Author: by Staff

Audiokinetic has announced the release of Wwise 2006.2, the latest update of its Wwise — WaveWorks Interactive Sound Engine, a middleware solution specifically designed for sound designers and audio programmers in the game industry. The 2006.2 release offers a range of new features including Wwise’s first workgroup implementation designed to enable the easy integration of projects into existing source control applications. Designed to seamlessly integrate into the game development pipeline, Wwise simplifies audio creation workflow by centralizing all aspects of the process in an easy-to-use interface. The 2006.2 version includes features such as the multi-edit and schematic views, allowing sound designers to author the complex sound structures of today’s games, and further streamline workflow. With Wwise 2006.2, developers will benefit from: - Performance Optimizations: Features major performance improvements of the run-time sound engine with specific optimizations for the PC and Xbox360. Performances are now three to four times better than Wwise 2006.1. - Environmental Effects: Allows developers to design reverb effects for each area created in a game, and manages transitions of up to four areas per sound at a time. The number of environments running simultaneously is virtually unlimited. - Multi-listener Management: Provides the potential to create quality split-screen audio for multiplayer games, going beyond the classic multi-listener support developers are accustomed to. Developers can also customize the multi-listener functionality in order to achieve advanced integration, such as surveillance camera gameplay. - Voice Priority Management: Allows developers to give different priorities to sounds to enhance the intelligibility of the mix and optimize memory and CPU resources at run-time. - Schematic View: Allows users to view a schematic representation of the object hierarchies created in the project. This helps users identify the parent/child relationship, information on the routing and allows them to mix audio properties on the fly. - Batch Editing Capabilities: The multi-edit view allows developers to modify sound properties on several Wwise objects at the same time. - Workgroup: Designed to enable the easy integration of Wwise projects into existing source control applications, the workgroup feature ensures that your team members can work simultaneously on the same project. “Developing for next-generation games becomes more and more demanding for studios. Teams are growing and we’re seeing multiple people working on audio for the same title. Solid workgroup management becomes critical to the efficiency of these teams,” said Simon Ashby, Product Director for Audiokinetic Inc. “We’re confident these new features will help developers create more immersive environments, while facilitating the process for the audio team.”