Wwise Help

The HDR system's logic ignores two volume properties supplied by Wwise: source normalization and make-up gain(s). These volume controls are primarily used to normalize the audio assets independently of their logical volume, as you could have done in your wave editor prior to importing them into Wwise. For example, you can use the localization make-up gain to even out volume differences between two languages, but the HDR system should have the same behavior across all languages. Thus, it is important to have volume controls that are ignored by the HDR logic, and source normalization and make-up gains play this role.

Note that the virtual voices system, as well as the Voice Monitor calculations, does not take into account the make-up gain and the source normalization. However, virtual voices do take the HDR attenuation into account. Thus, voices can become virtual when they are below the HDR window.

The make-up gain slider in the General Settings tab of the Property Editor can also be used with HDR for aesthetic purposes. Since it is transparent from the HDR system's point of view, it can be seen as a post-HDR volume (in terms of signal flow), allowing you to change the volume of sounds independently of the HDR window. Normally, any sound playing alone above the HDR threshold comes out of the system at the same level. With the make-up gain, you can effectively make it louder. For example, you might want the player's guns of your first-person shooter to be much louder than the rest, while benefiting from the HDR system's dynamic mixing capabilities. In this case, give them a boost using the make-up gain.