How do I play events from Studio banks?

[TucoErthal]

Hi! I have little experience with FMOD (I only managed to get it working on unity with the official plugin) and I am trying to integrate an adaptive music system (using FMOD Studio) into my pygame project.

While testing out the binding, I got the example code that plays an mp3 file working (using os.environ["PYFMODEX_DLL_PATH"] = "lib/fmod.dll").

I had read that FMOD's engine libraries are split into a core version (that manages low level audio) and a studio version (which includes core functionality as well as support for Studio events and parameters), and since the README mentions setting the path to the studio DLL, I figured pyfmodex could handle events from FMOD Studio .bank files, but I couldn't find any mention of banks in the documentation.

I tried looking into the other DLL, but setting the path to the file in my project folder using os.environ["PYFMODEX_STUDIO_DLL_PATH"] = "lib/fmodstudio.dll", gives me an error on import pyfmodex: RuntimeError: Pyfmodex could not find the fmod library.

Is it possible to load banks, play events and modify parameters with this binding?

[tyrylu]

That's weird, the path override looks correct, maybe it was done late? And, yes, setting parameters and playing events should work, see the code for what's implemented so far.

[TucoErthal]

After a few hours of hitting my head against a wall I managed to put together a working "bare minimum" script that plays an event. I hope this is useful to someone else. It is purely empirical, though.

Project Structure

├── fmod.dll
├── fmodstudio.dll
├── main.py
├── Master.bank
└── Master.strings.bank

main.py

import os

os.environ["PYFMODEX_STUDIO_DLL_PATH"] = f"{os. getcwd()}/fmodstudio.dll"
# The other dll (fmod.dll) is not required to be on the path. However, and I have no clue why,
# both dll's MUST be on the project folder, otherwise the next line breaks.

import pyfmodex.studio
system = pyfmodex.studio.StudioSystem()
system.initialize()
# Boilerplate

bank = system.load_bank_file("Master.bank")
# Loads the events from the bank file
system.load_bank_file("Master.strings.bank")
# Allows those events to be identified by keys instead of their GUID or something

music_reference = system.get_event("event:/music")
# Creates an event reference by looking up "event:/music" in the Strings bank
music_instance = music_reference.create_instance()
# Creates an instance of the "event:/music" event
music_instance.start()
# You'll never guess what this line does

while True:
    system.update()
    # This is required to run every tick. Otherwise, the event gets stuck on the STARTING playback state
    # This can be verified with     print(f"playback state is {music_instance.playback_state}")

Thank you for making this! 😁