UE4 Integration - "Plugin media unavailable" when using Convolution Reverb?

Question

Hi,

I'm having an issue with the convolution reverb plugin in the UE4 4.8 integration, I've been through and registered the plugins I'm using, which appears to be correct. However, I'm getting no effect and "Plug-in media is unavailable - Wwise Convolution Reverb" in the profiler.

I've had a good look online and the forums, and I believe the solution would usually be to include the media in the soundbank. However, because UE4 generates its own soundbanks I'm not sure if I can?

 

Has anyone successfully managed to get the Convolution Reverb working in UE4, or has run into a similar issue?

 

Many Thanks,

Lewis

Answer 1

The use of plug-in media (as required by the Wwise Convolution Reverb) in a game is documented here for the general case: https://www.audiokinetic.com/library/2015.1_5418/?source=Help&id=including_plug_in_media_in_soundbank.

Your question in the context of a UE4 game is relevant since the documentation does not take into account that you may not use the Wwise SoundBank Manager layout to create the SoundBanks your game will use. As described here, the default workflow in UE4 involves the creation of AkAudioBank items in your UE4 project. What it does under the hood is to add an entry in the SoundBank Definition file that is refreshed each time you generate your SoundBanks in the UE4 Build menu. Manually editing the SoundBank Definition file for your UE4 project is not possible (because it will be overwritten), so you need to have an AkAudioBank in your UE4 Content Browser that corresponds to the SoundBank that holds the plug-in media in your Wwise project.

The most straightforward way to get your Wwise Convolution Reverb working in a UE4 project involves the following steps:
- Create a SoundBank in your Wwise project and add the ShareSet or Auxiliary bus that holds the plug-in media (general case)
- Generate this SoundBank in Wwise via the SoundBank Manager layout (F7)
- Navigate (using Windows Explorer) to your Generated SoundBank folder
- Drap and drop the .bnk file directly to your UE4 Content Browser to create the AkAudioBank

This will also copy the .bnk to the Content\WwiseAudio folder of your UE4 project; the next time you generate SoundBanks from UE4's Build menu, it will be added to the definition file.

Comments

What would the steps look like if using event-based packaging?