What is Wwise?
Wwise is a comprehensive audio middleware solution for game development designed to create sophisticated and rich interactive audio. It consists of an authoring application and sound engine that are tightly integrated, giving sound designers and programmers the power to achieve awe-inspiring audio more affordably and in less time.
The Wwise sound engine consists of two sections: a cross-platform behavioral level that handles a comprehensive set of functionalities and a low level section that has been highly optimized for each platform. The sound engine was developed with ease of integration in mind making it simple to take full advantage of advanced audio features within your games.
The Game Audio Middleware integrates the audio processing methods that can be set up by the public and constructs them in the editor. The sound designer can use the editor to create the game audio price and playback mechanism independently without the need for the program code to participate in the process, and after the completion of the structure, the SDK provided by the Game Audio Middleware can be interfaced with the programmers to complete the entire audio structure and playback mechanism of the game.
The creation process is independent of the programming code, and the sound designer can use the editor to create the appropriate audio experience according to his/her own wishes, which saves a lot of communication and R&D costs without the intervention of the programme.
Why Use Game Audio Middleware?
Cost Issues:
In the process of making a game, regardless of the engine used, communication between programmers and sound designers is essential to determine how each audio element should be played. Programmers need to write code according to the playback rules designed by sound designers, which involves significant coding time and communication costs between the sound designers and programmers.
The time and labor costs for communication between sound designers and programmers are relatively much lower when using game audio middleware.
Effects:
- Static Effects: Static effect processing is completely designer-driven, such as multi-sample randomization, random pitch variation, and random static channel changes. These effects are fundamental features in audio middleware. Sound designers can use these features to achieve substantial variations in effects with fewer materials, and the results are more pronounced, something unachievable without audio middleware.
- Dynamic Effects: Dynamic effect processing refers to audio changes generated by dynamic variations, such as different reverb effects in different spaces, interactive music playback, and dynamic mixing processing.
Wwise Working Principle:
After sound designers create the material files, they place these files into various Containers in the Wwise editor according to playback rules. These Containers are then placed into Events, and the Events are assigned to Banks, generating Bank files. Wem files are generated when streaming playback is chosen. Once the Bank files are delivered to programmers, they can play the audio based on the Bank and Event names.
