The Audio Editor
If you prefer to learn visually, here is an old video showcasing some features of the audio editor and how we use it. The video is a few years old, but it is still mostly accurate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AybTLKScpT0
- SPACE can be used to play/stop the currently open sound or container.
- CTRL+ENTER exits the audio editor and jumps into your game. Use the same command to return to the editor from gameplay.
- CTRL+S saves all your current edits to the project.
- CTRL+Z to load a previous version of your audio settings. _(might be broken right now) _
- CTRL+X to load forward, like a “redo.”
- ALT+C changes the color palette to a “dark” theme.
On the left is a list of containers, mostly loaded from the GameMaker project. The “lock” symbol next to them indicates that they are pulled from your project, so they can’t be moved, deleted or renamed from inside the audio editor.
There’s a search bar that will let you find a specific container or sound by name.
ABC is a toggle to sort the containers alphabetically, which is useful for searching, but by default they display in the same order they appear in your project.
NewContainer is a button to create a new container. I call these “virtual” containers because they don’t exist in your project itself. TBH, they can be a little bit unstable in the editor. I would use them sparingly. But sometimes they’re necessary to combine assets from different containers that don’t otherwise make sense to be nested in your project.
Reload Project Deletes cached project info and reloads the folder structure and names from your GameMaker project. Generally this should happen automatically if it detects any changes, but this is here just in case.
LOAD Lets you load in named audio groups. Audio groups are defined in code, and I’ll talk about them in the engine section. This is to keep memory usage low and tidy.
Containers can be dragged and dropped to reorganize them.
DELETE+CLICK can delete an item from the list of container contents on the right. ALT+CLICK and drag to copy attributes from one container to another. Be careful with this. But it’s useful if you need to make a bunch of containers with identical logic. CONTROL+CLICK to cut and paste a container from one location to another. Usually when you click and drag a container to somewhere it kinda “copies” the reference, so it appears in an additional place, but if you move it with control+click it’ll remove it from wherever you moved it from. DOUBLE-CLICK one to open it.
Fundamentally, the editor is divided into 3 major tabs, located at the top left: containers, params and busses.