Can I save my Wwise files in a way that can be opened in an independent instance of Wwise?

Question

I'm collaborating with a Unity developer online and want to share my Wwise patches so that he can open them in his setup and apply them to a game. Is there a way to save individual 'actor-mixer' hierarchies, or 'events' (containing actor-mixer hierarchies) so that somebody else could open them in an independent instance of Wwise? Or is there some other way to share Wwise files across instances?

Answer 1

Hi Angus, 

Yes and no. I would not advise only sending him parts of your Wwise project. Either send him the entire Wwise Project (except cache files and .akds) or just the SoundBanks. Here are a few options. 

1. If you want to give him access to everything in the Project Explorer, he will need the Wwise Project. If you only were to share the Actor-Mixer work unit, that would only be the hierarchal structure of your audio objects and not necessarily needed for integrating the sound into the game. 
2. If you want to give him the ability to integrate Events, Game Syncs, etc. using Wwise-types, components, or use the Wwise Picker window, he will also need the Wwise project but he won't need to be able to open Wwise necessarily. He just needs to have it located on this computer, so he can fetch the information into his Wwise picker, etc., and integrate it. 
3. If he just needs playable audio and you can set up the integration yourself, all you need to send him is the SoundBanks. 
4. Alternatively, you can also send the SoundBanks + a list of Event names, Game Syncs, etc. and he can call it from code by specifying the name of it, but he won't have the nice dropdown Wwise-type picker and the ability to assign things in Wwise components. Also, if you change the name of an Event, game sync, etc, later on, you'd need him to change it as well in code.

Another great thing for collaboration is using a source control solution like GitHub. Especially with option 1 or 2, it makes it so much easier for you to continuously contribute to the game once the Unity developer has already integrated it.

Let me know if this is helpful and what path you choose to take.

Comments

Hi Mads,
Thanks so much for your detailed response. My collaborator does already have Wwise integrated with the Unity project and has synced numerous placeholder sound events, so sending him an entire new project is not a solution. Also, we would ideally like to be able to back and forth many Wwise events between his project and mine.

The material I would want him to be able to load in his integrated instance of Wwise would include combinations of sounds, effects settings, RTCP gradients, random containers, states, switches and so on. So material from both the InitialisationBanks and SoundBanks, but ideally in a form that he can both edit in Wwise himself and sync to the Unity game.

The Wwise library states
"The information contained in the SoundBanks is project exclusive, which means that a SoundBank can only be used with other SoundBanks generated from the same project." https://www.audiokinetic.com/library/edge/?source=Help&id=generating_soundbanks_for_project
which suggests to me that SoundBanks would not serve our purpose because I would have developed the material in an independent Wwise project/instance.

We're considering a GitHub source control solution but wonder if there isn't a simpler file-sharing way to try out my material in the game at this early stage in the process. I assume a source control solution would allow me to develop SoundBanks from within his integrated Wwise project. Is that correct?

Another suggestion I received was to copy WorkUnits across, but I'm not sure how to do this. Does this seem worth exploring to you?

Kind regards,
Angus