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[bbtombo]

Hey guys!

Just wondering what your guy's experience level is with either FMOD or WWISE. They're audio implementation engines that work with Unity (and other stuff I think?), and used all over the place in the industry. Great for sound effects and interactive music! I know there are some tutorials online for both, but if you know anything about either, how have you learned to use it?

[Jasmine]

Hey! I was talking to Barendoff and he recommended searching up 'FMOD TV' on Youtube. Not to put more work on his plate, but I REALLY don't think he'd turn down an opportunity to help out another composer! You should send him a message.

You know what, Meremonkey is another well-versed Wwise or FMOD user (I forgot which). Ask him, too!

[Kole]

You can download both Wwise & FMOD for free, so I just did that, read through their material, & watched some YouTube tutorials. I've found that it's been pretty beneficial as I've used both FMOD & Wwise as a freelancer on various projects (both for music & sounds). Beyond the tutorials I recommend creating your own imaginary project for practice. Come up with various game situations then figure out/implement your solution.

[Pearl Pixel]

FMOD is more widely taught in schools for game making programmers. Thus if you're just starting out, and you're going to be connecting with mostly students, FMOD is wiser to start with. But of course it's smart to learn both at some point.

OR you could get devs that are incredibly opposed to FMOD because of the additional licensing and memory usage like I encountered this past week 

[Lauchsuppe]

I'd advise you to get into unity first and then into both wwise and fmod. Just build a simple test level and implement audio.

Not speaking from industry experience, but I feel that being proficient with how a regular game engine handles audio and being proficient with middleware makes learning other tools so much easier. In the end, there's only so much different variations of how an audio pipeline can look like. And you get a better idea of how audio can be utilized in general. (plus none of those inbuilt solutions are anywhere near rocket science, so it's p easy to pick them up)

[bbtombo]

FMOD is more widely taught in schools for game making programmers. Thus if you're just starting out, and you're going to be connecting with mostly students, FMOD is wiser to start with. But of course it's smart to learn both at some point.

OR you could get devs that are incredibly opposed to FMOD because of the additional licensing and memory usage like I encountered this past week 

damn! I know wwise only lets you have <200 sounds in your project for free? But FMOD lets you use it for free for projects under 100k!

[Barendhoff]

Good of you to start exploring FMOD and Wwise! According to a Gamasutra game developer survey published in September 2014, only 22% of game music composers also did integration and other technical work (source). Granted, the survey had a low number of respondents (33), but it's interesting to see nonetheless.

Advantages to working with middleware
Providing integration through middleware like FMOD or Wwise has a number of advantages, both for you and your client. In short, using middleware allows for better quality audio, easier implementation and more flexibility. Or, to list things, with middleware, we can:

–   Deliver audio in coded format;
–   Create audio that is responsive to the game (including interactive music!);
–   Configure the parameters necessary for realistic in-game audio behaviour;
–   Save valuable programmer time;
–   Flexibly revise audio according to client wishes and project changes;
–   Efficiently guard the audio asset budget;
–   Easily prevent monotony and repetition in audio.

To be fair, all of the above can be done without middleware, too. Of course. It's just that middleware makes things a lot easier and more user-friendly. That may seem irrelevant (who cares about tools being easy to use?), but I've found that the easier tools are to work with, the better they stimulate your creativity.

What middleware to start with?
So how to get started? I've received mixed signals about which middleware to learn working with. Overall, FMOD seems to be more accessible than Wwise, if only for the silly reason that Wwise is set up to work in a team environment: for some features, I've heard, you'll need the team's director to grant access. If you're trying to explore the program, you don't really want to go through the hassle of making yourself director. Wwise, made by two former Ubisoft employees, is made to work in a team environment. As useful as that can be in team environments, it can be impeding when you're on your own.

If you're aiming high, start with FMOD and get to know Wwise on the way. I talked to Olivier Derivière (AC IV: Black Flag - Freedom Cry) on a conference last year, who mentioned that while FMOD is more accessible, Wwise has more possibilities and functionalities. FMOD is generally seen as the more user-friendly of the two, and that makes it easier to learn, especially if you've never worked with middleware before.

One thing to be aware of: FMOD has two relevant versions, FMOD Studio and FMOD Designer. FMOD Designer is the older and now unsupported but stable and established version of the software. FMOD Studio is newer, better etc., but not quite as stable yet as Designer. It's constantly getting updated however, so it should become as stable as Designer in no time. Myself, I'm currently working with Studio, and hey, it's great; I've yet to run in stability issues, although I'm sure I've still but scratched the surface!

How to start learning
Both FMOD and Wwise have extensive video tutorials on YouTube. Check out Wwise creator Audiokinetic's YouTube account here (or, because there's a ton of video's to search through: the first video in their tutorial series

)! FMOD developer Firelight Technologies publishes tutorials on this YouTube account (again, first video

). As you may notice from the overview, FMOD seems to have more recent video's.

Wwise offers a short video on integration in Unreal Engine (found here), while FMOD integration in UE is covered in a video series, allowing you to learn not just about FMOD, but also how to code your sounds into the game engine. You'll find the first video in that series here.

Unity is also covered in some tutorials. Wwise and Unity are covered here, FMOD and Unity here.

Be aware that while both Audiokinetics and Firelight Technologies are keen on making information about their programs widely available to learners like us, they also know how to leave you thirsty for more information. To that end, they offer paid courses, in which they guide you through the depths and details of their respective programs. For example, CRAS offers a course on Wwise here (which is free to take; only the actual certification exam is paid for), while The Sound Librarian (who also does some of the FMOD YouTube tutorials) offers his online course here. Both courses are considered official certification courses, and, while expensive, quite useful. I'm currently halfway through my FMOD 101 course, which not only explains in detail how to use FMOD, but also gives interesting insights in the game and game audio industry. Highly recommended! Enrolling in the course also gives you access to specific forum where FMOD users discuss ideas, issues they run into etc. It's a friendly and informative environment. (:

I'm sure there are many forums on which to discuss all things related to middleware. As the topic is relevant to us game audio designers, I don't see why we shouldn't discuss that here in TIGSource\Audio, too. So ask away! (:

[bbtombo]

@Barendhoff, you're the best! This is exactly what I was looking for. I recently got a tip from a sound designer I hope to work with on a project, he said "hey, you know what would really impress me and the rest of the dev team, is to make a really simple game in unity, implement interactive audio into it, and make a demo with fraps to show them!" Kind of daunting, but yes, your post helped a bunch!! I gotta just start making progress!

[mcshinigami]

I know it's not the most exciting advice, but I've found the manuals to be helpful with learning.

[TopherPirkl]

IMPORTANT! Pretty much everything Barendhoff posted is absolutely great, but something to note: The Wwise Certification course through CRAS is completey free to take, you only need to pay if you take the actual certification exam. Unless you work with a company who finds it really important that you take the exam.

Speaking more anecdotally, I love Wwise. I've used it in two classes and on four projects now, and it's been fantastic. I agree that Wwise may have the steeper learning curve compared to FMOD, but it's hard to argue with the flexibility it offers. FMOD Studio, on the other hand, has been pretty unstable for me, but YMMV depending on the project and how much you're putting it through its paces.

It sounds like a lot of people have experience with both, so I think if people have questions about one or the other, they should go ahead and ask! Also if people have more specific questions about Wwise that they don't feel like posting in a thread, shoot me a PM and I'd be happy to answer. I'm lucky in that most of my learning was supported by the fact that I know a number of guys who "test-drove" Wwise throughout the years, and being able to ask questions of them was invaluable, so I'd love to pass that knowledge along.

Also there are clever ways to stretch your mileage while still staying inside of 200 assets in Wwise. That number only considers raw audio files that Wwise is accessing, so if you do some slick integration, you can find simple ways to re-use assets in different containers to cut down on the number of distinct files you need.

[Barendhoff]

Great info TopherPirkl; I'll edit my original message to include your bold text!

[Characterlimi]

Having used FMOD Studio on 5 projects now I can say that while it does indeed have a lower learning curve than Wwise, it's Mac build is more unstable than Francium. For those of you who aren't chemists that means that it will crash because you tried to utilize it's basic functionality.

On the engine integration side I've found that their documentation can be a little esoteric, so if your tools programmer gets it in the game engine send them a heartfelt thank you. I mean it. My first foray into FMOD was several months of tears and headbanging with our audio/graphics programmer. To be fair though she was also dealing with directX bullshit for our art pipeline, so it makes sense in retrospect that she hated my guts.

I've only recently begun poking around with Wwise in preparation for an upcoming project so I can't really speak to it's uses against FMOD. From what I've heard there is a lot more flexibility once you're up and running. On the subject of Wwise, is anyone aware if I can rewire a digital synth through Wwise? I am hoping to use gamestate to dynamically program my synths. Am I speaking crazy?

[oahda]

When do we get a cool open source cross-compatible audio library with lots of functionality from some awesome person here on TIGS, tho? c;

[TopherPirkl]

When do we get a cool open source cross-compatible audio library with lots of functionality from some awesome person here on TIGS, tho? c;

I'm actually working on this with a friend, I'm skeptical we'd complete it anytime soon though.