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Property Editor: Music Track

This Property Editor contains the properties and behavior options for the selected Music Track. Track properties, such as volume and Low-Pass Filter, determine how the music sounds in your game. Track behaviors, such as track type and streaming, determine how the music is played at any given point in the game.

The General Settings tab of the Property Editor is divided into three separate areas. The first area includes all the absolute properties, such as output routing. The middle area includes all the relative properties, such as Volume and Low-Pass Filter. The last area, on the right, includes all the behaviors.

For a complete description of absolute and relative properties, refer to About Properties in the Interactive Music Hierarchy.

For a description of the properties on the Source Settings, Effects, Positioning, RTPC, States, and Advanced Settings tabs, refer to Common Property Tabs: Actor-Mixer Objects.

General

Interface Element

Description

Inclusion

Determines whether the element is included or excluded. When selected, the element is included. When unselected, the element is not included. By default, this applies across all platforms. Use the Link indicator (to the left of the check box) to determine or to set platform-specific customizations.

When this option is unselected, the property and behavior options in the Property Editor become unavailable.

Name

The name of the object.

Notes

Any additional information about the object properties.

Controls the Mute and Solo states for the object and shows the implicit mute and solo states for the object.

Muting an object silences this object for the current monitoring session. Soloing an object silences all the other objects in the project except this one.

A bold M or S indicates that the Mute or Solo state has been explicitly set for the object. A non-bold M or S with faded color indicates that the object's Mute or Solo state was implicitly set from another object's state.

Muting an object implicitly mutes the descendant objects.

Soloing an object implicitly mutes the sibling objects and implicitly solos the descendant and ancestor objects.

[Tip] Tip

Hold the Ctrl key while clicking a solo button to exclusively solo the object for which the solo button is associated.

[Note] Note

Mute and Solo are designed to be used for monitoring purposes only and are not persisted in the project or stored in the SoundBanks.

Relative Properties

Interface Element

Description

Voice Volume

The attenuation (level or amplitude) applied on the current object before it is routed to a bus or sent to an Auxiliary Bus. Refer to Understanding the Voice Pipeline for more information about volumes.

Default value: 0
Range: -400 to 400
Units: dB

[Note] Note

The default slider range is from -96 to +12 dB. You can go over those limits by entering the value directly or by rolling the mouse while the focus is on the edit control.

Voice Low-pass Filter

A recursive filter that attenuates high frequencies based on the value specified.

The units for this filter represent the percentage of low-pass filtering that has been applied, where 0 means no low-pass filtering (signal unaffected) and 100 means maximal attenuation.

Default value: 0
Range: 0 to 100
Units: Percent
(For more detail, see Wwise LPF and HPF Value Cutoff Frequencies.)

Voice High-pass Filter

A recursive filter that attenuates low frequencies based on the value specified.

The units for this filter represent the percentage of high-pass filtering that has been applied, where 0 means no high-pass filtering (signal unaffected) and 100 means maximal attenuation.

Default value: 0
Range: 0 to 100
Units: Percent

Output Bus

Interface Element

Description

Volume (to Output Bus)

The attenuation or amplitude of the signal routed to the audio output bus.

Default value: 0
Range: -200 to 200
Units: dB

[Note] Note

The default slider range is from -96 to +12. You can go over those limits by entering the value directly, or by rolling the mouse while the focus is on the edit control.

[Tip] Tip

When using the User-Defined Auxiliary Sends in a wet/dry mix scenario, the Output Bus Volume would be associated with the dry level, as opposed to the auxiliary send volume, which would relate to the wet level. Use an RTPC on Output Bus Volume and Auxiliary Send Volumes to control the balance from the game.

Low-Pass Filter (to Output Bus)

A Low-Pass Filter for the signal routed to the audio output bus.

A recursive filter that attenuates high frequencies based on the value specified.

The units for this filter represent the percentage of Low-Pass Filtering that has been applied, where 0 means no Low-Pass Filtering (signal unaffected) and 100 means maximal attenuation.

Default value: 0
Range: 0 to 100
Units: Percent

High-Pass Filter (to Output Bus)

A High-Pass Filter for the signal routed to the audio output bus.

A recursive filter that attenuates low frequencies based on the value specified.

The units for this filter represent the percentage of High-Pass Filtering that has been applied, where 0 means no High-Pass Filtering (signal unaffected) and 100 means maximal attenuation.

Default value: 0
Range: 0 to 100
Units: Percent

Game-defined Auxiliary Sends

Interface Element

Description

Override Parent

Determines whether the game-defined auxiliary sends usage will be inherited from the parent or defined at the current level in the hierarchy. When this option is not selected, the game-defined auxiliary controls are unavailable.

[Note] Note

If the object is a top-level object, then this option is unavailable.

Use game-defined auxiliary sends

Determines whether the object is using the game-defined auxiliary sends for the game object. A game-defined send is a combination of an Auxiliary Bus and a send volume.

Enable this option to have the object affected by the values coming from the game for the following functions:

Volume (Game-defined auxiliary sends)

Determines the attenuation on the game-defined auxiliary sends volumes set for the game object.

Use this volume to offset game-defined auxiliary send values.

Default value: 0
Range: -200 to 200
Units: dB

[Note] Note

The default slider range is from -96 to +12. You can go over those limits by entering the value directly, or by rolling the mouse while the focus is on the edit control.

[Note] Game-defined auxiliary sends properties in the All Properties tab

There are game-defined auxiliary sends properties for LPF and HPF, which can only be adjusted in the All Properties Tab.

User-Defined Auxiliary Sends

Interface Element

Description

Override Parent

Determines whether the User-Defined Auxiliary Sends usage will be inherited from the parent or defined at the current level in the hierarchy. When this option is not selected, the user-defined auxiliary controls are unavailable.

[Note] Note

If the object is a top-level object, then this option is unavailable.

Click the Configure Columns... shortcut (right-click) option from the column header band.

The Configure Columns Dialog opens. Specify which columns to display and their order.

ID column (User-Defined Auxiliary Sends)

Determines the ID of the User-Defined Auxiliary Sends. Up to 4 different sends can be added.

Auxiliary Bus column (User-Defined Auxiliary Sends)

Determines the Auxiliary Bus this object is sending audio data to. Auxiliary sends can only target Auxiliary Busses.

To add an auxiliary send:

  1. Click the selector [...] button.

  2. Select an Auxiliary Bus from the Master-Mixer Hierarchy.

  3. Click OK.

  4. Set the send volume for this newly added send.

[Note] Note

Auxiliary Busses can be created anywhere in the Master-Mixer Hierarchy as children of an existing Bus or an existing Auxiliary Bus.

[Tip] Tip

You can drag and drop an Auxiliary Bus object from the Project Explorer to the User-Defined Auxiliary Sends list to quickly add a send.

[...] column (User-Defined Auxiliary Sends)

Allow to select an Auxiliary Bus from the Master-Mixer Hierarchy.

Volume column (User-Defined Auxiliary Sends)

Determine the attenuation of the signal sent to the Auxiliary Bus.

Default value: 0
Range: -200 to 200
Units: dB

[Note] Note

The default slider range is from -96 to +12 dB. You can go over those limits by entering the value directly, or by rolling the mouse while the focus is on the edit control.

[Note] Note

This control is only active when an Auxiliary Bus is selected for a specific send entry.

[Note] User-defined auxiliary sends properties in the All Properties tab

There are user-defined auxiliary sends properties for LPF and HPF, which can only be adjusted in the All Properties Tab.

Music Track Specific

Interface Element

Description

Behaviors

Stream

Enables controls that allow you to stream the music audio played in game directly from game media.

Streamed media is not included in SoundBanks. It is the Wwise Stream Manager's, and ultimately, the Low-Level I/O submodule's responsibility to open and read them from disk at run-time. Refer to the Wwise SDK documentation for more details on Wwise I/O.

Streamed files are described in the file SoundBanksInfo.xml, which is created for each platform when SoundBanks are generated. You may use the CopyStreamedFiles or File Packager tools as a post-SoundBank generation step in order to deploy them conveniently. Refer to Chapter 35, Managing SoundBanks for more details.

Audio playback is always streamed while authoring in Wwise regardless of whether this option is selected or not. The Stream settings, therefore, only apply when generating SoundBanks, and playing back from a remote platform or game.

Look-ahead time (ms)

The amount of time reserved by the sound engine to seek the streaming data. This time defines the latency of the track. If the look ahead time is 100 milliseconds, the music will be heard only 100 milliseconds after pressing play.

Default value: 100
Range: 10,000
Units: Milliseconds

If the look-ahead time is too small, audio tracks may become unsynchronized during playback.

Zero latency

Creates a small audio buffer consisting of the beginning portion of the audio file that covers the latency time required to fetch the rest of the file. This enables the entire streamed sound to be played back without delays.

Latency and prefetch settings are set per track. If you have more than one music source per track then the beginning portion of each source will need to be loaded into memory.

Prefetch length (ms)

The beginning portion of the music, in milliseconds, that will be loaded into memory in order for the streamed music to be played back with zero latency.

Since the initial sync point for a piece of music may not be at the beginning of the clip, the prefetch data loaded into memory may not be useful. In this case, the look-ahead time is used.

Non-cachable

Disables caching of this file, when caching is enabled in the streaming manager. This is useful to prevent long loops, or files that are played infrequently, from using up space in the streaming cache that could be better utilized by other sounds.

 

Track Type

Defines the playback behavior of the current track and its sub-tracks. The Track Type can be any one of the following:

  • Normal - Plays the current track each time the parent segment is played. Sub-tracks can't be added when in Normal mode.

  • Random Step - Plays one of the sub-tracks in a random order each time the parent segment is played.

  • Sequence Step - Plays one of the sub-tracks in sequential order each time the parent segment is played.

  • Switch - Plays the sub-tracks associated to the active Switch/State.

Switch Type

Group

The Switch/State Group associated to the track. This field is active only if the Track Type is set to switch.

Default Switch/State

The Switch/State that will be played when the game cannot identify a specific Switch/State. This field is active only if the Track Type is set to switch.


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