Wwise Fundamentals

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Convert audio

One of the most effective ways to reduce the size of your SoundBanks is to convert the WAV files, imported in the earlier modules, to another form. This could be done by reducing the sample rate, reducing the number of channels, such as downmixing to mono, or converting to another file type. While this usually results in a reduction in sound quality, that’s a compromise you might have to make. One benefit of Wwise is that you don’t have to convert your files during the import process. You can wait until your design is nearing completion and then make these conversions, only if necessary, and to the extent necessary.

While it’s possible to convert files one at a time, often you’ll decide on Conversion Settings that make sense for many files and create a ShareSet that you can apply to many objects. In this exercise, you'll create a ShareSet that makes sense for all of your general sound effects.

From the menu bar, click Layouts > Designer (F5).
In the Project Explorer, select the Audio tab, expand the Actor-Mixer Hierarchy > Default Work Unit, and then select the Magic Actor-Mixer.
In the Property Editor, select Conversion.
Click the More options button, and then click New.
In the dialog that opens, type SFX in the Name field, and then click OK.

The SFX ShareSet is assigned to the Magic Actor-Mixer.

In the Property Editor, double-click the SFX ShareSet.

The Conversion Settings Editor opens in the center of the layout. The upper pane shows conversion parameters that are applied to all objects assigned to this ShareSet. The lower pane displays a list of the objects currently assigned to the ShareSet along with details about the audio files, such as how many channels they have, their sample rate, and their original file size.


	You can create additional Conversion Settings ShareSets for other types of sounds. For example, dialogue has a limited frequency range, so you can use lower sample rates with little noticeable effect. You might also want to create a Conversion Settings ShareSet specifically for music elements because they're full-frequency, and people tend to be very sensitive to poor audio quality in music.

Notice that the Audio Source names appear in blue and there are dashes in the Converted Size column. This is because the conversion process hasn't happened yet.


	You can drag the edge of the column headers to the left or right to adjust the width of the columns.

Converting stereo channels to mono or lowering the sample rate can help reduce file size, but can also create obvious changes to the way the audio sounds.

Another option is to change the format. By default, audio imported into Wwise is typically a PCM file, which means there has been no data compression applied to the file. Data compression, like that used with MP3 files, can greatly reduce a file’s size, and depending on how it is applied, might be barely noticeable. However, if a file is compressed, the game system must decompress it to play it, which puts an additional load on the system’s processor. This is where you must consider the advantages of reducing file size compared with the disadvantages increasing processor usage.

Wwise doesn't provide MP3 compression, but it does provide Vorbis compression, which is very similar, and many would argue sounds better and has become a standard in game audio integration. In this case, you’ll use Vorbis compression.

For both Mac and Windows, select Vorbis from the Format list.

A Quality property value, which is specific to the Vorbis option, is displayed. This represents the quality of sound that will result after the Vorbis conversion on a scale from -2 to 10 with -2 being lowest. While higher values represent better sound quality, it also means less data reduction will occur. A value of 4 is a good starting point because it dramatically reduces file size while providing acceptable sound in most situations.
Click Convert to apply the Conversion Settings.

Conversion Settings are also applied when you generate SoundBanks.
In the dialog that opens, select the platform appropriate for your system and then click Convert.

When the conversion is done, the Audio Source names change from blue to either black or white depending on the theme selected in your User Settings. You can also see the converted file size. The conversion to Vorbis format has reduced most file sizes by 70-80%, a huge savings in space.

Now you'll regenerate the SoundBanks to see how this impacts the size of your Main SoundBank.
From the menu bar, click Layouts > SoundBank (F7), and then in the upper-right corner of the SoundBank Manager, click Generate All.

The Generating SoundBanks dialog opens and shows the progress.

When the process is done, in the Generating SoundBanks dialog, click Close.

The Main SoundBank data size is now less than the max size, meaning it is within the memory budget. However, the DCP_the_core SoundBank is still over budget. You’ll address this later.

After you have created the Conversion Settings ShareSets for your project, you can specify which one you want to use as the default. The Default Conversion Settings ShareSet is used when a new object is created if the object is a top-level object. If the object has a parent, it will inherit the parent’s Conversion Settings. The default ShareSet is assigned in the Source Settings tab of the Project Settings.

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