[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H50NRzZnd5k[/youtube]
Audiokinectic has released the 2010.2 version of Wwise, one of the most popular audio middleware solutions for audio implementantion on video games. The new version includes a lot of new things, such as side-chain support, new effects, a new convolution reverb, new integration demo, xWMA support, etc. Here’s the official information
- Side-Chaining – It can now easily be achieved in Wwise by using the Wwise Meter effect and RTPC curves. The new “Wwise Meter” effect monitors the input signal of a bus and sends the calculated levels (using smoothing parameters such as Attack, Release and Hold) to a game parameter. A Volume RTPC curve linked to this game parameter can then be created on another bus resulting in the volume being affected by the level of the bus with the Meter effect inserted.
- Wwise Flanger – The full-featured Wwise Flanger effect allows sound designers to create a large scope of effects, including vibrato, chorus, comb filtering and, of course, flanging.
- Wwise Guitar Distortion – Four distortion models are available (overdrive, metal, fuzz, and clip) along with pre and post filters to create mock-ups for a wide range of classic guitar distortions.
- Wwise Tremolo – The Wwise Tremolo creates trembling effects by modifying the amplitude of the signal up and down over time.
- Wwise Meter – The Wwise Meter effect measures the level of a signal without modifying it, and optionally outputs this level as a Game Parameter. The dynamics as well as the range of the output value can be adjusted. It is most useful for achieving side-chaining, where the measured level of a bus drives the volume of another bus through an RTPC.
- Support xWMA on XBox360 – xWMA uses the WMA professional compression bit-stream format and provides a greater compression ratio than XMA. xWMA is very useful for dialogue and long duration files. A quality setting allows sound designers to vary the bit rate of the compressed sound.
- New Columns in Voice profiling (Volume – LPF) – The Voices tab of the Advanced Profiler now shows volume and LPF attenuations pre and post positioning.
- New Integration Demo – Now available for developers: Code and user interface are now fully cross-platform. New examples have been added.
- Perforce Enhancements – Perforce icons now appear over work units icons in the Project Explorer, the Property Editor and several other views. Information such as Status and Owners are now available in the title bar of the object views. New Status column in File Manager’s commit dialog. Prevent checking out files that are not the latest.
Also, all the official tutorial videos of Wwise are now available on YouTube in HD (mostly of them). There are a total of 46 different videos, including both basic and advanced features.
I remember from this years GDC, when Audiokinetic announced their upcoming convolution reverb plug-in, and immediately loved the idea of feeding it with my own IR’s. I have been using Wwise for over a year now and it became a vital component to our project and audio production pipeline. The idea to use this plug-in seems promising, as it provides great flexibilities towards shaping spaces with ‘that’ certain quality! But … I am really interested, though, if anyone has used it before and can document how memory usage behaves. I kind of can already see a love/hate relationship there… :D