Audiokinetic at GameSoundCon 2024

8:00 AM – 9:00 AM | Wwise Up: GameSoundCon - Product Manager AMA

Location: Academy 1 / Expo floor

Grab a beverage and drop-by the Audiokinetic booth in the Expo Hall for some open-ended conversation about Wwise & Strata.

9:30 AM – 10:30 AM | Introduction to Wwise: Hands-on Quick Start to Game Sound Integration

Speaker: Robert Brock (Director of Education, CRAS)

In this fast-paced session, starting from a completely blank Wwise project, you'll quickly learn the interface, discover the most important elements of the software and see how creative you can get with sound effects integration. Most importantly, you'll build your assets into a game and be able to hear your sonic masterpiece in actual game play. Bring your Windows or Mac (OS X Mountain Lion v10.8 and up) computer and headphones and we'll provide the software and project files.

10:50 AM – 11:50 AM | Acoustic Phenomena and their Application In-game

Speaker: Damian Kastbauer (Audiokinetic, Product Manager)

This session will showcase the implementation of acoustic techniques and approaches using Wwise and the Wwise Audio Lab sample game in Unreal. In this session, you’ll see and hear in Wwise and Unreal: Sound propagation using rooms and portals. Diffraction around obstacles and Transmission through geometry. Reverb Zones and Transition Regions Wwise Reflect geometry-informed dynamic early reflection in different spaces.

12:15 PM – 1:15 PM | Wwise: Interactive Music (Part 1) - Understanding the Process from Composition to Game Play

Speaker: Robert Brock (Director of Education, CRAS)

Interactive music is a buzz phrase that everyone has heard, but many are unclear about the workflow necessary to create a truly interactive score. To understand the process, you’ll see how a conventional DAW and Audiokinetic’s Wwise software can take a game that is musically void, to one where the player’s actions control the musical soundscape. Through the process you’ll see how interactive music impacts: Compositional process Song structure and organization within a DAW Mixing considerations File delivery Integrating music assets into the game Game play Seeing this demonstration will help you better understand a game studio’s needs and help you make better decisions during the earliest phases of the creative process.

2:45 PM – 3:45 PM | Dynamic Mixing Tools and Techniques Using Wwise

Speaker: Simon Ashby (Audiokinetic, Head of Product)

The non-linearity of games brings many challenges to mixing which requires specific tools and techniques that are non-existent for other type of media. Today’s game platforms provide enough processing power to support advanced audio pipelines by incorporating real-time dynamic mixing functionality. Using real-game practical audio examples such as mix snapshots, side-chaining, and HDR audio, this session will demonstrate the many positive benefits that dynamic audio mixing can have on modern sound design.

4:15 PM – 5:15 PM | Wwhat's New in Wwise 2024.1

Speaker: Damian Kastbauer (Audiokinetic, Product Manager)

Wwondering Wwhat's New in Wwise 2024? Come check-in on the "Wwise Summer of Beta" to hear more about the features of 2024.1 and how they've evolved thanks to feedback from the interactive audio community.

5:45 PM – 6:45 PM | PANEL (TBD)

Speakers: TBD

8:00 AM – 9:00 AM | Wwise Up: GameSoundCon - Product Manager AMA

Location: Academy 1 / Expo floor

Grab a beverage and drop-by the Audiokinetic booth in the Expo Hall for some open-ended conversation about Wwise & Strata.

9:00 AM – 10:00 AM | Audio Optimization: an Intro to the Wwise-251 Certification

Speaker: Damian Kastbauer (Audiokinetic, Product Manager)

An average mobile game can have hundreds of assets making integration difficult and tricky. Creating lush soundscapes while working within the constraints of mobile platforms requires an entirely different set of knowledge and tools. CPU, memory, and battery optimizations are paramount considerations for the mobile platform. This session covers aspects of the Wwise 251 certification while providing useful context for the task of optimization! The free 251 course will introduce you to conversion and compression settings, voice management and prioritization, SoundBank granularity and system memory usage.

10:30 AM – 11:30 AM | Real-time Iterative Sound Design Using Strata, Wwise, and Unreal

Speakers: Simon Pressey (Audiokinetic, Strata Product Owner)

Iterating on audio files in the DAW while Wwise is connected to the game and hearing the changes in realtime is part of what's coming as part of Wwise 2024.1. This demonstration will present a fully connected sound design workflow using Strata with Wwise while diving into some of the advanced features of recent Strata libraries.

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM | Wwise: Interactive Music (Part 1) - Understanding the Process from Composition to Game Play

Speaker: Robert Brock (Director of Education, CRAS)

Interactive music is a buzz phrase that everyone has heard, but many are unclear about the workflow necessary to create a truly interactive score. To understand the process, you’ll see how a conventional DAW and Audiokinetic’s Wwise software can take a game that is musically void, to one where the player’s actions control the musical soundscape. Through the process you’ll see how interactive music impacts: Compositional process Song structure and organization within a DAW Mixing considerations File delivery Integrating music assets into the game Game play Seeing this demonstration will help you better understand a game studio’s needs and help you make better decisions during the earliest phases of the creative process.

2:45 PM – 3:45 PM | Wwise: Interactive Music (Part 2): Exploring Interactive Music Structures and Strategies

Speaker: Simon Ashby (Audiokinetic, Head of Product)

This session invites composers and sound designers for an in-depth look into the tool chest of compositional techniques by examining a variety of Wwise projects and videos from shipped games. Topics will cover: Utilizing pre-rendered audio stems, MIDI and generative music Classic interactive music structures Methods to reduce repetition (and get the most out of the few megs of memory available) By observing these integration techniques, you’ll be inspired to create your own unique approach for how players are provided musical feedback and rewards, core to the mechanics of any game.

4:15 PM – 5:15 PM | Wwhy 3D Audio? Understanding the Object-based Pipeline in Wwise - Group Exercise

Speaker: Damian Kastbauer (Audiokinetic, Product Manager)

Maybe you've been wondering about 3D Audio? What's the big deal? Is it just binaural over headphones? Or maybe you're already convinced by the possibilities afforded by object-based audio. Regardless, this session will be a group discussion about the emerging format towards the goal of understanding people's perceptions about 3D Audio while building a mental model of how to think about routing for object-based audio with Wwise. Come to share your experience and help everyone create a clear understanding of the potential that 3D Audio brings to the future of interactive audio.

5:45 PM – 6:45 PM | Panel: Accessibility & Audio

Speakers: Alexander Horowitz, Robert Ridihalgh, Brian Schmidt