Wwise101-Certification�CourseLesson�1
2014.1.1
Wwise
Audiokinetic, Inc. – Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences ii
Wwise101-Certification�CourseLesson�1
Wwise 2014.1.1 Revision 13
Copyright © 2014 Audiokinetic Inc. and Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences. All rights reserved.
The Wwise Certification Course documentation (whether in written, graphic or video form) is supplied as a guide for the Wwise® product and
is made available free of charge to all users of the Wwise Certification Website. This documentation is the sole joint property of Audiokinetic Inc.
(“Audiokinetic”) and the Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences (“CRAS”, and together “we” or “us”), and protected by Canadian copyright
law and in other jurisdictions by virtue of international copyright treaties.
This documentation may be duplicated, reproduced, stored or transmitted, exclusively for your internal, non-commercial purposes. You
may compile different extracts of the documentation to suit such internal purposes, but you may not alter the content of any portion of the
documentation. Any copy of the Wwise Certification Course documentation shall retain all copyright and other proprietary notices contained
therein. The foregoing does not extend to the documentation regarding the Audiokinetic Wwise Technology, which is the sole property of
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The content of the Wwise Certification Course documentation is furnished for information purposes only, and its content is subject to
change without notice. Reasonable care has been taken in preparing the information contained in this document, however, we disclaim all
representations, warranties and conditions, whether express, implied or arising out of usage of trade or course of dealing, concerning the Wwise
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Audiokinetic, Inc. – Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences iii
Table of Contents
1. Installing Wwise and Preparing Lesson Content (Windows) ................ 1
Downloading Tutorial Files ............................................................... 1
Installing Wwise ................................................................................ 1
Preparing the Tutorial Lessons .......................................................... 4
Playing Cube ..................................................................................... 9
Audiokinetic, Inc. – Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences 1
Lesson 1. Installing Wwise and Preparing LessonContent (Windows)
Congratulations! You’re about to embark on a journey where you’ll learn
the art and science of integrating sound into video games by using Wwise,
the most powerful game audio integration tool and sound engine available.
Powerful and flexible tools like Wwise can oftentimes feel a bit daunting at
first, but simply follow the step by step approach in this and the following
lessons, and you’ll quickly become comfortable using Wwise. You’ll learn
Wwise by integrating sound into an actual game called Cube. Cube is a
first person shooter game where you’ll save the world from bad guys while
enjoying the knowledge that you are the one responsible for creating the
soundscape that makes the game come to life!
Downloading Tutorial Files
To get started, you’re going to need a few things, including Audiokinetic’s
Wwise software, as well as various project files that are used to begin most
of the lessons. All of this material is easily downloaded.
First you’ll need to download the Wwise application and then the lesson
files used for this tutorial.
1. Download the following files.
Wwise application installer:
https://www.audiokinetic.com/files/?get=2014.1.1_5179/
Wwise_v2014.1.1_Setup.exe
Course Lesson Files:
http://cras-wwise.com/lessonfiles/wwise_lessons.zip
Installing Wwise
Now that you have the files you need, you’ll need to install Wwise.
1. Go to the folder where the files you’ve just downloaded are located and
Open the Wwise_2014.1.1_Setup file.
Lesson 1. Installing Wwise and Preparing Lesson Content (Windows)
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2. Click Run in the Security dialog.
The Wwise setup will display a window which includes a login area. It
is not necessary to log in with an Audiokinetic user account at this time
as all required files for this class are not restricted and available to the
public.
There are a variety of optional components that can be installed
at this time, including demo content and files related to authoring
games on various platforms. Since the options you select must be
downloaded during the installation process, you should only select the
three components that are needed for the purpose of this tutorial.
3. De-select all components except for Authoring Data, Authoring
Binaries 32-bit and SDK (Common); read and confirm the license
terms and click Install.
Lesson 1. Installing Wwise and Preparing Lesson Content (Windows)
Audiokinetic, Inc. – Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences 3
Note
While there is a 64-bit computer version of the Wwise
Authoring Binaries, the 32-bit version works on 64 bit
computers and is sufficient for the purpose of this tutorial.
The installer downloads and installs the components that you’ve
selected.
Upon completion, you’ll be asked if you want to create a standalone
installer so that you can re-install to other computers without having to
download everything again. This is not necessary.
Lesson 1. Installing Wwise and Preparing Lesson Content (Windows)
Audiokinetic, Inc. – Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences 4
4. Click Close.
Wwise creates a shortcut on your desktop during installation, a 32-bit
launcher and a 64-bit launcher.
Preparing the Tutorial Lessons
You now need to launch Wwise to verify success of the installation.
Launching Wwise for the first time will also create the necessary directory
that you will be adding the course tutorial project files to.
1. Launch Wwise from the shortcut that is on your desktop.
The End-User License agreement is displayed.
Lesson 1. Installing Wwise and Preparing Lesson Content (Windows)
Audiokinetic, Inc. – Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences 5
2. After reading the End-User License Agreement, click Accept at the
bottom of the window.
The Wwise Project Launcher opens.
Lesson 1. Installing Wwise and Preparing Lesson Content (Windows)
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The Project Launcher opens each time you open Wwise and displays
pertinent information regarding the newest features for the version of
Wwise you’re using. In the lower right corner, links to online tutorial
videos are displayed – a great supplement to this course. The left
column lists the most recent Wwise projects you’ve opened and since
you have not yet opened a Wwise project, it is blank.
3. Click New in the lower left corner of the Project Launcher to create a
project.
The New Project dialog box opens.
Lesson 1. Installing Wwise and Preparing Lesson Content (Windows)
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A Wwise Project consists of various files that allow you to integrate
sound into a game, however, you will not actually be creating a new
project right now. The important thing is that when you opened this
dialog box, Wwise created a folder named WwiseProjects on your
computer which is the default location for Wwise project folders. In
the next exercise, you’re going to extract the Wwise Lessons.zip file you
downloaded earlier into this newly created folder.
4. Take a note of the path displayed in the Location field, and click Cancel
to close this New Project dialog box.
You can now close Wwise.
5. Click the Close icon in the upper right corner of the Project Launcher
window to close Wwise.
You’re now ready to extract the course project files to the folder you just
took note of.
6. Open an Explorer window and navigate to your Downloads folder.
Right-click the Wwise Lessons zip file you downloaded, and choose
Extract All...
7. Click Browse...
Lesson 1. Installing Wwise and Preparing Lesson Content (Windows)
Audiokinetic, Inc. – Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences 8
8. Navigate to the WwiseProjects folder you created earlier and click OK to
store the lessons there.
Note
Since Windows 8.1 the My Documents folder has been
renamed to Documents so your path may be slightly different.
Lesson 1. Installing Wwise and Preparing Lesson Content (Windows)
Audiokinetic, Inc. – Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences 9
9. Click Extract.
The course project files are extracted to the folder that you specified.
Playing Cube
The game you’ll use throughout this tutorial is Cube, an open source first
person shooter where your mission is to get the monsters before they get
you. For this lesson, you’ll launch a version of Cube that has two distinct
differences from versions of Cube you might find on the Internet. First,
this version of the game has no audio; it’s your job to add the sound! The
other difference is that this version of the game has a unique ability to
communicate details about what’s happening in the game with the Wwise
software as the game is being played. This gives you incredibly valuable
information, as you’ll learn in lesson 2. In each of the subsequent lessons,
you’ll be asked to run Cube so that you can hear how the sound design
you’ve integrated impacts the game. Each time you’re asked to run Cube,
you’ll need to perform the following steps.
1. Navigate to My Documents/WwiseProjects/WwiseLessons/Cube Demo/cube and then double-click the cube-
profile.bat file to launch the Cube game.
Lesson 1. Installing Wwise and Preparing Lesson Content (Windows)
Audiokinetic, Inc. – Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences 10
You may get a notification indicating the Windows Firewall has blocked
some features of the program. This is because the profile version of
Cube uses a network connection to speak to Wwise as you’ll learn in
Lesson 2. It’s important that this capability is not blocked by Windows.
2. If you get a Windows Security Alert window, click Allow Access.
The game opens. Each time you run the game, you’ll begin in an empty
level, which provides you with an opportunity to run around and
explore your sound design without having to worry about the bad guys
finding you.
Lesson 1. Installing Wwise and Preparing Lesson Content (Windows)
Audiokinetic, Inc. – Conservatory of Recording Arts & Sciences 11
The game uses a standard FPS keyboard controls. For this tutorial, the
main controls you need to familiarize yourself with are:
• W = Move Forward
• S = Move Backward
• A = Strafe Left
• D= Strafe Right
• Spacebar = Jump
• Left-Click = Fire
3. Briefly play the game and be sure to fire the shotgun.
At this point the game will silent as you haven’t yet integrated any
sounds. The visual animation lets you know that the shotgun has
been fired, but it’s obvious that without sound, the experience is less
than gratifying. In the subsequent exercises, you’ll discover the basic
principles of how sounds are integrated into a game using the Wwise
sound engine.
As you explore Wwise, leave this profile edition of Cube running
in the background as you will be moving between it and the Wwise
application throughout this lesson.
Lesson 1. Installing Wwise and Preparing Lesson Content (Windows)
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Tip
In Windows, press Alt-Tab to jump back to the Windows
desktop or the Wwise program.
Once you’re done familiarizing yourself with Cube, you’ll need to exit
the game.
4. Press Escape and use the up and down arrows to select quit and then
press enter.
Thats it! You’re now ready to move to Lesson 2, where you’ll very
quickly take a video game from silence to sound!