Wwise Audio Lab

Options accessible through the In-game Menu:

• Teleport (applicable only to the Village map): To move directly to a specific location on the map, including any of the Information Nodes.

  • Info: Welcome!

  • Info: Tennis Ball Launcher

  • Info: The Radio

  • Info: LOD - Campfire

  • Info: LOD - Fountain

  • Info: Ambisonics vs Quad

  • Info: Reflect - Early Reflections

  • Info: Portal

  • Info: Oriented Reverb

  • Info: Audio Objects and Bus Config

  • Info: Geometric Diffraction

  • Info: Radial Emitters

  • Info: Reverb Estimation

  • Info: Reverb Zones

  • Large Building: A radio-equipped, vacuous Room, ideal for testing reverb.

  • Town Square: An open area in close proximity to several buildings.

  • Coastline: An open area close to the ocean, distant from buildings.

  • Train Station: A large Room with high, arched ceilings, ideal for testing oriented reverb.

  • Park: An open area close to the fountain, ideal for evaluating level of detail.

• Sound Options: To adjust WAL sounds. This is an excellent place to experiment with a variety of Wwise settings to discover and understand the differences (sometimes subtle) between certain sound parameters.

  • Ambient Sources: To specify the format of ambient sounds and Room tones. Within Wwise, each ambient sound has a Blend Container with two corresponding source files. Within WAL, changing sources crossfades to the other in synchronicity, providing an easily observable consistency for A-B type comparisons. For example, note the phase coherency when moving the listener around.

    • Quad: To hear a quad source. Tends to give greater precision, but lacks height dimension.

    • Ambisonics: To hear a 1st-order ambisonics source. Tends to sound more natural to the human ear and includes height.

  • Geometry-Informed Reverb: To specify which early reflections are used alongside the standard late reverb of the RoomVerb Effect.

    • Static: To use RoomVerb, which applies the same early reflection delay regardless of sound emitter movement.

      

    • Dynamic – Reflect: To use Reflect, which calculates early reflections dynamically using environmental geometry.

      

  • Early Reflections Order: To specify the number of early reflections generated by Reflect per surface reflector, for each applicable sound. (Not applicable to Static Early Reflections, which do not use Reflect.) Orders 1 to 4 are available. Using more than one order of reflections creates more sonic density, but also requires more runtime CPU and memory.

  • Late Reverb: To mute (unmute) the late reverb. This is useful when, for example, tuning dynamic early reflection settings.

  • Bus Configuration: To define the bus configuration setting applied to an Audio Bus in the Wwise project.

    The WAL includes four Audio Busses as children of the Master Audio Bus, which have been configured to produce the greatest audio fidelity across all outputs:

    • Positional: [Same as Parent] This Audio Bus includes 3D Positioned elements of the WAL, such as sounds for the main character, ambience, doors, and the radio. Sounds routed to this Audio Bus will inherit the Bus Configuration of the parent Master Audio Bus as defined by the Audio Device and are dependent on the output configuration of the endpoint. In the event that 3D Audio is available for the rendering of Audio Objects, sounds routed to this Audio Bus will be preserved as individual Audio Objects, carrying Metadata (e.g., position and spread) to the endpoint. Audio Objects are then delivered by the Audio Device to the endpoint and then rendered according to the user-defined output configuration; either speakers, headphones, or headphones with spatialization. Audio Objects have the potential to be positioned and processed using spatialization technology available to different endpoints over headphones (e.g., Windows Sonic for Headphones, Sony PlayStation 5 3D Audio, Dolby Atmos for Headphones, or DTS Headphone:X). When the limit of available System Audio Objects has been reached, Audio Objects above the limit will be rendered to the Main Mix channel format initialized by the endpoint or defined in the settings of the System Audio Device.

    • Backgrounds (Main Mix): [Same as Main Mix] This Audio Bus includes ambient backgrounds configured for ambisonics and quad auditioning by default. Sounds routed to this Audio Bus will be delivered to the Audio Device to be mixed according to the Main Mix channel format initialized by the endpoint, specified by the Audio Device, or as defined by an Audio Bus Configuration. Channel-based audio is delivered by the Audio Device to the endpoint and then rendered according to the user-defined output configuration; either speakers, headphones, or headphones with spatialization. This channel-based Main Mix will be output directly to a specified speaker configuration, or virtualized and processed using spatialization technology available to different endpoints over headphones (e.g., Windows Sonic for Headphones, Sony PlayStation 5 3D Audio, Dolby Atmos for Headphones, or DTS Headphone:X).

    • UI (Passthrough Mix): [Same as Passthrough Mix] This Audio Bus includes the user interface sounds. Sounds routed to this Audio Bus will be delivered to the Passthrough Mix by the Audio Device and will be mixed to a channel format initialized by the endpoint (e.g., 2.0) and will remain unprocessed by spatialization technology. When 3D Audio is not available or enabled, sounds routed to the Passthrough Mix will be delivered to the Audio Device to be mixed according to the Main Mix channel format initialized by the endpoint, specified by the Audio Device, or as defined by an Audio Bus Configuration.

    • Environmental Aux Busses: [Same as Parent] This Audio Bus includes the Aux Busses for Early Reflections and Late Reverb. The Bus Configurations authored for the child busses will inherit the Bus Configuration of the parent Master Audio Bus as defined by the Audio Device and are dependent on the output configuration of the endpoint. In the event that 3D Audio is available for the rendering of Audio Objects, sounds routed to this Audio Bus will be preserved as individual Audio Objects, carrying Metadata (e.g., position and spread) to the endpoint. When the limit of available System Audio Objects has been reached, Audio Objects above the limit will be rendered to the Main Mix channel format initialized by the endpoint or defined in the settings of the System Audio Device.

    It may be useful to try different Bus Configurations when evaluating different output configurations and technologies, including Audio Objects. Menu options to configure each Audio Bus individually have been provided with the following Bus Configurations:

    • Same as Parent

    • Same As main mix

    • Same As passthrough

    • Audio Objects

    • 2.0

    • 3.0

    • 4.0

    • 5.1

    • 7.1

    • 5.1.2

    • 7.1.2

    • 7.1.4

    • Ambisonics 1st Order

    • Ambisonics 2nd Order

    • Ambisonics 3rd Order

    • Ambisonics 4th Order

    • Ambisonics 5th Order

    • Auro 9.1

    • Auro 10.1

    • Auro 11.1

    • Auro 13.1

  • System Audio Device:

    • Allow 3D Audio: When selected, gives permission to the Audio Device to attempt to activate the 3D Audio features of the endpoint. Deselect this option to opt out of all 3D audio features. Note that selecting this option is not a guarantee that 3D audio will be activated; 3D audio is only activated if the platform supports it.

      Refer to Understanding Object-Based Audio for further details.

    • Allow System Audio Objects: When 3D audio is activated, selecting this option allows the Audio Device to send System Audio Objects to the endpoint if the endpoint supports a number of Audio Objects greater than the specified threshold, (i.e., the value of Minimum System Audio Objects Required).

      Deselect this option to opt out of sending individual System Audio Objects.

      When deselected, Audio Objects are mixed to the Main Mix, while keeping their spatial characteristics. The resulting spatial accuracy will depend on the configuration of the Main Mix.

    • 3D Headphone Configuration: When 3D audio is activated, the channel configuration initialized for the Main Mix when 3D Audio is enabled will be used for headphones.

      • Use Game-Defined Settings

      • 7.1

      • 7.1.4

      • Ambisonics 1st Order

      • Ambisonics 2nd Order

      • Ambisonics 3rd Order

      • Ambisonics 4th Order

      • Ambisonics 5th Order

  • Tennis Ball: To add or remove the tennis ball visual and its associated bounce sounds in WAL. The initial launch sound is always emitted when firing the tennis ball launcher.

  • Debug Log: Selecting the Debug Log check box adds text and metering information that is overlaid on the screen. It is sometimes useful during development to validate information from inside the WAL.

• Graphics Options: To change overall rendering and material quality settings of the game. Reducing quality diminishes image detail but also the required processing power. Lower these if WAL lags.

  • Scalability Settings: To adjust the amount of shading, color, lamination, and ultimately resolution of the WAL environment’s image. See the Unreal Documentation for more info.

    • Render Resolution: To adjust the resolution on a slider ranging from 0% to 100% sharpness. See the Unreal Documentation for more info.

    • Low

    • Medium

    • High

    • Epic

  • Material Quality: To adjust the amount of material pieces, such as shaders and textures. See the Unreal Documentation for more info.

    • Low

    • Medium

    • High

• Controls: To open a reference splash image detailing the controls for the specified input device.

  • Gamepad: (Xbox controller)

    

  • Keyboard:

    

  • Motion Controls

• Information Nodes Visibility: To hide (or redisplay) all the information nodes in the currently loaded map. Information nodes are always displayed when a map is first loaded. They highlight and explain key audio features in the map. See the Information Nodes section in the next chapter for more information.

• Return To Main Menu: To exit the currently loaded map and return to the WAL home screen with the Main Menu.