Wwise Integration in Unity Pro 3 !?

Wwise Integration in Unity Pro 3 !!??

Can someone from unity comment on this?

 

I have unity pro 3.4 and it uses Fmod, not wwise?

 

Hello!

There is indeed a Wwise plugin for Unity Pro 3.4. The plugin is currently in Beta. For now, it supports only the Windows platform. More platforms will follow early next year. The full API of the Wwise SDK is available for use in Unity, with a few basic components. If you are interested in participating in the Beta, contact us, we need all your suggestions!

Wwise is free for non-commercial work. For commercial work, check our pricing on our website:
http://www.audiokinetic.com/en/products/licensing

Mathieu Jean
Audiokinetic

 

I'd need robust mobile support to even consider it.

 

So iOS and Android support? That's in the plans indeed.

 

Will the Unity plugin be an addon or a separate product with a different price?

It seems to me that Unity already offers some of the features that Wwise offers while also offering some features that I would consider obsolete in a proper Unity workflow.

 

You are right, there are some features in Wwise that are covered by Unity and maybe some that could be considered as obsolete. For games that mostly need to play simple sounds, I would suggest keeping Unity audio. On the other hand, games looking for a more sophisticated audio experience, I would suggest using Wwise. Especially for elements like:

-The support from Audiokinetic programmer team
-Sound designers can work and test independently of the programmers and level designers.
-The interactive music system
-The dynamic dialogue system
-The dynamic mixing system
-The real time profiling and mixing
-The voice limiting and virtual voices management
-The Mute/Solo functionality
-Audio streaming from disk
-The PS3 VRAM Streaming
-The 3D propagation system
-The automatic conversion settings system
-The highly optimized AK Vorbis audio compression formats
-The event system that offers actions like play, pause, seek, mute, set volume, game parameters, switch, etc.
-17 proprietary DSP effects and two 3rd party effects (new to be announced soon)
-The source plug-ins like SoundSeed Air
-The environmental effects, more than simple reverbs, which includes occlusion and obstruction
-The convolution reverb for high quality reverb and especially outdoor reproduction
...

This list can be quite longer actually, depending on your game design and the size of your team. But again, if you need just basic audio cues for your game, Unity is good enough and will be cheaper in the end.

The Unity plugin comes at no extra cost with a valid Wwise license (pricing available at: http://www.audiokinetic.com/en/products/licensing/pricing)

 

I have sound designer frieds who love Wwise so it is great that you are working on on this plugin to allow users to have it as an option.

Does your pluging play through fmod playback engine or does it bypass it completely?

 

This is good news. Who do we contact to beta test? Just via website?

 

The plugin bypass FMOD completely.

 

You just need to go through the regular contact form on the web site and tell that you want to participate. Thanks!

 

I'd like to buy this if:

* supports more than 32 simultaneous sounds (need about 80 simultaneous) via soft mixing or whatever
* competitive performance on iOS
* able to load AND unload samples during execution of the app, to minimise memory footprint
* simple 2D pan and volume
* simple 2D reverb (or sustain) so sounds nicely mix and trail off.

If you can do that, please respond to the mail I sent on the wwise site, as I would be keen to license quite soon after a quick 1-2 day's worth of trialling. It shouldn't take longer for my requirements.

The reason I'm interested in this is because so far, I can't get unity to play more than 32 simultaneous sounds without issues.

 

32 simultanous sounds on which platform? As that makes a day night difference

 

Hello Hippocoder,

Let's go point by point:
- More than 32 simultaneous sounds (approx 80 needed).
Not that I want to nitpick, but that's a very vague requirement. Yes we can do more than 32 sounds. 80, or more if you'd like. Now, how much CPU you want left for the rest of the game? The number of voices that can be supported depends on a lot of factors, and that's on any platform, with any sound engine. Things like codec, effects, positionning, streaming from disk can all eat up CPU. Those can be quite heavy or not, depending on your design. From experience, 80 voices on PC/XBox/PS3 is quite achievable. On iOS, I would recommend setting the bar lower... Using virtual voices and voice limiting it can be manageable.

- Competitive performance on iOS
Compared to FMOD (the engine in Unity)? We do compare to them. But as I explained, performance is highly dependent on the desired design. And that's true for FMOD too, as you discovered.

- Able to load AND unload samples during execution of the app
You can do that with Wwise in Unity, no problem. You can even stream audio from disk.

- Simple 2D pan + volume
This is supported, of course.

- Reverb
We have 3 different reverb algorithms, with different CPU, memory requirements and, obviously, quality.

Our default trial period is 3 months, so you can take your time The only issue you might have with us is that the iOS plugin will be ready only at the end of Q1 2012.

 

Thanks for the heads up guys!

 

super exciting!

 

Hi,

I was wondering if you are stopping FMOD from running some how?

Thanks

 

Hello,
Just passing by to let you all know that we just released a new version of Wwise for Unity Pro. Now available for Windows, Mac, iOS and XBox 360.


@pbaker: No the FMOD engine still runs inside Unity. You can mix native Unity audio components with Wwise, altough that may be troublesome to get a good result while having both systems. But I've been told that FMOD doesn't take any CPU cycles to speak of when running idle.

 

*cough* link...please!

 

Sorry about that! www.audiokinetic.com

 

Has anyone had any luck using Wwise with Unity iOS?
I've gotten it working inside Unity Editor on Windows, but havn't been able to verify it on OSX or iOS. It looks like you need to swap plugin files or something (doens't look like they can exist in the plugin directory at the same time).

Even after swapping to the iOS plugin and following the Xcode instructions, i get an error on the Build Phase run script step and an error telling me to run with some kind of debug parameter in xcode?

 

Hello,
That's probably something you'd want to tell Audiokinetic Support about... http://www.audiokinetic.com/en/support

 

That's a ton of sounds to be playing all at once. Is it a rythm game?

 

Thanks! I've written up a post on their forums regarding it. Havn't heard anything yet. I'll try the support link.