Will Unreal 5's Metasounds replace WWise or FMod in Game Audio?
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- Опубліковано 25 лип 2021
- While it is still in beta, the game audio world is excitedly testing out Unreal Engine 5’s brand new feature: MetaSounds.
I spent a few weeks diving in and learning as much as I could about what is new and what this means for the future of game audio.
www.silen.audio/2021/06/25/a-...
Smashed it
I was just searching for some metasound related stuff and saw that you had used a snippet of one my metasound tests ❤ i know I'm a bit late but I appreciate it. Great video, would be good to see an updated one now its no longer in beta.
Nice video, great comparison of the technologies.
Incredibly insightful thank you!
Great video! But I don't fully agree about building complex pre recorded music systems being impossible in Unreal.
Since 4.26 (I think) Unreal has a new subsystem called Quartz that lets you build your own music systems with perfect sample accuracy. Yeah, it is not as straight forward as in Wwise, but that's the magic of Unreal. They hand to you all the required nodes to build the system as you like, using blueprints. I've built horizontal and vertical remixing approaches with Quartz and it works really great.
Hey Conra! Great comment. I agree, but I should mention that I never said it was impossible, just easier and more laid out in WWise and FMod.
Great video and conclusion, I would love to see more of your stuff.
My two cents on some topics you've discussed.
On complex musical interactions and organizing large databases: you're actually able to do quite a bit, I would wager much more than with middleware solutions, you just need to know some blueprints/coding. I understand that that's a huge "but" for most teams but for someone doing solo development this is really amazing. My experience so far with metasounds has been super positive.
Really interesting. I would love to learn more about different workflows for dealing with some of these problems. I'm very used to WWise, so building a new system every time I start on a new game seems daunting. But I'm interested to learning more
UE 4.26 was already made one simple thing possible, sync gameplay with music timing. So developer can make total gameplay without event tick. I'm not sure if metasounds themselves can provide tick (trigger) to other actors in game. If it does that would be great. But if it's not Quartz is great tool to make interactive environments.
Cant you sync things with quartz?
@@ViRiXDreamcore I'm sorry if my comment was confusing. Yes, you can sync gameplay graphics, metasounds and any other things with Quartz clock. Keep in mind though that Quartz and MetaSounds using different clock and if you have looping metasound with a a same tempo as Quartz they will unsync eventually, so you need logic to keep metasound on track like reloading it every 8 bars for example.
Quick question, how in UE4 does one sync gameplay easily in 4.26 and later, without using tick and without it going out of sync with the game clock over time? I'm very interested in learning all of the different options right now. Thanks!
thanks! very helpful!
What Epic fails to understand is that basic UI/UX features are seriously missing from Unreal's native audio tool. Simple things like metering, mixing, bussing, routing, debugging, testing and following signal flow are incredibly difficult with UE Vanilla Audio. Most sound designers are not so technical, and even the ones that are usually don't have the time to build super complex tools in meta sounds. I am working on a AA title that only uses Unreal Audio tools, so i know it can be done and Meta Sounds definitely opens up possibilities for creating cool features. But im still missing a VU meter in the sound cue, im still missing a basic mixer interface with sends and buses and inserts. The sound class tree and sub mix graph are two separate entities that are confusing and are hard to manage. If someone said I could instantly migrate my entire project to Wwise or Fmod I would take them up on it instantly.
I hear your frustration, but you are talking about Sound cues, not metasouds. It's one thing to point out missing features, some of what you are talking about is still missing in metasouds. But it's another to say that epic "fails to understand" these frustrations when they literally built a new tool, (the subject of this video), that you aren't using, to try to address some of these problems.
@@adamfligsten The title of the video is "will meta sounds replace Wwise" and as you point out there are still many features that meta sounds fails to deliver on. As I said, it is a tool to create great features and i will use it for sure. But will it replace Wwise, Fmod or other middleware? The simple answer is No, not in its current state. And not until Epic addresses the basic functionality that middleware provides for sound designers.
Niiice video, thanks for sharing!
Basically, the metasounds is hard to handle pre-recorded music because of the lack of visual assistance. Also, it is hard to organize large quantity files. Though game developers/Designers also face the same challenge all the time, those game engines in the early stage are lack visual assistance and find everything hard to be organized as well. You always can find another way like excel for example to solve same of the problem.
One thing I am very positive about metasounds is that it is super like a game development thing. You can create music and sounds also change fx that directly in the game engine rather than playback something pre-made. I would like to compare it with something like Black Mirror: Bandersnatch which just playback some video content, but it is not how a game works. For a long time, we use a very different way to design sound in-game, different from any other thing. Those middlewares we've got like fmod or Wwise, they are more like designed as a tool that helps you an easy and better way to playback.
I dont think it will ever fully replace established tools and workflows. What I love about it is its connection with the engine itself and the gameworld. Like a car, all the properties that govern its behavior in gameplay can be imported into metasounds, RPM for engine sounds , tire speed relative to velocity for tire screeching etc.
Even things like rain drop velocity from a weather system as a driver for the rain pattering sound of a metal roof. If a designer or artist changes anything about the rain particles then the metasound is automatically updated to reflect this change since its interconnected and data driven.
This wasn't impossible before, it just took a lot more sound sampling and sound scripting/programming. I think its a great tool for what it is.
We can sync music interaction with quartz.
what is still havent figured out yet. maybe you mentioned it already. but can you create a synth in Fmod or Wwise?
WWise has some basic, built in synth objects. FMod does not. But there are some 3rd party synths that you can use in both engines.
Another very important thing to be aware of is the CPU load. When you start having a lot going on this can limit you depending on your target platforms or limit how demanding your game is in other areas.
Profiling your performance on the different systems using the same audio setup it's a step that should be taken.
Will Ue5 whenever have Ambisonic 3rd order at least?
They said they are working on it
Wwise
0:02 / 6:34
Will Unreal 5's Metasounds replace WWise or FMod in Game Audio? Nope.