Purpose of Animator
Animator is an audio plugin with a geometric engine to calculate the movement of objects in a scene. The geometric data is then used to control a customizable effect chain and a panner. The objects can be controlled from three automated parameters or from a path where the objects travel along.
Contents
Geometry
At the heart of Animator there is a 3-D scene editor. The scene editor shows the room with the speakers and the object. Depending on the automation mode, the user controls the position directly or draws a path.
At the top the user can select of out of three predefined view angles: Top, Side and Rear. In addition, when dragging with the ALT key, the user can rotate the scene.
The mouse drags will keep the object on the X-Y plane. To move along the Z-Axis, the user has to hold the SHIFT key while dragging.
In the Top, Side and Rear view the mouse will control the object on the viewed plane.
Stage and World Settings
There are some basic settings in regards to the geometry that the user can change:
- Scale
The stage has a scaling factor. This is taken into account when selecting e.g. “Real Distance” as modulation source, see Modulation. - Center
This setting controls, how much of the phantom center is routed to the center speaker.
Some mixers prefer to reserve the center speaker for e.g. dialogue. In that case you can dim the center amount, and the signal will be routed to the left and right main speakers.
When the center is set to 100%, a sound placed at the center will play completely in the center speaker and not on the left and right main speakers. - Pan-Box
When moving a sound inside the scene, the sound will be panned as a mix of several speakers. If the sound is supposed to appear outside the space of the speakers, the pan-box can be reduced. In that case the signal will be panned full to the speakers while still be placed inside the room. - Speed limit
In order to achieve a smooth movement of the object, the speed limit can be reduced. This will slow down the movement of the object.
This is also useful to not exceed the physical limitations.
Panner mode
When set to panner mode, the user controls the object directly with mouse clicks. The object will automatically follow the movements of the mouse. It is advisable to set the speed limit, so the object travels smoothly and doesn’t exceed the physical limitations, like jumping.
Path mode
In path mode, every click will add a point to the path. The path will smoothly pass through each of the points. To toggle the point from smooth to a hard corner, double-click the point.
With right-click on a point, the context menu allows removing a point or clearing the whole path. Also in the context menu, the path can be closed, which simply connects the end of the path to the start.
Walking the path
The position along the path is controlled by the automated “walk” parameter. To walk along the path, the user records a ramp.
Auto Walk (OSC)
Instead of automating the walk parameter, the position can be controlled by an LFO, which can be set to “Circle” where the end jumps to the start, “Zig-Zag” where the object bounces back and forth, or “Sine”, where the object will be slowed down towards the ends and return smoothly. Setting to “Stop” the Walk will be controlled by the automation again. The speed of the LFO can be controlled with the “Speed” parameter. The “Follow host” toggle allows the LFO to be started and stopped with the hosts transport.
Modulation
The positional information of the object and the movement are used to control the effect chain. Each effect has one or more parameters that can be mapped to one of the following aspects:
- Distance: the distance from the center in multiples of the radius
- Real Distance: the distance from the center multiplied with the scale factor, with the range of 1 m to 1 km.
- Distance from Screen: the distance from the center speaker at the virtual screen of the theater, again in multiples of the radius.
- Real Distance from Screen: same as Distance from screen with the scale factor applied.
- Front to Rear: the Y-Axis of the room, ignoring left/right and height.
- Left to Right: the X-Axis of the room, ignoring front/rear and height.
- Height: the Z-Axis of the room, ignoring left/right and front/rear.
- Angle: the angle to the position towards the 12’o clock position.
- Elevation Angle: the angle to the object’s elevation.
- Speed: the speed of the object.
To add an effect, click on the “Add Effect” button. From the opening drawer click on an effect icon and it will be appended to the effect chain. Clicking anywhere else closes the drawer.
Currently the following effects are available:
- Delay
- Gain
- High Pass Filter
- Low Pass Filter
- High Shelf Filter
- Low Shelf Filter
- Band Pass Filter
- LFE Gain
By clicking to the fold-out toggle on the right, the mapping from geometry to parameter can be visualized and adjusted.
Clicking on a plot adds a control point you can drag to adjust the mapping. Double clicking the control point toggles a hard corner or a smooth transition. Right click deletes the control point.
The order of the effects can be changed by dragging the effects with the left button with the three horizontal lines. To remove an effect, drag it down into the trash bar.
CMD+Click on an effects toggles the effect on and off.
Presets
(Coming soon)
Panning
After the effect chain, the object is panned with a panner. Depending on the selected channel format of the track, the signal will be panned in stereo or 3-D. When mono is selected as output format, the panner is ignored. This is useful if you want to send the signal into an atmos object, see Object Routing.
Object Routing
To use the 3-D information as Atmos object, a bit of trickery is necessary. At the time of writing there is no way to send the geometric information to the Dolby Panner. Instead the user has to record the X_out, Y_out and Z_out parameters and copy them into the pan automation of the Pro-Tools panner. We haven’t tested, but presumably a similar workflow is possible in other DAWs as well.