Syrincontrol for Foundry for Syrinscape HELP

General Chat
#1

HELP!! Seriously HELP!!

With the blessings of @frondeus I am here to see if there are any mod devs out there that play in Foundry who could possibly take over the amazing work this person has done?

He wants to step back, and I totally respect and equally am upset with him for it but if that is what he wants to do that is his prerogative.

However I have no idea what I am doing with Javascript or Svelte+ (which is what he uses for this module)

I am asking in Discord too!

However if there is anyone here that can possibly help please help.

Frondeus is willing to support anyone who wants to take over it. :slight_smile:

@Steve and @benjamin please help spread the word if possible. :slight_smile:

1 Like
#2

Hello there,

I’m the author of the SyrinControl module, that brings the integration between Foundry and Syrinscape.

I was talking yesterday with Abourious on discord chat about the future of the project. Now I feel you deserve also a direct words from me.

First and foremost, I want to apologize for my recent unavailability and the lack of response to your queries and reported issues. I must admit that my time has become sparse, and I cannot make any promises regarding the resolution of existing problems in the coming months. However, I want to make it clear that I do not intend to abandon this project entirely.

If you’ve been following the project’s history, you may have noticed a pattern where I work in bursts of creativity and productivity, releasing several versions in a short span of time, only to enter a period of dormancy for a few months. The last productive flow occurred in April. Therefore, I prefer to refer to the project as “hibernating,” with no guarantees of emerging from this state any time soon.

I understand that this situation might seem unfair to the community, as critical bugs and questions have to wait for months before being addressed. Please know that I am solely responsible for the development of SyrinControl, and it is a project I work on in my own time. There are moments when I am not in the right mindset or when I need to prioritize other projects or aspects of my life.

With that said, I would welcome and encourage others who are passionate about the SyrinControl module to step forward and contribute. I have no objections to delegating work and responsibilities to volunteers who are willing to take control of the project. Rest assured, I can always return and contribute to the project when circumstances allow.

Furthermore, I am more than happy to offer guidance and mentorship to those interested in diving into the codebase or participating in discussions about the future direction and feature design of SyrinControl. By sharing the workload among multiple individuals, we can collectively alleviate the burden and ensure the project continues to thrive.

I want to express my deep gratitude to the open source community for your support and understanding during this period of hibernation. Your patience and enthusiasm have been instrumental in keeping the project alive. I value your feedback and contributions, and I assure you that your dedication does not go unnoticed.

In conclusion, while I cannot guarantee immediate fixes or regular updates, I am open to collaboration and welcoming others to contribute their time and expertise to SyrinControl. Together, we can breathe new life into the project and create an even more robust and vibrant audio integration for Foundry VTT.

Thank you for your understanding, and I look forward to working alongside you, both as a mentor and a fellow enthusiast, in the exciting journey that lies ahead.

For those who are interested in contributing to the development of SyrinControl, I would like to provide some insights into the technical stack used in the module:

  • Language: SyrinControl is primarily written in TypeScript, which is a superset of JavaScript. TypeScript adds static type checking to JavaScript, ensuring that changes made to the codebase do not break important features. This makes it easier to work on JavaScript projects like Foundry VTT while providing an additional layer of safety. It’s worth noting that Foundry VTT does not natively support TypeScript. However, the League of Foundry Developers (https://github.com/League-of-Foundry-Developers/foundry-vtt-types) has been working diligently to bring type definitions to Foundry VTT. They have made significant progress but are currently facing a backlog of over 200 open issues for the V10 version of Foundry, with V11 on the horizon. Users have already started asking about compatibility between SyrinControl and future Foundry versions.

  • UI Framework: Instead of relying on jQuery, which is commonly used for the UI in Foundry, I have chosen to use the Svelte framework to bring reactivity to the module. All SyrinControl dialogs are rendered using Svelte. If you are familiar with frameworks like React or Vue, Svelte falls into a similar category but without the need for a heavy runtime on the client side. Given that Foundry can sometimes feel sluggish, I wanted to avoid introducing additional weight. By using the Svelte framework, I aimed to achieve modern reactivity while keeping the footprint small and the code fast. However, one aspect I overlooked is that Svelte is not as widely adopted as jQuery, which could potentially make it more challenging to find contributors. On the bright side, Svelte is currently rated as one of the most loved frameworks on Stack Overflow (often in the top 3). I highly recommend giving it a chance, as it provides a natural coding experience, particularly for those accustomed to working with jQuery.

If you have any questions, feel free to reply here or send me a discord DM to Frondeus#6975 :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#3

Will do. :slight_smile:

@frondeus Have you reached out directly to the Foundry team yet?

#4

I have done and been told that it’s not top priority at the moment due to them releasing v11 of Foundry and they’re about to release their own RPG specifically for Foundry.

I’ve been signposted to a discord channel where you can ask for developers to help for sometimes free and sometimes for commissions.

It makes me feel better that Frondeus still wants to be involved to it wouldn’t be such a big burden if someone else was to help.

1 Like
#5

Hi folks… I saw the discussion on the League of Extraordinary Foundry Developers about the continuation efforts for the SyrinControl package. I can comment on some aspects that could be helpful for anyone that takes up the torch so to speak. There is an active Svelte dev community for Foundry and it is very much a viable technology to employ for advanced package dev. I’ve been working full time+ on an expansive UI framework for Svelte running on top of Foundry that takes all of the rough edges away and more. So, there are a lot of resources available and general know how out there that can help as far as infrastructure continuity / improving several approaches from the current codebase. I’d be glad to help anyone taking up the torch on those specific aspects. I’d also be glad to share my Discord server if that makes sense where all of the community discussion / dev support is available.

As noted though there is a problem for Typescript on Foundry w/ the community types falling behind and likely being a dead end for the time being. That is going to be a big pain point for anyone taking over this package as converting to ES Modules / standard modern JS is likely the path of least resistance. I’ve taken a gander at the codebase and the catch in all of this is that it’s not trivial work and from a loose estimate seemingly things will require at least ~1 month of full time effort and possibly considerably more depending on the skill level of those involved moving things forward. That’s 1 month for someone up to speed on things in general. I’d be glad to provide advice to anyone taking this on though.

Right now there is a “funding” problem for 3rd party dev on Foundry. Several initial waves of devs / folks passionate about the TTRPG space created some awesome tooling like SyrinControl, but are now finding its real work and in general as the passion wanes things get left behind for one reason or another.

I’m the dev / maintainer behind Forien’s Quest Log and have sunk ~1100 hours into that package which has exhausted my interest in doing anything else via passion, so I know what that kind of burn out is like. I hope next year to run a crowdfunding campaign to fund a 5 month full time next-gen rework of the package. At least I’m at an end in direct Foundry package dev working gratis… I am continuing to work full time+ on my Svelte UI framework though and seeing that through official release for Foundry and the wider Svelte web dev community in the meantime. I’d be glad to discuss more as it makes sense.

2 Likes
#6

@frondeus please see above. What an amazing response @TyphonJS, thank you.

I think we need to maybe find out how popular Syrincontrol is, I’ve seen the odd person talk about how great it is. But maybe there are folks that don’t really shout about it.

There was mention above or in another thread from Steven about the lack of knowledge of this amazing module from people who use Foundry and Syrinscape.

@benjamin

#7

Yeah. We just did UKGE and found a lot of people still asking for “integration with Foundry”, so there’s still plenty of spreading the word that might be worthwhile.

We’ve done a series of social posts and sent out newsletters, but our messaging only goes so far to the specific people we are trying to hit here. To really spread the news, it will be a huge help when the Foundry community and/or the Foundry team itself help spread the word with us.

THEN we can get a whole lot of people to try out SyrinControl, and if they like what they try, then get behind supporting it!

1 Like
#8

@frondeus

THANK YOU so much for the great work you have done so far!

I have reached out directly to the Foundry team to see if they have any thoughts/capacity/dreams/hopes about where to go from here. :slight_smile:

I suggest we go ONWARDS & UPWARD (somehow)! :smiley: :beers: :crossed_swords: :game_die: :pizza:

1 Like
#9

Looks like this thread needs to know how many of us leverage, rely-on and love the SyrinControl module. Its is a “CRITICAL” piece of my games in Foundry. Not having this is like going to see an amazing movie with no sound!!! I am not a programmer so all I can offer is this heartfelt plea to continue developing and supporting this module.

2 Likes
#10

Hello @benjamin and @Steve, I sent an email a few weeks ago regarding Syrincontrol and Syrinscape and Foundry.
You have said yourself at UKGE there were plenty of folk who were asking about the integration with Foundry.
My email is quite a long one but makes sense regarding you getting more custom as well as making a lot of people happy.

#11

Has someone taken over SyrinControl? I see it is updated for v11.

I’m considering re-subscribing if the Foundry integration is decent.

#12

The original creator of SyrinControl is still working on the project and has updated it. To our understanding he still fully intends to maintain the module, but as a community developer like the vast majority of Foundry modules he does this in his own time. Which means that he updates it as his time allows.

#13

However they are looking for investment so that a group of them can put more time into it and make adjustments to make it the best it can be.

#14

I wonder if Patreon would not help. If the module works well, I would sign up to be a Patron and I’m sure others would also.

#15

If that were to happen you’d be effectively paying twice for Syrinscape!
Whereas other sound effects providers just simply integrate because they offer ogg, wav and mp3 files.

#16

Hey all,

A bit of my personal context for people, coming out of some of the thoughts above…

Syrinscape is a rich and powerful audio machine that takes tens of thousands of samples and dynamically places them in the an audio environment. Randomising spacial and timing settings, even applying the reverberation of the environment dynamically as required.

Central to Syrinscape’s performance and audio quality is the machine that is the Web Player.

Players need simply open a single Chrome TAB and audio comes directly out of that: no account, or payment, or anything else required.

BUT we have also done extensive work making a rich API available for people wishing to integrate the Web Player directly into other environments. There are simple examples of how to do this in our docs, so that Players in a VTT will have sound coming directly out of their VTT window without even having to open a link (one less step, from 1 step to 0 steps).

Dungeon Masters can also easily control Syrinscape in our UI, utilising powerful search and tons of carefully curated, mixed, and balanced content.

BUT people can also use the API to create a wide range of different ways to control Syrinscape within other environments, linking sound triggers to text, map icons, play events and more.

We have done many many hours of work and Syrinscape is ready to use for the community, and we are very happy that people have gone ahead and built tools using the work we have done. We are also more than happy to help out people building tools to integrate Syrinscape into VTTs and have made numerous changes to the way our embeddings and API works to help make the process smoother as people have explored what is possible.

We are sad we don’t have the dev capacity to build and maintain these integrations across all the different VTTs ourselves, but we are very glad that communities have got behind the work we HAVE done to make it easy for them to get that job done!

Go for it VTT peeps. Build things. Ask for help. Share what you have done. We loving watching what you are doing, and what dozens of others are doing on a whole host of different VTTs.

1 Like
#17

Hi Ben,

This all sounds amazing, and exciting.

However the plain fact of the matter is that Frondeus only did his module for his own personal use then put it out there for others to use.

No one else is making any module integration, because there are already so many modules that integrate wavs, oggs and mp3s. The amount of folk I come across on Foundry discord who have stopped using Syrinscape due to the inability to have it work smoothly in Foundry is shocking.

Frondeus’ module is pure magic, but you can’t integrate the sounds into actions without creating macros but those are limited to where you can put them.

I am equally frustrated with the creators of Foundry, as they are very much embroiled in other projects.
Frustrated in a selfish way, as I understand that this is not the be all and end all.

I have fed this back to the mod creators on Foundry who were somewhat interested. See how we can go from here.

Thank you for the response.

Garry

#18

This mod is invaluable. Thanks to anyone who helps out with it. :slight_smile: Would love it if at some point Foundry or Syrinscape made it a core feature of their own products instead of relying on volunteer developer work.

On the off chance it ever gets really active development again, I noticed that I couldn’t use this mod and also use LiveKit A/V integration(basically, no sound output from Syrincontrol with A/V enabled). Was hoping I could fully one stop shop within Foundry, moving A/V in, moving Syrinscape in, etc. But looks like those two don’t play nice. I’m going to just keep using a separate A/V because I’d rather have Syrinscape integrated.

#19

I’ve had to give up on Syrinscape unfortunately which is so so sad. I’m way too invested in Foundry now to move FG and I’ve already experienced how bad Roll20 is.

Syrincontrol is an amazing module for a part time enthusiast. I agree with you. Can you even begin to imagine how totally amazing your Foundry game would be if Foundry could be integrated with Syrinscape.

I’ve had enough of Syrinscape saying it’s up to Foundry and Visa versa.

I’ve ended up going with another provider purely because the integration is perfect. I’ve had to sacrifice some quality. But I’ve run out of energy. My games are suffering for it.

I’ll keep an eye out and if by some crazy miracle the both combine I’ll come running back with my money waving in hand.

Massive thanks to years of top quality sounds though.

#20

Hi.
Does this mean that there is no development now ? So there will be no module for new versions of FoundryVTT?