[Stk] STK dll for Unreal Engine - threading quesiton

[rob at ccrma.Stanford.EDU]

Hi all,

In a similar thread to the STK => C# posts from July, I'm rolling a 
Windows STK dll for use in the Unreal Engine. My C++ is rusty these days 
but I've got it started. Any suggestions from the STK brain-trust would 
be great.

So far I've made a simple STK Windows dll and a small test console app 
that will run it. Works. Can compile in Visual Studio, 64bit, Asio.

My main question is how should I be approaching threading with STK as a 
dll and passing in control data for this kind of project? I don't think 
I've got it right in my head quite yet. I shouldn't be thinking about 
using SKINI or passing messages in over ports right? I'm generating all 
the control data I need in Unreal and should just be passing that in 
directly through noteOn/Off functions with frequency, bowPressure and 
amplitude as my data?

For example, in my test app, I include my dll and call my "initSTK" 
function, which is just a tweaked version of one of the STK example 
scripts, on a separate thread like:

    std::thread initThread(initSTK);

That function just instantiates an array of four Bowed strings using the 
Voicer, opens and starts my audio stream.

Then I have simple noteOn() noteOff() functions which take frequency, 
string number(1-4) and amplitude as parameters. Works in my test app, 
like a terrible C++Sound.

Within Unreal, I wrote an interface for my dll and can load it 
successfully (meaning the Unreal project will compile and sees the DLL). 
However as expected, when I try to call my init function (without any 
special threading) it locks up Unreal.

Before I start down the path of how to properly implement multi-threaded 
audio processes in dll's within Unreal Engine does this seem like the 
right way I should be approaching this? Is there a way within my STK dll 
to call that init function in a separate thread or do I need some kind 
of call-back here looking for my control data? I haven't built anything 
worthwhile in C++ in a while now.

thanks all, any thoughts would be super helpful.

Go Cardinal!

rob