Wwise Fundamentals

The assets that you import into your project are the foundation for your project hierarchy. The project hierarchy evolved from traditional mixing techniques where different instruments were routed to a bus, so that you could control their sound properties as a single mixed sound. For example, each of the hi-hat, ride, crash, bass drum, and snare sounds could be routed to a single bus so that you could control their volume and other parameters as if they were one entity.

In Wwise, a similar approach is used to organize and group the sounds, motion objects, and music in your project. By grouping sound, motion, and music objects in such a manner, you begin to build a hierarchical project structure that creates parent-child relationships between the various objects. This unique and efficient way to create and manage the audio and motion in your game gives you more control and flexibility to build a realistic and immersive environment for your game.

The Wwise project hierarchy consists of three distinct levels:

Wwise Project Hierarchies are Workgroup Ready

Working as part of a team is crucial in today's game development environment. Although only one Wwise project can be used per game, you can divide up a Wwise project's hierarchies into different work units so that different people can work on the project concurrently. Work units are distinct XML files that contain information related to a particular section or element within your project. These work units can help you organize and manage the different elements within a project. If you are working as part of a team, these work units can also be managed by your source control system to make it easier for the different members of your team to work on the project concurrently.