Beta 2021.1 - Suggestions/ Questions: Object-based Audio Cube Project

Question

Thanks for testing out the Wwise 2021.1 Beta! Here are some resources to get you started and questions we've mapped for feedback.

Suggestions: Sample Project - Cube Object-based Audio Tasks

Convert bus hierarchy to Object-Based

• Can you set the bus output to use 3D audio and objects

 

Bus Status and Setup

• From the bus hierarchy in the project explorer can you tell which busses are mixing and which aren't
• Open the general settings on the Environmental bus
• Can you tell what kind of processing is happening on this bus?
• Add a gain effect to the Environmental bus, Note the change in Icons in Project Explorer.
• Set the gain in Gain FX to 24
• Add another gain effect and set it to -48
• Go to general settings page, can you tell what configuration the bus is in and if it is mixing or doing other processing?
• Can you see from the general settings page what is causing the bus to do processing?
• The Environmental bus has many 3D sounds routed through it
• Can you set it up so that objects reach the master bus?

 

Profiling

• Connect to Cube
• Switch to Audio Object Profiler Layout
• Run or switch to Cube
• Push ESC, choose the following: singleplayer.. then Start SP map.., then map dcp_the_core/enter
• Run inside the building and up the stairs and you see some monsters, fire the gun a few times
• Turn off Follow Capture time
• Can you show the objects in the Environmental Bus?
• Can you show the objects in the Intermediate Bus?
• Scrub the time back to when the Shotgun_Blast was playing
• Can you show only the objects in the Environmental Bus in the list?
• Can you show all busses and objects in the list?
• Can you show audio objects from the Environmental Bus in the 3D View?
• Select a Shotgun_Blast object in the list, can you see which object is selected in the 3D view?
• Can you tell how close the sound is to the listener?
• Can you Filter to only see the objects from the Shotgun_Blast voice?
• The Environments bus has effects, so this means that we can see the objects before and after the effect.
• Show only the Environmental Bus
• Can you find a way to show all FX stages to see how the object are affected in each stage.
• Can you show only the first stage of the bus processing before the effect?
• Can you show the voice of the shotgun blast object in the Voice Graph
• Can you show everything in the list again?
• Can you find where objects are mixed instead of being passed up the bus hierarchy as objects?
• Can you find a way to show the detailed output of the device for the master bus?

 

Metadata

• Can you see metering and 3d Metadata on the Shotgun_Blast
• Can you tell if this object goes through the full bus hierarchy without being lost?
• Disconnect from Cube
• Can you add Metadata to the Emitter_Teleport sound to control how it is mixed?
• Reconnect to Cube
• Can you see the metadata for this object in the profiling UI?
• From the profiling UI can you access where the metadata is defined?

 

 

Comments

I was able to turn on 3D Audio via the checkbox in the Audio Device Editor, but the process required a bit of troubleshooting as after enabling Windows Sonic for Headphones I couldn't hear any sound coming from the game. After profiling, I realised there was a Wwise Peak Limiter plugin on the Master Audio Bus which doesn't currently support Audio Objects bus configuration. I did a quick test and noticed that these are the built-in Wwise plugins that currently cause the same issue:

• Wwise Matrix Reverb
• Wwise Peak Limiter
• Wwise Recorder
• Wwise RoomVerb

It would be interesting to know if these plugins are eventually going to support Audio Objects bus configurations. I can imagine there are lots of projects that currently use Wwise Peak Limiter on their master audio bus, and while a similar limiting can now be done with the Mastering Suite, I believe many projects still haven't switched to that solution (I actually ran into the same issue where the Peak Limiter was muting all of the game sounds when enabling 3D audio on my own work project).

Profiling worked really well! Information is presented in a very clear way; it's still a lot to understand and process and it will inevitably take some time to get used to the new workflow and views. I'd like to put it to the test on a much larger project where there can be many more sounds playing at once.

I believe that one additional nice-to-have feature would be the ability to select objects from the Audio Object 3D Viewer and have that selection mirrored in the Audio Object List view.

---

Hi Francesco!

The Audiokinetic Development Team will investigate the problem you reported regarding the built-in Wwise plug-ins not supporting Audio Objects bug configuration (tracking id: WG-52858).

Thanks for your feedback!

---

Hello Francesco,

It would turn out that this is done on purpose. These effects should not be used on object busses.
It is needed to understand that with Windows Sonic and such,  object busses are not mixing voices together and some effects may become irrelevant or problematic when they are run in parallel and not on a mix.

The full documentation of this error states:

**************************************************************
Plug-in does not support Audio Objects bus configuration


  This error means the listed Effect or Object Processor plug-in was instantiated on a bus whose bus configuration is Audio Objects, and this is not a valid mode of operation for this plug-in. Either the bus configuration is set explicitly to in the Property Editor for the bus, or it is set implicitly by another plug-in on the bus.

  Recommended resolution steps:

  - Change the bus to a supported configuration, either by explicitly setting the configuration to a proper channel configuration (not Audio Objects) in the property page, or by reviewing the plug-ins that precede it in the Effects list. One of them could be changing the configuration to Audio Objects.
**************************************************************
 

I conclude we should enhance the error message in the capture log to be more helpful for users to  better understand why these are not allowed.

There are a few different reasons that I could list:
- Reverbs should not be used on object busses. (Since they get duplicated) It is better advised to use non-object configurations for reverbs.
- Peak limiting is better suited post mixing. Compressor could be useful as they guarantees that the signal sill not overshoot 0dB.
- For the peak limiter, one should replace it with a compressor. The former guarantees that the signal sill not overshoot 0dB, which is precluded by the use of objects anyway.
- The recorder plug-in is generating files (on disk). One per instance, and having an object base generating many in parallel with little naming convention on the lifetime of object leads to file problems. This is disabled for now.

Again, huge thanks for the feedback!