Table of Contents
The first step is to import the music composed for the exploration mode of gameplay. Instead of importing to the Actor-Mixer Hierarchy as you’d normally do for sound effects, you’ll be importing to the Interactive Music Hierarchy, which contains features that are unique to the needs of music integration.
We'll start by creating a Work Unit specifically for the music within the Interactive Music Hierarchy. While you could simply use the Default Work Unit, the purpose of creating a Music Work Unit is so that the organization is consistent with other Music Work Units you’ll later create in other hierarchies.
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Select the Interactive Music Hierarchy, then click the Create new 'Work Unit' icon.
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Name the new Work Unit Music and click Create.
You’re now ready to import the music assets for the exploration music into the Music Work Unit.
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Right-click the Music Work Unit and click Import Audio Files in the shortcut menu.
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In the Audio File Importer dialog box that opens, click Add Files.
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Browse to the Wwise-201 course lesson files and open the
Cube Music\Explore
folder.Here you see the music audio files that were exported from the composer’s DAW specifically for the exploration mode of gameplay. There are six files, each a variation of a musical theme.
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Select all of the files in the
Explore
folder and click Open.The Audio File Importer displays the audio files you want to import.
Notice in the Object Type/Action column that the Object Type is automatically set to Music Segment. This is the object type that all audio files imported into the Interactive Music Hierarchy are brought in as. Music Segments offer musically oriented properties such as time signature and tempo which allow Wwise to understand where the musical bars and beats fall in the audio file. This understanding can then allow Wwise to smoothly transition between different sections of music.
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Click the Import button.
The audio files are brought into the Interactive Music Hierarchy as Music Segment objects, but you’ll need to expand the Music Work Unit to see them.
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In the Interactive Music Hierarchy, expand the Music Work Unit.
You’ll see that each audio file is represented by a unique Music Segment.
To get a feel for the music that was composed for the exploration mode of gameplay, go ahead and play each of the music segments. Remember that the details documented in the name let you know the tempo and time signature. The L value represents the length. Some of the music segments have a suffix of P1M, meaning that there’s a measure that contains some pickup notes before the downbeat of the main musical section.
A tempo of 138 beats per minute might seem fast for the speed and feel of the music. It might seem more accurate to use 69–half the value. The reason for using the higher value is so that the tempo reflects the more upbeat combat music that will be implemented in a similar manner in the next lesson.
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Select and play the Music Segments.
As you listen to the Music Segments, notice that features found in the Property Editor are very similar to those found when working with Sound SFX objects in the Actor-Mixer Hierarchy.
The Wwise Music Segment is the object type that is at the heart of the Interactive Music Hierarchy. Like the Sound SFX object in the Actor-Mixer Hierarchy, it contains the audio asset that can be used to play a sound; however, there are some important differences between a Sound SFX object and a Music Segment. A Music Segment has an additional conceptual layer between it and the audio file that’s being referenced. This additional layer is called a Music Track.
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Select and then expand the Explore-Theme Music Segment.
Within the Explore-Theme Music Segment, you see a Music Track object with the same name. In the next lesson you’ll learn that Music Segments can contain multiple Music Tracks, which can all play simultaneously; but, for this lesson, you’ll stick to a single track for each Music Segment.
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Select the Explore-Theme Music Track.
With the Explore-Theme Music Track selected, you can now see in the Contents Editor the WAV audio file that you imported.
You can see that the Music Segment, Music Track and the audio file all have the same name, which may seem a bit redundant and maybe even a bit confusing. Think of it as if you had an audio file called My Song and you wanted to import it into a DAW to play it. You’d probably name both the DAW project and the track you create My Song, and the audio file you put onto the track was already named My Song. That’s right, the hierarchy with a Music Segment can be thought of as if it were a mini-DAW project, and this is the base-level structure that will be used for any audio you import into the Interactive Music Hierarchy.
Another parallel you can draw from a DAW is that the Transport Control’s Play button isn’t connected directly to any one track. In fact, you may have noticed that when you selected the Explore-Theme Music Track, the Transport Control’s focus stayed on the Music Segment because it was the last playable object. To play a Music Track, the parent Music Segment must be playing.