unity3d - How to write a web-based music visualizer?

Question

I'm trying to find the best approach to build a music visualizer to run in a browser over the web. Unity is an option, but I'll need to build a custom audio import/analysis plugin to get the end user's sound output. Quartz does what I need but only runs on Mac/Safari. WebGL seems not ready. Raphael is mainly 2D, and there's still the issue of getting the user's sound... any ideas? Has anyone done this before?

Answer 1

Making something audio reactive is pretty simple. Here's an open source site with lots audio reactive examples.

As for how to do it you basically use the Web Audio API to stream the music and use its AnalyserNode to get audio data out.

"use strict";
const ctx = document.querySelector("canvas").getContext("2d");

ctx.fillText("click to start", 100, 75);
ctx.canvas.addEventListener('click', start);  

function start() {
  ctx.canvas.removeEventListener('click', start);
  // make a Web Audio Context
  const context = new AudioContext();
  const analyser = context.createAnalyser();

  // Make a buffer to receive the audio data
  const numPoints = analyser.frequencyBinCount;
  const audioDataArray = new Uint8Array(numPoints);

  function render() {
    ctx.clearRect(0, 0, ctx.canvas.width, ctx.canvas.height);

    // get the current audio data
    analyser.getByteFrequencyData(audioDataArray);

    const width = ctx.canvas.width;
    const height = ctx.canvas.height;
    const size = 5;

    // draw a point every size pixels
    for (let x = 0; x < width; x += size) {
      // compute the audio data for this point
      const ndx = x * numPoints / width | 0;
      // get the audio data and make it go from 0 to 1
      const audioValue = audioDataArray[ndx] / 255;
      // draw a rect size by size big
      const y = audioValue * height;
      ctx.fillRect(x, y, size, size);
    }
    requestAnimationFrame(render);
  }
  requestAnimationFrame(render);

  // Make a audio node
  const audio = new Audio();
  audio.loop = true;
  audio.autoplay = true;

  // this line is only needed if the music you are trying to play is on a
  // different server than the page trying to play it.
  // It asks the server for permission to use the music. If the server says "no"
  // then you will not be able to play the music
  // Note if you are using music from the same domain 
  // **YOU MUST REMOVE THIS LINE** or your server must give permission.
  audio.crossOrigin = "anonymous";

  // call `handleCanplay` when it music can be played
  audio.addEventListener('canplay', handleCanplay);
  audio.src = "https://twgljs.org/examples/sounds/DOCTOR%20VOX%20-%20Level%20Up.mp3";
  audio.load();


  function handleCanplay() {
    // connect the audio element to the analyser node and the analyser node
    // to the main Web Audio context
    const source = context.createMediaElementSource(audio);
    source.connect(analyser);
    analyser.connect(context.destination);
  }
}

canvas { border: 1px solid black; display: block; }

<canvas></canvas>