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secondary outputs ue4 wwise

0 votes
Hi,

 

I am trying to  have multiple Sound outputs in Unreal. Now my current implementation of Wwise in Unreal is pretty basic and relies on just using your Blueprints to attach to Events on our custom objects.
Looking up secondary Outputs in the documentation shows code that's meant for a direct C++ implementation and not unreal it seems (from the use of wchar_t at least).
So I'm guessing multiple outputs should be possible with Blueprints in Unreal instead, although I can't really see how.
I'm also not sure what the intended use of the AK Unreal components is, it seems to fill both the role of emitter and listener?
Also rn a listener seems to be auto generated, can I prevent this? Or does this not happen When I manually set a listener anyway?
Can you give me an outline how a manual setup of multiple outputs would look like in Unreal? At the moment I'm not even sure If I am supposed to
do anything in code or if this is implementation is supposed to be blueprint only.

 

Thanks in advance!
asked Feb 5, 2020 in General Discussion by Patrycja p. (160 points)

2 Answers

0 votes

Hey, man! 

I have been searching for an answer for six months and I succeeded) I will try to show my own solution and maybe it will help you. I need to have 2 players (VR and keyboard+mouse) and make 2 listeners with my own audio devices. How did I do it? First, this can only be done using C++, and you must download Visual Studio to create code and rebuild the wwise plugin. And after some manipulations with the code, you can use the prepared AKŠ”omponent in Blueprints. In short, AKComponent will get 2 variables: the audio device name in OS and the audio device name in Wwise, and you will connect it together in Blueprints. And step by step:

- I created 2 variables (this parameters you can fill in Blueprints) in AkComponent.h (Base path is: Plugins\Wwise\Source\AkAudio\Classes\)

/**
* Name of Audio Device in Wwise. If empty, "System" is using 
*/
UPROPERTY(EditAnywhere, BlueprintReadWrite, AdvancedDisplay, Category = "AkComponent")
FString WwiseDeviceName;

/** 
* Name of Audio Device in OS. If empty, default device is using 
*/
UPROPERTY(EditAnywhere, BlueprintReadWrite, AdvancedDisplay, Category = "AkComponent")
FString AudioDeviceName;

- Then we go to AkAudioDevice.h to create some tough functions:

// this need to find your audio device in OS by name parameter above
TTuple <AkUInt32, FString> SearchAudioDeviceIdByName(FString deviceName);

// this function add secondary output and connect audio device from OS with device from Wwise
AkOutputDeviceID AddCustomOutput(FString AudioDevice, FString WwiseDevice, UAkComponent* in_pComponent);

// important function remove secondary output when game stopped
AKRESULT RemoveCustomOutput(AkOutputDeviceID deviceId); 

- Now go to AkAudioDevice.cpp and create functions above:

TTuple <AkUInt32, FString> FAkAudioDevice::SearchAudioDeviceIdByName(FString deviceName)
{
     TTuple <AkUInt32, FString> result;
     AkUInt32 immDeviceCount = AK::GetWindowsDeviceCount(AkDeviceState_Active);

     for (AkUInt32 i = 0; i < immDeviceCount; ++i) {
          AkUInt32 deviceId = AK_INVALID_DEVICE_ID;
          AK::GetWindowsDevice(i, deviceId, NULL, AkDeviceState_Active);

         auto deviceNameWstr = AK::GetWindowsDeviceName(i, deviceId, AkDeviceState_Active);

         if (FString(deviceNameWstr).Contains(deviceName)) {
             result.Key = deviceId;
             result.Value = FString(deviceNameWstr);
             break;
         }
    }

    return result;
}

 

AkOutputDeviceID FAkAudioDevice::AddCustomOutput(FString AudioDevice, FString WwiseDevice, UAkComponent* in_pComponent)
{
      TTuple <AkUInt32, FString> Device;
      AkOutputDeviceID deviceId = AK_INVALID_DEVICE_ID;
      FString WwiseDeviceName = "System";
      AKRESULT res = AK_Fail;

      if (AudioDevice.Len() == 0 && WwiseDevice.Len() == 0) {
          return deviceId;
      }

      if (WwiseDevice.Len() > 0) {
           WwiseDeviceName = WwiseDevice;
      }

      Device = SearchAudioDeviceIdByName(*AudioDevice);

      if (Device.Key) {
           AkOutputSettings outputSettings(*WwiseDeviceName, Device.Key);
           auto gameObjID = in_pComponent->GetAkGameObjectID();

           res = AK::SoundEngine::AddOutput(outputSettings, &deviceId, &gameObjID, 1);
      }

      if (res != AK_Success) {
          UE_LOG(LogAkAudio, Error, TEXT("Searching of VR Audio Devices is failed: %d"), res);
      } else {
          FString componentName = in_pComponent->GetName();
          UE_LOG(LogAkAudio, Warning, TEXT("AkComponent \"%s\" attached to \"%s\" <-> \"%s\" "), *componentName, *Device.Value, *WwiseDeviceName);
      }
      return deviceId;
}

 

AKRESULT FAkAudioDevice::RemoveCustomOutput(AkOutputDeviceID deviceId)
{
      return AK::SoundEngine::RemoveOutput(deviceId);
}

- And at the end we go to AkComponent.cpp and look for  UAkComponent::PostRegisterGameObject() and UAkComponent::PostUnregisterGameObject(). It perfect place to manipulate with devices. Here we just use functions just created:

void UAkComponent::PostRegisterGameObject() 
{
        FAkAudioDevice* AkAudioDevice = FAkAudioDevice::Get();
        if (AudioDeviceName.Len() > 0 || WwiseDeviceName.Len() > 0) {
              OutputID = AkAudioDevice->AddCustomOutput(AudioDeviceName, WwiseDeviceName, this);
        }
}

void UAkComponent::PostUnregisterGameObject() 
{
      FAkAudioDevice* AkAudioDevice = FAkAudioDevice::Get();
      if (AkAudioDevice && OutputID != AK_INVALID_DEVICE_ID) {
            AkAudioDevice->RemoveCustomOutput(OutputID);
      }
}

That's it. If you find some patience and managed with compiler, you get new posibility in Blueprint)

After this hell you have to create AkComponent as a listener and attach any other AkComponent to it as a listener:

answered Apr 2, 2020 by Ed K. (300 points)
0 votes
answered Apr 29, 2020 by Ed K. (300 points)
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