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Wwise® – WaveWorks Interactive Sound Engine® – is the industry's only complete audio pipeline solution. Designed to suit your workflow, Wwise features the integration of an advanced audio authoring tool and a robust sound engine.
By addressing the specific needs of both audio programmers and sound designers, Audiokinetic has created the ideal solution for all of today's game development pipelines. Wwise allows you to prototype new projects right out-of-the-box; it is workgroup ready and is easily integrated into next-generation game engines. Working in Wwise will increase your productivity and enhance your creative output while saving you time and money across the audio production of any game title.
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“Day after day, we realize that Wwise has got absolutely everything we need. It’s all here and totally straight forward”.
— Robin Beanland, Head of Music, Rare Ltd.
Wwise Solution Overview
Wwise® features both an optimized sound engine for managing audio processing and an event based audio authoring tool for creating audio asset structures, integrating interactive music elements, defining audio propagation, managing sound integration, and creating SoundBanks. The tight integration of the audio authoring application and the sound engine allows you to mix, profile, and modify sounds in real-time within the game itself.
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Authoring Application
By centralizing all aspects of audio creation in an easy-to-use interface, the Wwise audio authoring tool simplifies the audio creation workflow. The advanced functionality in the Wwise interface makes it easy for sound designers to:
- Build sophisticated audio asset structures.
- Create dynamic game-driven musical scores.
- Define sophisticated audio behaviors.
- Mix audio levels.
- Define environmental audio propagation.
- Monitor and profile audio performance of your game in real time.
- Generate SoundBanks for games.
Wwise is designed for authoring audio on-the-fly and in the context of a game. Its streamlined workflow supports every phase of audio development and allows you to create, audition, and tweak sound effects or subtle sound behaviors with just a few clicks of a mouse and without programming assistance. Wwise also makes it easy to fine-tune property sets for individual audio assets, to modify or apply global properties to an entire colony of game characters at once, and to oversee and manage audio assets at all levels.
For a detailed list of features, click here.
“Wwise delivers exactly what our audio experts need to continue blowing away fans in trademark Pandemic Studios style”.
— Josh Resnick, co-founder and co-general manager, Pandemic Studios.
Sound Engine
The Wwise Sound Engine is an innovative audio engine that offers game developers greater freedom and control throughout the development cycle. The optimized software-based architecture provides seamless cross-platform support and is designed to be easily integrated into any game development pipeline. By reducing repetitive programming, the sound engine frees up programming resources to allow for greater customization of the game engine to fit the specific audio needs of any game.
The Wwise sound engine has been optimized for each of the following platforms:
- Android™
- iOS
- Mac®
- Nintendo 3DS™
- PlayStation®3
- PlayStation®Vita
- Wii™
- Wii U™
- Windows® 32-bit and 64-bit (XP/Vista/7)
- Xbox 360™
For a detailed list of features, click click here.
“By using Wwise, designers and programmers are able to collaborate easily and efficiently, allowing time to focus on implementing advanced sound features comfortably within the game’s development cycle”.
— Doug DaSilva, associate software engineer, Blue Fang Studios.
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Why choose Wwise?
Improve workflow
Integrate, author, simulate, profile, and mix in real time and in the game itself. With Wwise, the entire production cycle can easily be repeated several times a day, starting on the first day of the development process and continuing until the game ships.
Sound designers can even start working before the game is actually up and running.
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Gain a creative edge
Wwise offers sound designers unmatched control to realize their creative vision throughout the development process.
Using Wwise, audio programmers can now focus on the tasks that give their games a creative edge. With Wwise, audio programmers can have access to the sound engine source code and can use Wwise plug-ins and the APIs to develop functionality with real added value.
Master platforms and languages
Using a patent-pending technology in Wwise, designers have the power to develop a project on all platforms simultaneously while respecting the uniqueness and leveraging the constraints of each individual platform. The same technology also applies to language management in Wwise. In both cases, users can maximize performance per platform and per language at the click of the mouse.
Get ready quickly and easily
Wwise is easy to integrate into any game engine. To ease the process, Audiokinetic provides comprehensive documentation and video tutorials to get you up and running in no time. In addition, our development team members are available to assist with integration and training.
Expand your audio team
The entire Audiokinetic staff is dedicated to your audio solution. Our support team will answer your questions within 2 business days.
Manage costs
With a simplified, more efficient workflow, you can maximize your team’s resources to save both time and money.
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Wwise Key Features
Authoring Application
Intuitive User Interface
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The workflow-oriented interface in Wwise helps you increase productivity by:
- Using optimized layouts to perform specific tasks.
- Using presets to save object property and effect values.
- Using ShareSets that allow presets to be shared by many objects.
- Employing keyboard shortcuts for commonly used commands.
- Extending layouts over multiple monitors.
- Customizing work environments.
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Sound Playback Behaviors
Using the playback behavior options available right out-of-the-box allows you to easily create sophisticated sound designs. You can use the following, alone or in combination, to provide immersive game audio:
- Random—plays a series of objects in a random order to avoid repetition.
- Sequence—plays a series of sounds in a particular order using playlists.
- Switch—determines which sounds to play based on a series of options or alternatives that exist in the game.
- Blend—plays a series of sounds simultaneously. Sounds and containers can be grouped into blend tracks where sound properties are mapped to game parameters using RTPCs. Cross-fades between sounds can also be applied based on the value of a game parameter.
Hierarchical Audio Structures
The object-based hierarchical project structure allows you to build intricate audio structures that define behaviors and control properties for groups of sounds. The project structure includes:
- A Master-Mixer™ hierarchy—the structure for mixing buses.
- An Actor-Mixer™ hierarchy—the audio assets structure that includes Sounds, Containers, and Actor-Mixers.
- An Interactive Music hierarchy—the music assets structure, which includes Music Segments, Playlists, and Switch Containers.
Multi-Action Events Creation and Integration
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Working with Wwise allows you to use multi-action events to drive the audio in your game. You can choose from an extensive list of actions, including play, stop all, mute, and set volume to:
- Create events,
- Integrate events into the game,
- And then build and fine-tune the contents of each event.
And, all of this can be done without ever having to re-integrate the events into your game again. |
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2D/3D Positioning and Sound Propagation
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With 2D/3D positioning and sound propagation, you can create engaging and immersive soundscapes using both 2D and 3D sounds. Wwise allows you to:
- Easily define the spatial positioning of 3D sounds by attaching a sound to a game object. This means that sound propagation behavior is decided in real time while the game is being played.
- Define specific sound paths for each sound. The results will take full advantage of a gamer’s surround sound speaker setup.
- Position 2D sounds in the surround sound environment through the use of a panner to give you additional control.
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Attenuation Curve Editing
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Attenuation curve editing allows you to simulate natural audio roll-off for 3D sounds with user-defined attenuation curves. Specifically, you can:
- Create fully customizable distance-based attenuation curves that provide total control over 3D sound attenuation properties, including dry volume, wet volume, LFE, low pass filter, and spread.
- Choose from a variety of curve shapes, including linear, logarithmic, S-curve, and exponential. This allows you to create any type of effect.
- Use attenuation ShareSets to define attenuation properties once and then apply these setting to multiple objects and structures in a project.
- Apply cone attenuation to provide additional sound directivity possibilities.
- Preview distance-based and cone angle attenuation directly in Wwise.
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Dynamic Audio Controls
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Create dynamic audio content by modifying audio properties in real-time based on changes within the game. Wwise offers several tools for matching audio content to game action, including:
- Real-time parameter controls (RTPCs), which tie sound property values to parameter values within the game.
- States or "mixer snapshots", which make global adjustments to audio properties based on the game’s conditions.
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Real-time Editing
Increase your productivity and enhance your creativity by auditioning and editing audio in real-time within the context of the game.
Extensive Auditioning and Simulation Capabilities
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Audition objects and audio events at every phase of the game development process. Using the Wwise Soundcaster™, you can:
- Test ideas.
- Create prototypes.
- Develop proof of concepts.
- Mix and playback several audio objects asynchronously in real-time.
All of this can be done in the audio authoring application and in the game. This full-featured simulation environment allows you to control game syncs—such as States, Switches, RTPCs, and Triggers—in real-time, giving you endless possibilities.
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Sound Playback Prioritization
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Effectively manage the memory and CPU usage in your game by prioritizing sounds using one or all of the following:
- A playback limit to regulate the number of sound instances per sound structure and game object.
- A playback priority to rank the importance of sounds currently being played.
- A volume threshold to manage voice playback based on audibility.
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Virtual Voice Management
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Because Wwise allows you to queue inaudible sounds in the virtual environment, it helps you to save valuable processing power, memory, and bandwidth for streamed sounds.
To better manage voices returning from the virtual to the physical voice, you can choose from several options, including:
- Play from the beginning.
- Resume.
- Play from elapsed time.
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Master Mixing Bus
Control the final audio output mix by modifying properties and applying effects to the top-level Master Control Bus. At the final gain stage of the sound engine, you can adjust the final volume, pitch, and LFE levels as well as control unwanted audio peaks using a peak limiter.
Profiling Capabilities
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Working in Wwise, you can profile and troubleshoot the overall performance of the audio in game by capturing and logging a wide-range of information sent directly from the game, including:
- Memory and CPU usage.
- Effect performance.
- Game state usage.
- Polyphonic voices.
- I/O
- Real-time position and orientation of game objects and listeners within a 3D environment.
- RTPC usage per game object.
- SoundBank usage.
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SoundBank Creation and Content Management
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You can maximize efficiency by creating and managing SoundBank content for all of your platforms and languages simultaneously. You can populate SoundBanks automatically using import definition files and then tweak them manually. Then, you can combine event metadata, sound structure metadata, and audio data in the same or different banks and use dynamic loading/unloading of SoundBanks based on a given game context, such as region, object, or material.
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Simultaneous Multi-Platform Editing
Simplify the creation of multi-platform games by using a single project to manage and generate the audio content for games on each target platform. You can adapt the contents of a project to take full advantage of the strengths of each platform by:
- Customizing property values per platform.
- Including/excluding sound assets per platform.
- Customizing asset conversion settings per platform.
- Having platform-specific elements seamlessly integrated into the Wwise authoring application.
Localization Management
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Wwise allows you to easily manage the localization of all audio files in one project. You simply import and apply volume offsets to localized audio assets in batch or individually.
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Interactive Music System
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The comprehensive and sophisticated Interactive Music feature set in Wwise allows you to create dynamic game-driven musical scores. The system allows you to:
- Create musical elements, including one-shot stingers that follow and react to game state changes with seamless and fully customizable transitions.
- Apply RTPCs, states, and effects to Interactive Music objects to ensure that the soundtrack is following the action in game.
- Use multi-track content (stems) for added flexibility and control.
- Create, simulate, and validate musical transitions without the assistance of a programmer.
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Dynamic Dialogue System
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Reduce overall memory consumption in your game by using the Dynamic Dialogue system, the lightweight and efficient rule-based method for building and managing dynamic audio for your games. Our dynamic dialogue system uses a set of user-defined argument rules instead of complex switch container hierarchies that can be very costly in terms of memory usage. Additionally, you can perform sample accurate dialogue stitching for a wide range of uses, including play-by-play commentary and non-playing character dialogue.
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Randomization of Sound Properties
Enhance the realism of sounds within the game by applying Randomizers™ to the different property values of an object, including volume and pitch.
Multi-Editing Capabilities
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Modify sound properties and behaviors for several Wwise objects at the same time using the Multi-Editor.
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Voice Asset Importer
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Import thousands of voice assets into Wwise with a click of the mouse using externally created tab-delimited text files. The Actor-Mixer hierarchy in your Wwise project automatically creates both sound voice objects and random container parent objects.
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Project Integrity Report
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Troubleshoot your project by generating an Integrity Report. Over forty integrity cases are checked as part of this report. The report then displays information and suggestions about how to deal with any issues.
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Project Schematic View
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Use the Schematic view to get a graphical bird’s eye view of the Actor-Mixer, Interactive Music, and Master-Mixer structures created in your project. From within this view, object properties and attributes, including volume, pitch, effects, states, and positioning, are all visible, making it easier to edit properties and playback objects.
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Quick and Powerful Search Options
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Find elements within your project quickly and easily using any one of Wwise’s search options:
- Search—a quick text-based search tool that displays matches as you type.
- Query—a more sophisticated and powerful search tool that uses a series of conditions and criteria to find specific elements within your project. Perform multi-edits on all objects found by the query to adjust property settings, change conversion settings, etc. Queries can also be saved and used by the entire team throughout the development cycle.
- Reference—finds elements within your project that contain references to a particular object or element.
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Rendered Effects
Working in Wwise, you can render inserted effects before they are packaged into SoundBanks. This results in a smaller memory footprint and reduces processing power during game play.
Workgroup Ready
Divide up a single project into separate parts so that different members of your team can work on different parts of the project simultaneously. Each part of the Wwise project, including media assets, can be easily managed by your existing source control application.
Source Control Support
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Wwise supports native source control integration through a plug-in interface and ships with workgroup plug-ins for both Perforce® and Subversion. When using a workgroup plug-in, source control operations, including check-in/check-out, diff, and resolve, can be performed directly in Wwise.
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Sound Engine
Effect and Source Plug-in Support
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Use Wwise’s open architecture to create and integrate proprietary plug-ins to further enhance the audio experience within the game. Wwise ships with a variety of effect and source plug-ins, including:
- 5.1 channel reverbs.
- parametric EQ.
- dynamic effect plug-ins, including compressor, expander, peak limiter, a sine, and tone generator.
- an audio input source plug-in.
Integration of proprietary plug-ins is made easy by following the plug-in samples with source code that ship with Wwise.
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Real-time Effects Processing
Process a wide range of audio effects in real-time. All effects have been optimized for performance while maintaining a high standard of audio quality.
Disk I/O Streaming
The completely open and scalable disk I/O architecture in Wwise offers a total solution for managing extremely demanding audio streams. Using the disk I/O manager, you can handle and schedule any type of stream required for a game, including graphics and AI, based on a priority management system. The disk I/O manager in Wwise can also be easily replaced with other I/O technology.
Environmental Effects
Create a rich audio experience using environmental effects to instantiate reverb effects for every area created in your game. Wwise manages your environments and processes the sound sources with the correct reverb settings, allowing for smooth transitions between game areas. The number of simultaneous environments running in your game is limited only by the amount of memory and CPU that you want to allocate for this functionality.
Occlusion/Obstruction Support
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Set the occlusion and obstruction factors in the sound engine to dynamically affect the volume and low pass filter of Wwise sound objects. The volume and low pass filter curves for occlusion and obstruction are fully customizable for each project in Wwise.
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Multi-Listener Support
Instantiate, manage, and customize the audio captured by multiple listeners for split-screen multiplayer console games as well as for more complex implementations, such as sounds captured from a surveillance camera in a single-player stealth game.
Game Simulator
Start testing your prototypes early in the development cycle by using the Game Simulator, the LUA-based script interpreter that gives you access to all of the functionalities of the sound engine. The Game Simulator makes it easy to validate sound behaviors and profile the performance of your audio content on each platform even before you integrate Wwise into your game engine.
Interface between Wwise and World Builder Applications (SoundFrame)
Use the SoundFrame API to integrate Wwise functionality directly into your internal proprietary tools or any 3rd party world building application, including Unreal Editor (UnrealEd).
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