High Dynamic Range audio provides a revolutionary way of looking at the audio reproduction of high dynamic scenes by increasing the standard 96 dB of dynamic range found in 16 bit systems to as high as 200 dB. HDR audio is a dynamic mixing system in which the loudest playing sound automatically lowers the volume of the other playing sounds. The resulting effect is a more focused mix and a better voice count which enhances run-time performance.
Wwise now offers non-destructive loudness normalization of audio sources. Normalization is transparent to all volume-based logic (virtual voices, HDR) and to the new Voice Monitor profiling view, simplifying mixing and visualization.
Wwise now has two types of meter views:
1. Standard Meter view: Peak, True Peak or RMS.
2. Loudness Meter view: based on ITU-R BS.1770-3 and EBU R 128 standards. The loudness short and momentary values can also be monitored over time in the Performance Monitor view which helps spot level problems occurring during a game play session.
It is now possible to make non-destructive edits on audio sources in Wwise after import. Here's an overview of the supported workflow:
The Voice Monitor profiling view shows the voice volume of all playing sounds compared to one another. When the view is used to monitor HDR audio, it shows either the volume of each sound and the effect of the moving window at the input of the HDR bus, or the resulting volumes for each sound after the HDR effect at the output of this same bus.
The award-winning game Limbo is now available from the Wwise installer for anyone interested in studying the Wwise project while connected to the game. You can come up with your own sound design of the game by replacing the audio files, object properties and behaviors.
Two new features for performance enhancements and mixing have been added to busses and auxiliary busses:
Channel Configuration:
By default, busses use the channel configuration set by the game (typically 2.0 or 5.1). Now, 1.0, 2.0, 4.0 and 5.1 can specifically be set per bus which opens up creative avenues while using less resources, for example when a bus with inserted effects forces a mixdown.
2DPositioning:
Center % and 2D panner can now be used to pan the output of busses and auxiliary busses in the surround field.
No need to double-click to explore the object properties if you prefer activate-on-selection. Simply enable the option 'Inspect object when selection changes' in the User Preferences and then you will be able to update views like the Project Explorer or List View with mouse single-click or by changing selection using the keyboard arrows.
All sounds and containers now have the 'Initial Delay' property that can make certain scenarios such as adding delay between sounds trivial. There is no longer the need to using 'Play' action delays or inserting silence in hierarchies.
Wwise now supports the following three new platforms:
Android now runs 10% faster. Vorbis and many effects have been optimized on several platforms. Here's an overview of the performance factors (as a reference, 1x represents status quo while 2x means that an effect runs twice faster than before):
| Xbox 360 | PS3 | Wii U | |
| Matrix Reverb |
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| Flanger |
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| LPF |
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| Time Stretch |
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| Convolution Reverb |
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| Guitar Distortion |
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| Tremolo |
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| Harmonizer |
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| Vorbis |
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Switch transition rules across different state groups are now feasible with the new switch assignment UI. This new system is inspired by the dynamic dialogue events and allows the same type of features like the fallback mechanism and the weighting.
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