测试混音器

Some of you might be wondering what a Software Test Engineer actually does. Testing is a creative process, where the most important deliverables are… bugs!  Assessing each bug involves deep consideration of the systems and features in the Unity editor. This blogpost is my attempt to give you a small peek into the processes I went through during the development of the Audio Mixer.

你们中有些人可能想知道软件测试工程师的实际工作。 测试是一个创造性的过程，其中最重要的可交付成果是……错误！ 评估每个错误都需要深入考虑Unity编辑器中的系统和功能。 这篇博文是我的尝试，目的是让您了解一下我在音频混音器开发过程中所经历的过程。

测试挑战 (A testing challenge)

Audio is a difficult domain and area to test, both manually and in automation, for two main reasons:

音频是一个难以测试的领域和领域，无论是手动还是自动化的，其主要原因有两个：

• People with a wide variety of backgrounds and degrees of knowledge of the  audio domain will be using Unity’s new Audio Mixer, for example, audio programmers building their own customized systems and sound artists or composers who aren’t necessarily game audio integration or game production workflow experts.

  具有各种背景知识和对音频领域有一定程度了解的人们将使用Unity的新Audio Mixer，例如，音频程序员构建自己的自定义系统，以及声音艺术家或作曲家，他们不一定需要游戏音频集成或游戏制作工作流程专家。

Unity 4中音频设计师面临的挑战 (Challenges for audio designers in Unity 4)

Having an academic background in Musicology and a professional background in the computer games industry as an audio designer, I am familiar with some of our users’ backgrounds. So, as a Tester, I have a fair idea of audio designers/composers references to other audio tools and workflows when working in Unity.

我拥有音乐学的学术背景和计算机游戏行业的音频设计专业背景，因此我对某些用户的背景很熟悉。 因此，作为一名测试人员，在Unity中工作时，我对音频设计师/作曲家对其他音频工具和工作流的引用很了解。

One of the challenges we face in Unity 4 is that audio designers/composers who do not have a programming background are dependent on an audio programmer to create customized components and tools so they can tweak sounds in the scene at runtime. Or, they have to invest in a third party audio middleware solution that works with Unity.

我们在Unity 4中面临的挑战之一是没有编程背景的音频设计者/作曲者必须依靠音频程序员来创建自定义的组件和工具，以便他们可以在运行时调整场景中的声音。 或者，他们必须投资与Unity一起使用的第三方音频中间件解决方案。

With the Audio Mixer feature and its sub-features such as Snapshots/DSP Plugins/Duck Volume (just to mention a few) the Unity 5 editor introduces new concepts for audio designers/composers. Audio designers can now work productively directly in the editor instead of being forced to use additional software.

借助音频混合器功能及其子功能(例如快照/ DSP插件/鸭音量(仅举几例))，Unity 5编辑器为音频设计者/作曲家引入了新概念。 音频设计师现在可以直接在编辑器中高效地工作，而不必被迫使用其他软件。

早期的发展和高水平的想法来回跳动 (Early development and high level ideas bouncing back and forth)

During early development and feature testing, I had discussions with developers about the role of the audio designer. What are the biggest challenges and what kind of DAW’s (Digital Audio Workstations such as Logic, Nuendo, Ableton Live and etc.) do they work with? Being an audio designer myself, what are my favourite tools and why?

在早期开发和功能测试期间，我与开发人员讨论了音频设计师的角色。 与之合作的最大挑战是什么？与哪种DAW(如Logic，Nuendo，Ableton Live等数字音频工作站)配合使用？ 我自己是一名音频设计师，我最喜欢的工具是什么？为什么？

We agreed that at one end of the scale we have the persona of the audio designer who is used to doing field/studio recordings, and at the other end we have the audio designer who’s familiar with programming and/or builds his or her own synths and patches in a visual programming language such as Pure Data/Max. To accommodate this, the Audio Mixer feature had to:

我们同意，在音阶的一端，我们有习惯于现场/录音室录音的音频设计师的角色，另一方面，我们有熟悉编程和/或构建自己的合成器的音频设计师。和补丁以可视化编程语言(例如Pure Data / Max)进行。 为了适应这一点，音频混音器功能必须：

As a tester, I pitched into the discussions with my domain knowledge – also providing examples of other types of non-commercial audio middleware plugins developed for Unity. We had discussions about the biggest barriers that I had experienced as an audio designer, what kind of DAWs I had worked with and what features or workflows of those DAWs I liked and why. The questions that arose when I started testing the Audio Mixer feature in the pre-alpha state include:

作为一名测试人员，我以自己的领域知识参与了讨论-还提供了为Unity开发的其他类型的非商业音频中间件插件的示例。 我们讨论了我作为音频设计师遇到的最大障碍，我曾使用过哪种DAW，我喜欢那些DAW的功能或工作流程以及原因。 当我开始在前Alpha状态下测试音频混音器功能时出现的问题包括：

Mind mapping helps me get an overview of the way a user can interact with a system’s UI in order to achieve a goal. Below is a mind map of the Audio area in Unity, which the Audio Mixer is part of. The mind map is based on James Bach’s heuristic testing strategy model.

思维导图可以帮助我大致了解用户与系统UI进行交互以实现目标的方式。 以下是Unity中Audio区域的思维导图，Audio Mixer属于其中。 思维导图基于James Bach的启发式测试策略模型 。

演示地址

Oracle，Oracle，Oracle (Oracles, Oracles, Oracles)

One of the testing methods that I learnt more about during a Black Box Testing course was the use of “oracle heuristics”. A brief definition:

我在黑盒测试课程中了解到的测试方法之一是使用“ oracle启发式”。 简要定义 ：

“The point of an oracle is to help you decide whether a product’s behavior is inappropriate and, if so, to help you explain persuasively to someone else why they should consider it inappropriate.”

“神谕的目的是帮助您确定产品的行为是否不合适，如果是的话，则可以帮助您有说服力地向其他人解释为什么他们认为该产品不合适。”

When performing manual testing on the Audio Mixer, I was very much aware that my primary oracle heuristic was “Comparable Products”. As a user of Ableton Live 9, I was using the user interface and workflows from this DAW as a reference when testing. But I was also aware that there are many other commercial DAWs on the market and that comparing to only one of them was somewhat limiting or biased.

在Audio Mixer上进行手动测试时，我非常意识到我的主要预言是“可比较产品”。 作为Ableton Live 9的用户，我在测试时以来自该DAW的用户界面和工作流程为参考。 但是我也知道，市场上还有许多其他的商业DAW，与其中只有一个相比是有限制或偏见的。

Further on in the development phase where more features were added and the user interface improved, another oracle heuristic started to sneak into my mind: simplicity.

在开发阶段中，添加了更多功能并改进了用户界面，进一步的Oracle启发式方法开始潜入我的脑海：简单性。

Some years ago, during a Hack Week for Unity developers, the overall theme for the Hack Week was simplicity. One way of interpreting this theme, was to think of ways in which we could improve the workflows in the editor. It could be simple additions to the editor – for instance, one of the features that came out of that Hack Week was the Add Component button in the Game Object Inspector.

几年前，在Unity开发人员的Hack Week中，Hack Week的总体主题是简单。 解释该主题的一种方法是，思考可以改善编辑器中工作流程的方法。 这可能是对编辑器的简单添加-例如，该Hack Week的一项功能是Game Object Inspector中的Add Component按钮。

With this in mind, I started to think about ways the Audio Mixer and its subfeatures could make life easier for audio designers. I also asked myself how we should define what simplicity is in the context of the Audio Mixer?

考虑到这一点，我开始考虑音频混音器及其子功能可以使音频设计师的生活变得更轻松的方法。 我也问自己，我们应该如何定义音频混音器的简单性？

 Do testers and developers think of simplicity in the same way?

测试人员和开发人员是否以相同的方式考虑简单性？

As a result one parameter I decided to measure was how many steps a user had to go through to be able to hear a sound in a scene. I created the flowchart below, which is based on a user scenario where the user creates an Audio Mixer, routes the Audio Source through the Mixer and hears a sound when playing the scene. With my “Comparable Product” Ableton Live, I go through 2 steps:

结果，我决定测量的一个参数是用户必须经过多少步才能听到场景中的声音。 我创建了以下流程图，该流程图基于以下用户场景：用户创建一个音频混合器，通过混合器路由音频源，并在播放场景时听到声音。 使用“可比较产品” Ableton Live，我经历了两个步骤：

1. Drag a sample to a mixer channel

1.将样本拖到调音台

2. Hit Play – and I get an instant feedback when hearing the sound.

2.点击播放–当听到声音时，我会立即得到反馈。

As I started to draw the diagram, I realized that with the pre-alpha version of the Audio Mixer I had to go through 6 steps before I got an audio feedback on my interaction in the editor. Is this desirable for an audio designer? With the diagram in hand, I could ask the developers for more information.

当我开始绘制图表时，我意识到使用预混音版本的音频混音器必须经过6个步骤，才能获得有关编辑器中交互的音频反馈。 这对于音频设计师来说是理想的吗？ 有了该图，我可以向开发人员询问更多信息。

To avoid my own biases and to investigate usability issues further, I teamed up with User Experience Designer Stine Munkesø Kjærbøll and ran three rounds of usability testing sessions on audio designers/composers from the local game industry in Copenhagen. Some of the exciting things that we found that made a difference for our users were:

为了避免我自己的偏见并进一步调查可用性问题，我与用户体验设计师StineMunkesøKjærbøll合作，针对哥本哈根本地游戏行业的音频设计师/作曲者进行了三轮可用性测试。 我们发现对用户有所帮助的一些令人兴奋的事情是：

• The “Edit in Playmode” button issue. This is a very useful feature for audio designers, as it enables them to tweak sounds at runtime. The only issue was that they had a hard time finding the button!

  “在播放模式下编辑”按钮出现问题 。 对于音频设计师来说，这是一个非常有用的功能，因为它使他们可以在运行时调整声音。 唯一的问题是他们很难找到按钮！

• Mixers, Audio Groups and Snapshots workflows. The Audio Mixer user interface resembles the user interface in DAWs. Whilst testing it was important to us to form an opinion as to whether concepts such as Audio Groups and Snapshots and their associated workflows would be easy for users to understand.

  混音器，音频组和快照工作流程。 音频混音器用户界面类似于DAW中的用户界面。 在进行测试的同时，对我们来说形成意见是很重要的，即音频组和快照等概念及其关联的工作流程是否易于用户理解。

• Ducking Volume. This is an audio mixing concept used in computer games. To take an example, in a 3rd person shooter battlefield with explosions and “action music,” if an NPC comes up to the player’s character and starts talking, the player character needs to be able to hear what the NPC is saying. To allow this all the surrounding sounds and music in the scene are compressed and decreased in volume. The sounds will then slowly fade back in when the player’s character stops talking to the NPC. Not every audio designer works on 3D shooting games – would they understand the concept of ducking from the user interface of the Receive Unit on an Audio Group?

  小鸭卷。 这是计算机游戏中使用的音频混合概念。 举个例子，在一个带有爆炸声和“动作音乐”的第三人称射击战场上，如果一个NPC走近玩家的角色并开始说话，则玩家角色必须能够听到NPC在说什么。 为此，场景中的所有周围声音和音乐都被压缩并减小了音量。 当玩家的角色停止与NPC交谈时，声音会慢慢消失。 并非每个音频设计师都致力于3D射击游戏-他们会从音频组的接收单元的用户界面中理解回避的概念吗？

In an upcoming blog post the User Experience Team will elaborate further and take you through Usability Testing on the Audio Mixer feature. Stay tuned!

在即将发布的博客文章中，用户体验团队将进一步详细说明，并带您通过音频混音器功能的可用性测试。 敬请关注！

翻译自: https://blogs.unity3d.com/2015/02/12/testing-the-audio-mixer/