Audio

Creating and editing Wwise assets requires using the Wwise Editor application.

The quickest way to do this is to open the Wwise Project File located at SatisfactoryModLoader_WwiseProject/SatisfactoryModLoader_WwiseProject.wproj in your project folder. The path and name will be slightly different if your Unreal project directory is named differently.

You can also open it from the Wwise Launcher application’s "Unreal Engine" tab using the wwise-logo-circle "Open in Wwise" button (next to the triangle button).

Generating sound banks triggers Wwise to create files that the Unreal Editor can use. You’ll need to do this once when setting up the modding project to set up the Wwise database and again any time you create new Audiokinetic soundbanks.

In the Wwise Editor’s Project Explorer, on the SoundBanks tab, right-click on the Default Work Unit and click Generate Soundbank(s) for all platforms.

By default when using Wwise audio only the Master volume slider will work.

You will need to manually create the different Audio Buses that link to the other sliders.

TODO: Mods can’t reuse vanilla Wwise bus assets. Must create their own Audio Buses and actively copy values from the vanilla buses' settings values to their own. Need to write more detailed directions for doing this.

If you plan to use Wwise audio for buildings or equipment, you must set up attenuation. By default, the audio will play at full volume even if you are on the other side of the map from its origin. Attenuation causes the sound to become quieter at a distance or not play at all.

On Wwise’s Project Explorer, go to the ShareSets tab. Share Sets are useful for providing the same configuration to multiple Wwise objects.

You will see the section Attenuations → Default Work Unit

Create a new Attenuation object by right-clicking the Default Work Unit then New Child → Attenuation

You can name this whatever you want; just be mindful that you can’t use the same name twice.

Open the new Attenuation ShareSet by double clicking the new attenuation shareset.

In the main section, you will be presented with the following:

First, activate the Designer layout via the top menu: Layout → Designer

On the left-hand side, you will see the project explorer; select the Audio Tab.

Under Actor-Mixer Hierarchy, there will be Default Work Unit

To keep everything organized, create a new Virtual Folder to house your Wwise files and name it the same as your mod reference.

Now, to import audio files!

Drag your .wav files into this newly created Virtual Folder. The Audio File Importer window will show.

Ensure that you have Create New Objects selected under import mode. Verify it is going to the correct folder and then click Import

Your audio files are now imported to Wwise and ready to be referenced by Unreal systems.

If you plan on using attenuation on audio, you must first follow the attenuation section of the documentation. Setting Up Attenuation.

To set up attenuation on the audio, double-click the audio file in the Wwise Project Explorer Audio tab.

Then, once the audio opens in the main section, go to the Positioning tab.

Change the 3D Spatialization setting to Position + Orientation (Marked in blue in the screenshot).

Click the >> button, then select the Attenuation ShareSet from the list (Marked in red in the screenshot).

Audiokinetic Events (typically shortened to AKEvents) allow your mod code to tell the Wwise sound system to do something. Example AKEvent types include Play, Pause, and Stop. Each sound you want to use typically needs multiple events associated with it.

To play the audio in your mod, you will need to create an event in Wwise. First, make sure that you have followed the above steps to import your .wav files to Wwise.

In Wwise’s Project Explorer, go to the Audio tab and locate the audio for which you want to create an event.

Right-click the audio and select New Event → Play. This will create a new Play event.

Verify the event was created successfully by going to the Project Explorer’s Events tab. You should see the event Play_<AudioName>. Double-clicking the event will show the Event’s details in the main center section.

There are a few things to take note of and verify:

Repeat the process for all other audio you want to play in your mod.

You will need to create a new Soundbank for all your Events to be stored.

In Wwise, change the layout to Soundbanks. This can be found at the top under Layouts → Soundbanks.

Select the SoundBanks tab in the Project Explorer on the left.

By default, you will have the following tree structure:

Create a new Soundbank by Right-clicking the Default Work Unit then New Child → Soundbank

Name the Soundbank YourModReference_Soundbank. Soundbank names do not need to be in this format, but including the mod reference helps with organization.

Double-click the newly created Soundbank, which will open in a new window.

In the main Wwise window, navigate to the Events tab in the Project Explorer.

With the Soundbank window still open, drag the Default Work Unit to the Soundbank window. If you created a specific Virtual Folder for your event, drag that folder instead.

Go to the Edit tab to verify that all the events are included in the Soundbank.

Now, it’s finally time to generate the Soundbank for Unreal Engine. Do so by following the steps in the respective section.

Open the Unreal Engine project settings (Edit > Project Settings…​) and navigate to the "Wwise" category’s page Integration Settings.

In the "Installation" subsection, change the Root Output Path setting to <WwiseProjectPath>/GeneratedSoundBanks. Note that it may be pre-filled with an incorrect Wwise project path, so use the directory picker to ensure you’ve selected your actual Wwise project.

Next, head to the "Initialization" subsection and change the Unreal Audio Routing setting to Both Wwise and Unreal audio.

You may need to restart the Unreal Editor after making these changes.

Now that you’ve defined your audio, events, and soundbanks in Wwise, it’s time to utilize them in the Unreal Engine. The first step in doing this is to create Unreal assets that reference your Wwise assets. Although it is possible to use the Wwise Browser to create these, this is not recommended, as it places them in the wrong project folders. As such, follow the steps below to create them via the Unreal Editor.

Create a new Audiokinetic Event by right-clicking on an empty area in the Content Browser.

Go To Audiokinetic → Audiokinetic Event

Name the new asset exactly the same name as the event you created earlier in Wwise. This enables Unreal to automatically populate the correct event information in the asset’s fields.

Open the asset and verify that its settings match those configured in Wwise:

If everything has worked correctly, you can now test the event by right-clicking the event in Unreal and clicking Play Event. This will trigger the event in the editor, for example, playing the sound if the event is a Play-type event.

Triggering AKEvents is typically done in Blueprint code. Although it is possible to trigger them from C‍+‍+, this is not recommended, as it would require passing lots of asset references to the C‍+‍+ side. If you want to trigger events from C‍+‍+, define a BlueprintImplementableEvent UFUNCTION for your C‍+‍+ code to call, allowing you to define the implementation in Blueprint.

Wwise uses a feature called Real-Time Parameter Control (RTPC) that allows game engines like Unreal or Unity to change values on Wwise assets in real-time. This enables special behaviors like a manufacturing building’s sound volume to fluctuate based on recipe progress.

After setting up RTPC in Wwise and Unreal, blueprint code can update audio parameter values.

To set these up, in your Wwise project, go to Project Explorer and the Game Syncs tab.

Under Game Parameters → Default Work Unit create a new game parameter by right-clicking the Default Work Unit and then New Child → Game Parameter

Name this whatever you want.

Open the newly created Game Parameter, and you should see the following in the main section:

The parameter must have a range defined. A useful range is 0.0 to 1.0 since many existing game and engine systems already use that range as a start-finish, minimum-maximum, or off-on scale.

Now, assign the RTPC Game Parameter to your audio.

Open your Audio in Wwise and go to the RTPC tab. Click the >> in the main section to set what you want to update. This example case shows updating the Voice Volume.

Then click the >> to the right of the first one and select your game parameter.

Once that is done, you should see something similar to the following:

Now, to create the link between Unreal Engine and Wwise you will need to create the Game Parameter in Unreal Engine:

Name it the same as you have in Wwise.

You can now update the RTPC Game Parameter value using blueprints:

Wwise limits the amount of audio that can be played at once. Trying to play more than this limit will result in lower-priority audio like footsteps, music, or animals to stop playing.

To resolve this, you will need to set playback limits for each of your audio files. This can be done in the audio’s advanced settings tab.

You will need to set the Limit sound instance to amount; this is the number of instances that can play this audio on the AK Component in Unreal. Also, set the dropdown next to this limit to Per Game Object. In Unreal, this means per AK Component.

Next, you will need to change the When limit is reached to Kill voice and set the drop-down menu under that to Discard oldest instances. This means that when the limit for this audio is reached, it will kill any oldest instances and discard them.

Finally, you will need to set up playback priority. The playback priority requires that you set up Attenuation.

Set the priority of your audio to something like 10, then set the Offset priority by setting to -10.

This setting will set the audio priority to 10, and then when you are outside the attenuation distance, it will set the priority to 0, allowing for more important audio, like the game sounds, to be played.

Even with Attenuation and playback limits set, the audio will still play and count towards the Wwise Playback Limit.

So, to prevent audio from playing when you are outside of the attenuation range, you will need to use the Significance Manager.

For playing background building sounds, use the Gained Significance and Lost Significance events:

For fire and forget AK events, use the Get Is Significant function before posting the event:

Unreal’s play sound nodes take volume as a float parameter. Follow the steps in the main Volume Options section to combine the relevant volume slider values to obtain the final input volume.

The game’s master volume slider is automatically applied to any sounds played through Wwise.

You will need to create your own volume slider to be able to control Wwise audio for your mod.

To add a new volume slider to the games user settings you will need to create a new FGUserSetting Data Asset

Once the Data Asset is created you will need to set the settings:

This will add a slider to the audio options menu. Now you need to bind the slider to the Wwise sounds.

Create a new audio bus in Wwise by going to the Audio tab. Go to Master-Mixer Hierarchy → Default Work Unit → Master Audio Bus Right click and New Child → Audio Bus

Set the name to anything that you want.

Now link the audio bus to the Wwise audio:

Navigate to your audio in Wwise and go to the General Settings tab and click the …​ in the Output Bus section.

Select the new Audio Bus.

Create a new RTPC in Wwise using the documentation above: Updating Wwise Values From Your Mod.

Name the RTPC something like RTPC_<ModReference>_Volume

Go to the Audio tab in Wwise and click on the new Audio Bus that you created. Then go to the RTPC tab.

Click the first >> and select Bus Volume Click the second >> and go to Game Parameters then select the newly created RTPC

You should then have the following graph going from 0 to 1:

You will need to create the new RTPC in Unreal Engine:

Name the RTPC in Unreal Engine exactly the same as what you named in Wwise.

Add code to your GameWorldModule as part of the construction stage to link the slider to the RTPC using the following:

Once this has been done you should see the volume slider in the game’s audio options: