresh the docs page (using Control+R on Windows, or Cmd+R on Mac) a couple times to get the updated link, but after that, you should be good to go.

    1. Hi Tyler, thank you for making this available. Unfortunately, the zip file is somehow corrupt, there are a bunch of files inside which are the same names as the directories, so when you try to unzip, the files try to overwrite the directories.

    2. Update: I was trying to unzip using the native Windows 7 zip handler. I tried using WinRAR and it worked just fine.

  3. Hi, Tyler, Ben,

    Is there anything else you have to do for AI aircraft to use properly a FMOD bank, besides exposing the sounds with `EVENT_ALLOWED_FOR_AI`?

    I’m having this problem where the sounds works perfectly on jets when I fly them, but not when they’re used as AI aircraft. They don’t seem to modulate the `sim/flightmodel/engine/ENGN_N1_[n]` dataref, so the engines cannot be heard spooling up.

    I filed a bug with a small complete aircraft attached just in case, but perhaps there was something obvious I’m missing here.

    Thanks!

    1. Try using sim/flightmodel2/ datarefs.

      Generally, the sim/flightmodel2/ ones are newer, better documented, and less likely to be buggy.
      They also work correctly for AI planes, which sim/flightmodel does not.

      1. Oh, thanks, that would explain the lack of modulation.

        Nevertheless perhaps I’m too dumb, but I cannot seem to find a suitable dataref inside `sim/flightmodel2` which returns the N1 and N2 values which I’m using. I searched on the Resources/Plugins/DataRefs.txt and using DataRefEditor.

        Should I use something like `sim/flightmodel2/engines/engine_rotation_speed_rad_sec`? (that would mean a conversion from N1 to RPM)

        1. Right – N1 can be found here:
          sim/cockpit2/engine/indicators/N1_percent

          But that’s a cockpit2 dataref – it’s AI plane safe but not necessarily the best choice (in that cockpit2 datarefs are sometimes subject to systems failures).

          sim/flightmodel2/engines/engine_rotation_speed_rad_sec looks like a reasonable choice – it gives you the fan RPM, and the fan RPM’s relationship to N1 is 1:1 and set by you in Plane-Maker.

  4. Hi!
    Thanks a lot for making the starter project and documentation available.
    While I have so far worked out everything I need, there’s one question or problem that really bugs me.
    Is there any way to have sound project at certain angles or to create a sound cone? So far, I’ve tried to emulate the directional projections that are so characteristic of engine sounds by positioning the events rather where you would here them with the highest intensity and then tuning envelopment and size.
    But it is a poor substitute for a real sound cone, because I can’t properly control e.g. how much the fans’ sound bleeds into the space BEHIND the engine (only by having it drop off in volume rather quickly which again messes up the mix in front).
    Any help would be immensely appreciated!

    1. Hi Oliver,

      Funny you should mention that! First, FMOD _does_ have sound cones – there are built-in parameters that you can use that come from the spatial relationship of the listener and event. “Event Cone Angle” will do it.

      Now you’ve hit something that we hit – the sound cones work at a single direction per event, and that’s not useful when you want to layer four engine sounds pointing in four directions from a single event attachment in X-Plane.

      Chris has addressed this – in X-Plane 11.02 we’ll have an additional parameter that gives you the absolute heading and pitch _relative to the event_ of the listener. This lets you set up volume cross-fading in multiple quadrants (front, left side, right side, back) for a single event using multiple recordings. We use this in our Cessna, where we have engine recordings on all four sides of the aircraft.

      We’ll get the docs updated when 11.02 goes beta – should be this week.

  5. Hi! I’ve managed to get several AI jets with sound on the platform, each doing its thing, spooling up, being pushed back, taxiing to the runway. It really is beautiful and unprecedented in X-Plane, love what you’ve done with FMOD 🙂

    A couple questions though. I’ve noticed the sound from the AI planes comes out a bit muted, that is, if you put the camera near an AI jet, it doesn’t sound as loud and clear as when that jet is the one you’re flying. I think that doesn’t happen when you use the Cessna as AI plane. Is there something wrong I’m doing? As per your recommendation, in my project all engine sounds are routed to the Exterior Processed/Aircraft bus, and there’s a snapshot with intensity coupled to the inside_ratio dataref, which muffles the Exterior Processed bus, but it shouldn’t mute the exterior sounds when the aircraft is used as AI, right?

    Also, I tried being inside the Cessna and the sound of the other airplanes is heard exactly the same volume and clearness whether I’m inside or outside the Cessna, as if the sound isolation was not working. With my project is the same, as if the AI planes are not routed thru the right bus.

    Any ideas? Please bear with me here, this is all new to us! 🙂

    1. Yeah, it’s new to us too – it’s very likely you’ve hit a bug in X-Plane or something.

      Here’s what is _supposed_ to happen: when we evaluate the inside ratio for an AI aircraft’s event, we always set the inside ratios to 0. Thus if you have separate inside/outside recordings, the AI should always play its outside engines into the exterior processed bus, giving you all and only the processing that the user’s plane creates.

      Our Cessna is probably just not handling the busses properly; it’s a very old project dating back to mobile – I’ll check with Chris re: it’s behavior.

      If you get inconsistent loudness using your aircraft for both AI and user aircraft, you may have hit a bug in X-Plane and I’d be interested in a reproduction case if you can share it.

      cheers
      Ben

      1. I’m happy to share my project. I’ll file a bug with the project attached and referencing this comment thread.

        I discovered today that the atennuation bug is not present if the AI aircraft are the same aircraft that I’m flying. In that case, the sound heard from the outside of my plane *is* the exterior sound, and the external sounds as heard from the interior of my plane are correctly muffled.

        Also, I was wondering why the other jets don’t sound like mine at idle, and it seems to me that they idle at lower RPM than mine.

        1. Thanks for filing a bug. The “AI and user aircraft are the same” _is_ a special case.

          When we load your plane as an AI, any external sounds attached to the un-processed bus have to be moved to the processed bus, because your “pre-processing” of an interior recording isn’t okay for the interior of some -other- plane. But we don’t do this if the AI plane is your plane because we can’t change the routing without screwing up the user’s plane. In this special case (user’s plane is the AI plane) I think we just let the AI plane see the real ‘inside’ ratio.

  6. Good day,

    I am guessing that we need to use an older version of Studio. (1.08) as the download on the FMOD site is for 1.09 and when you open the project it states that it must be migrated and when it does open in Studio, the project is blank. I was expecting the project to open and look similar to the sample in Studio. Is this not correct?

      1. Thanks Ben. I was thinking that there was a pre-made file structure as well. I was able to open the “Mixer Routing” window (CTRL+5) to see the groups. ;^)

        1. Right. We _can’t_ give you pre-made events because if any two developers leave them in place then we’ll have duplicate-ID events and the AI planes won’t work together properly.

  8. Hi Ben/Tyler,
    Many thanks for FMOD support.
    I plan to make in cockpit headphone sound simulation. Because in majority real world situations it’s the actual listening environment. I’m using FMOD 1.08.14. I’ve tried to use GVR plugin (Google binaural plugin) but unfortunately XP can’t find the GUID in any bank. Do you plan to support FMOD 1.09 which contains the GVR plugin and many new helpful features?

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