BIG UPDATE for Syrinscape Nova (Scenes) = we need your feedback!

Nova
#1

I’m going to explain as little as possible here, and instead just urge people to go to nova.syrinscape.com and give it a try.

i.e. the aim in this creative process is ALWAYS to keep Syrinscape Nova as simple as possible… and simple shouldn’t need any explanation!

Please give it a try… then maybe pop back here and read the notes below… THEN jump in this thread and give us some feedback!

What did you think? Could you work out how to use the new UI?

NOTE: Just for the moment: Scenes are persistent for you in a single browser only (i.e. they are Cached in that browser). In the not too distant future, Scenes will be persistent with your account in any location in any browser.

Next we are building: Custom Soundboards, i.e. which cards are available to start in Music, Locations, Creatures and Effects.

…

The actual change log:

Scenes

  • You can now save everything that is currently active, and the current volumes, as a scene in the current soundboard.
  • You can then trigger your scenes, rename, update and delete them as well.

Now Playing – The “Current Scene” section (the top bit) is renamed to “Now Playing”.

  • Now Playing cards are no longer used as soundboard navigation. Instead, they show everything that is currently or was recently active.
  • Stop and resume a whole kind of content (e.g. Effects) by clicking on the card body.
  • Stop and resume individual items by clicking on the individual card artwork slivers.
  • Active cards are near-white, like the soundboard cards. Inactive cards and slivers are dimmed.
  • Action icons (top right):
    • Broom – Remove inactive slivers.
    • Plus – Save Now Playing (items and volumes) as a new scene.
    • Pencil – Rename the current scene.
    • Floppy disk – Save (Update) Now Playing (items and volumes) to the current scene.
    • X – Delete the current scene.
  • When a saved scene is active, the Now Playing section appears on a purple (scene coloured) card, with the scene name as the title.

Soundboard

  • Navigation buttons (Music, Locations, Creatures, Effects) have moved from the top bar to the top of the soundboard, and more clearly inidicate which kind of content is being shown on the soundboard.
    • NOTE: We are currently working on making these soundboard navigation buttons more prominent and intuitive.
  • The current soundboard name is now shown above the soundboard, instead of the current kind of content.
  • Creature and effect variants are now exclusive. E.g. for “Rain”, choose “Pounding rain on roof” or “Drippy rain”, not both.

General

  • Global Resume – After you stop everything, a new global Resume button turns back on exactly what was playing when you hit Stop.
  • Ready Status – A circle-check in the top right will change to a blue spinner when waiting for the server to respond. This replaces the individual card overlay and spinner.
  • Cards more obviously indicate active/active status higher contrast and less transparency, enabled by more consistent and deliberate use of subtle gradients on cards and backgrounds.
6 Likes
[Master Interface/Players/OneShotAdventure/Website] A bunch of wins for the Master Interface, new Adventures, and more 🥳
#2
#3

Some easy way for a bunch of one shot sounds would be good. I am always struggling to find those fast enough and I never can so I just give up.

1 Like
#4

Hey there Syrinscape!

I’ll be honest, I love the original layout of Syrinscape’s soundboard, I’ve mentioned sometime ago in some feedback that the interface is not half bad, in fact the freedom you have to set nodes/buttons up is very intuitive, but it runs awfully slow and takes a while to respond, I have a very nice high-end pc, and that barely does anything for it, except for loading in the site itself.

I’ve been using Syrinscape for almost 8 years it seems like and I’ve manage using it with passion and much investment, with Nova coming out I was having hope for the same thing only optimized and quicker, but what you have so far seems like a copy of a basic soundboard: You click a button and there are generic sounds.

Now I could just be preemptively complaining on what is to come, but so far I am unconvinced and confused why we are shying away from what Syrinscape made itself different from every other soundboard out there. Sure there are some out there that have more premium audio and fancy dials, but they lack customization, you cannot create perfect settings of immersion like you can with Syrinscape, you have so many tools to your disposal to chime things in perfectly when you want or need them to, and we have so many affects to alter existing sounds and ones we upload ourselves.

Sure it may be nice for some quick one-off sessions or someone who is not as dedicated or creative to make something more immersive or cinematic, and they may need or want something more like Nova, and that is quite alright, if not perfect for them, but what about us vets who use everything Syrinscape has to offer and utilize?

I like seeing how much smoother Nova is in terms of response time, but the layout is a bit bulky, and there are not enough sliders or nodes to increase the volume of certain sounds, and out of all of them, Locations has the lowest audio output in comparison to the other 3 main cards. Not only this, you have to swap between the 4 different categories to swap things on the fly if you need to, if anything, the four categories should continue downward from their respective cards with their sub-folding sections, that would at least be streamline…

What is the plan? How deep are you going in with Nova, how diverse will it be, what are your plans with the OG Syrinscape and all of the content we’ve build and put together over the years?

I would love to hear back with honest feedback myself to hear what the plans are for Simple VS Intuitive & Deep?

I hope this comes off as a passionate user giving honest feedback, I give harsh critiques when needed, and I hope that you take my words clearly and calmly, I respect your work and only have high hopes for the future of Syrinscape.

1 Like
#5

Hi Vladtastic. :slight_smile:
Glad you like the Web Player UI. Don’t worry this is NOT going away soon. IF and WHEN a new UI can do everything it can do but better, that’s when it will be switched off. In the meantime we will continue to try and improve performance there, you maybe have noticed a significant performance improvement just recently as we streamlined a chunk of the playback feedback (especially for elements that start and stop a lot of samples). Stay tuned for further efforts on this front.

You are MOST welcome to complain, either pre-emptively OR emptively! :smiley: Rest assured the intention is this:

  1. to give you the ability to tweak EVERYTHING about the sound you are playing in Nova (e.g. the volume of every element)
  1. BUT, to keep anything you DON’T need to be seeing at any given moment OFF the screen = i.e. keep it simple… until you WANT to dig down further to get to the level of detail you want.
  1. present Syrinscape’s content in a more logical, accessible way = e.g. music grouped together by Mood, single versions of each specific kind of location (rather than those being duplicated many many times, effects you might need actual close to hand (like rain and thunder), monsters as things to add on top rather than those monsters having baked in environments (and music).

We plan to continue support AND improving the OG Syrinscape AND gradually deeper and enrich both the Nova content AND UI.

We plan to:

  1. be as SIMPLE as possible on the surface at all times (hiding things you don’t need to be seeing AND prioritising performance
  2. building depth in below that you can unlock by digging down as needed.

Hope most of that makes sense. :slight_smile: Please read, think and reply with further questions, and clarifications = it’s hard for me to know what I don’t know you don’t know because I know much of it already and don’t realise it’s not obvious. :robot: = so contributions like what you have made are INVALUABLE!!! :pizza: :beers: :partying_face:

#6

Thinking about this a bit more, I am intrigued. I presume you’ve seen the volume sliders at the bottom of each Now Playing card. Are you not able to get adequate compensation out of those sliders?

#7

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Should there be more than this if I’m already a paying member?

#8

You have shown us the list of Soundboards, with Desolate treasure hunts selected (the second has the list collapsed). The actual content of the Soundboard should appear on the right:

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And you can switch between Music and Locations and Creatures and Effects with the buttons in the top right of that section. Are you not seeing that?

Also, as an aside, as of right now at least, there should be no visual difference in the appearance of the UI regardless of your Subscription status (even if you’re not logged in at all), the only thing that would seem different is if the sound you clicked on actually plays or not :slight_smile:

#9

It’s working as intended. I just wanted to check. Thank you for responding.

1 Like
#10

So the intention with those groupings of content on the left (what we are calling Soundboards) is that you’ll be able to make your own. You’ll grab the locations, and music tracks, and effects, and creatures that you want for your gaming session and have them ready on the right hand side. (we are building that bit now).

Have you also noticed the little chevrons on each of the cards that open up the specific mixes in locations and creatures and effects?

#11

Ran a session last night exclusively w Nova (instead of a mix of Nova and Desktop), and the new interface worked well.

One question for you all: are there any tips on optimizing performance? I have a beats pill speaker hard-wired to my laptop using the headphones out, but when the sound sets are playing, there is an audio hiccup every few seconds, where it causes the briefest cut. One of my players (w audio sensitivity) at the table eventually asked me to turn it off, because the audio cuts were getting on his nerves. I’ve had this happen in the past with the online player, which is why I’ve still been using the desktop player for the most part. I’ve also tried changing from a wired audio output to using a Bluetooth connection, and that made it worse.

I’m assuming this has to do with either my internet or computer processing power. Internet is 1gig speed, but I’m also running Foundry and Realmworks / Herolab on my laptop (which is a decent gaming laptop), but all of those can be memory hogs.

Any thoughts on what I could change to try to stop these audio hiccups?