# Anyone here have worked with FMOD or Wwise?



## impressions (Jul 15, 2013)

is there a way to learn these and work on implantation if you're not in a team?
the thing with these 2 that they interact with the physics in the game or gameplay evolution.

how would i go to start with the basic for them? there are videos, but i want to have real experimentation with them.


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## teomi (Jul 15, 2013)

Wwise is awesome and very powerful.
It's also, as of yet, the most documented middleware out there.
My suggestion is to download it including all the documents and example package, and start from the example project. It reveals real-life scenarios and how to implement them correctly. 

There's a learning curve so give yourself time, but the more you get into it it starts making sense.

It also comes with a demo game that you can test integration and see how things come into action.

What was helpful to me, is once I understood the logic, I wrote the steps down like a flow chart and used it as a cheat sheet to reiterate the steps. It really helped me understand the mechanism really well.

Eitan


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## Farkle (Jul 16, 2013)

I've used FMOD, but not Wwise. Both are very powerful, and very usable.

I believe on Fmod's site, they have interactive project/tutorials, so you can load up a simple audio construct, load audio, and implement it dynamically.

They both work fine. Our studio is switching to Unity this fall, and I believe Unity supports FMOD, but not Wwise, however, I could be wrong.

Regardless, for Play Eternal, we'll be using FMOD in our studio with Unity, this fall.

Mike


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## dannthr (Jul 19, 2013)

You are wrong, Mike.

Unity licensed FMOD Ex to function as Unity's Audio Engine--but you don't have access to the source ( unless you pay for that?) and you don't have any normal way of integrating the Designer tool.

Essentially, Unity is FMOD's client, not Dev partner (at least not in a way that exposes FMOD to the user).

Conversely, Unity Pro users delivering to platforms which support external files can use WWISE--it's super easy to integrate.


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## Matt Baron (Jul 19, 2013)

I've used Wwise and found that the documentation on their site was really good, especially the Wwise Project Adventure handbook Damian Kastbauer wrote not that long ago.


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## impressions (Jul 29, 2013)

so is there like a competition between these two?
Wwise is the latest? or they're just like flash VS java etc?


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## dannthr (Jul 30, 2013)

They are two of several companies competing in the same marketspace.


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## Jordan Gagne (Jul 31, 2013)

I've used both, and each one has its strengths and weaknesses. I personally found Fmod easier to use, due in part to its UI being more like a DAW as well as the general functionality being a bit more simple (in my opinion). Plus Wwise is Windows-only so if you're on a Mac Fmod will be more convenient.

The one great thing about Wwise it its pre-entry/post-exit features which allow you to bring wav files straight in without doing precise cutting in your DAW.


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## Farkle (Jul 31, 2013)

dannthr @ Fri Jul 19 said:


> You are wrong, Mike.
> 
> Unity licensed FMOD Ex to function as Unity's Audio Engine--but you don't have access to the source ( unless you pay for that?) and you don't have any normal way of integrating the Designer tool.
> 
> ...



Cool, thank you for the clarification, Dan.

Yes, to be fair, I have not started using FMOD in Unity yet, I just read the spec sheet and saw that it was a part of the Unity environment.

So, there's your answer! 

Mike


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## dannthr (Aug 2, 2013)

I think it was a colossal mistake on FMOD's part not to partner with Unity to make it an add-on or create some kind of easy integration with the designer tool--or to work on some kind of fancy add-on editor extension.

I think they could have harpooned a ton of indie developer licenses if they had.

Even AudioKinetic recognizes the value of Unity and worked hard to create a plug-in for it.

:-\


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## alexnmt (Aug 3, 2013)

I've used both, but I way prefer Wwise. It seems to be a lot more versatile and easy to do complex scenarios, even if the interface is a little dull. And the pre-entry and post-exit regions really help to create seamless loops. 

I think you can just download them both from their respective websites. It is only if you are using it within a game that you have to buy licences. 

I would try to learn them by learning the logic and theory behind crossfading, layering and branching interactive music and watching the videos on the software. Then you can play around with each of these and implement your compositions into hypothetical situations using the controllers within the programs. For example, assign a layer to a controller determining the number of enemies on screen, then as you move the controller up, the extra layer fades in.


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## AlexRuger (Apr 3, 2016)

Jordan Gagne said:


> Wwise is Windows-only so if you're on a Mac Fmod will be more convenient.



It's Windows _in practice. _There is a version for OS X, but it's a pretty awful port--basically it just installs WINE for you and runs it inside that.

If you're just looking to learn, OS X will do just fine. But if you're doing serious work in games, you'll likely need access to a Windows PC, as not only are a lot of tools built for Windows (or at least are _better _in Windows), you will probably work on a Windows game and will need to run test builds. I just dual boot my Mac Pro and it's a great solution.


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## Kejero (Apr 25, 2016)

I've experimented with both FMOD and WWISE and to me WWISE is by far superior. FMOD has a UI that makes sense for composers, but WWISE is a lot more powerful. Anything that I've tried in FMOD, I can easily do in WWISE as well, but not the other way around. Finally, it's been a while since I used FMOD (Studio) -- about a year or so, and there were still quite a few bugs back then. WWISE has been very reliable and stable in my -- limited -- experience.

Just realized this thread is 3 years old. But hey, if you hadn't decided yet what to go for, here's my 2 cents!


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## Smikes77 (Jan 25, 2017)

Kejero said:


> I've experimented with both FMOD and WWISE and to me WWISE is by far superior. FMOD has a UI that makes sense for composers, but WWISE is a lot more powerful. Anything that I've tried in FMOD, I can easily do in WWISE as well, but not the other way around. Finally, it's been a while since I used FMOD (Studio) -- about a year or so, and there were still quite a few bugs back then. WWISE has been very reliable and stable in my -- limited -- experience.
> 
> Just realized this thread is 3 years old. But hey, if you hadn't decided yet what to go for, here's my 2 cents!



How long does it take for you to get comfortable enough with Fmod to work with it for commercial projects?


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## Kejero (Jan 25, 2017)

Smikes77 said:


> How long does it take for you to get comfortable enough with Fmod to work with it for commercial projects?


Well it's important to keep in mind my focus was music only. I'd say after about two days I was comfortable with it. But that excludes the integration process, which I haven't done. Also, it's been almost two years ago by now since I've touched FMOD Studio, so I'm assuming a lot may have changed -- for better or worse, I couldn't tell you


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## Smikes77 (Jan 25, 2017)

Kejero said:


> Well it's important to keep in mind my focus was music only. I'd say after about two days I was comfortable with it. But that excludes the integration process, which I haven't done. Also, it's been almost two years ago by now since I've touched FMOD Studio, so I'm assuming a lot may have changed -- for better or worse, I couldn't tell you



Wow! 2 days?! I was expecting MUCH longer. That`s encouraging to know as I need to start learning this. How did you learn it? There are a few tutorials out there on youtube, but I don`t really know where to start with it.


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## Kejero (Jan 25, 2017)

To get started, I just watched a few random videos on YouTube, and then played around with it. There's not that much to it afterall: if you know how to create/organize a project, setup loop points/regions, and how to setup triggers/parameters (the terminology may differ) to affect transitions and the behaviour of faders and fx, you know 90% of what's involved in implementing music.

I was already very familiar with the concepts of adaptive music though. If these concepts are new to you, I'd strongly suggest you study up on those. Not much point in learning HOW to do certain things in a particular piece of software, if you don't understand the concept of WHAT you're trying to achieve.


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## Smikes77 (Jan 25, 2017)

Adaptive music meaning, "ambient", then the character goes into a forest "action music", then back to "ambient"?


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## mcalis (Jan 25, 2017)

Some key things to understand if you're using Audio Middleware for the first time:

1. Wwise and FMOD are NOT DAWs. They are Audio Middleware. The game engine talks to Wwise/FMOD by calling events. In other words: the game has to tell Wwise/FMOD what is going on.
2. Wwise and FMOD are useful in games because you can abstract complex sound systems away as a single event. For example: say you want to have ambient wind sounds that can go from very quiet to

I'm reasonably familiar with both. As has been said before, both are good tools and can absolutely get the job done. An important difference is in the licensing. Last time I looked I think I concluded FMOD's licensing was a bit more favourable for low-budget times, but tbh, I don't exactly remember.

Just keep in mind that while the tools are provided for free, there are licensing terms attached. For Wwise, you're limited to 200 sounds, and for FMOD, if you're under a certain budget, you have to show their logo, unaltered. There's a little more to it than that though, but the point is that you absolutely have to look into the licensing terms if you're going to use either one commercially.

When it comes to which one is better...I find Wwise to be nicer because it'd say it's more technical (I have a programming background). FMOD is indeed more like a DAW so it might be easier to work with, but I don't think I'd want to use FMOD on very large projects to be honest, it would probably become a bit messy (at least to me). Wwise just feels more organized. I'd say this is _very much_ a matter of what kind of workflow works best for you. I'd highly recommend trying both. I orginally started with FMOD and thought it was OK. Then I used Wwise, and after I had gotten over the initial learning curve, I much prefer it because it caters more to thinking about game sound as technical systems.

For learning Wwise, I recommend the Wwise 101 series:



If anyone has any more questions, feel free to tag me. Implementing game sounds with FMOD/Wwise is (part of) what I've been doing for the last year or so, so I can probably help out!


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## Kejero (Jan 26, 2017)

Smikes77 said:


> Adaptive music meaning, "ambient", then the character goes into a forest "action music", then back to "ambient"?


Unfortunately, in most people's minds, that is the simplistic description that covers the concept of adaptive music. For me, adaptive music is about employing a variety of techniques (compositional and technical) to score non-linear media in a way that approaches as closely as possible how linear media is scored.

Moving between "ambient" and "action" is certainly the most common goal, and there are essentially two common techniques: the horizontal and the vertical approach. I made a video about this a while ago:


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## Smikes77 (Jan 26, 2017)

Kejero said:


> Unfortunately, in most people's minds, that is the simplistic description that covers the concept of adaptive music. For me, adaptive music is about employing a variety of techniques (compositional and technical) to score non-linear media in a way that approaches as closely as possible how linear media is scored.
> 
> Moving between "ambient" and "action" is certainly the most common goal, and there are essentially two common techniques: the horizontal and the vertical approach. I made a video about this a while ago:




Actually, this is what I meant, but I didn`t explain it very well.

Great video, thanks!


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