gme-for-wwise-unlock-more-voice-features-to-deliver-an-immersive-game-experience.png

<img src="https://trtc.io/media/b2eae0cc-bae0-411f-9f3f-0c15cf5ab389.png" alt="Unlock Immersive Game Experience with GME Integration for Wwise.png">The State of Mobile 2021 report issued by App Annie identifies PUBG-like, shooter, and MOBA games highlighting social interactions as the most popular game categories, which are the main drive in the increase in gameplay time. Voice interaction in blockbuster games such as PUBG, Call of Duty, and Free Fire has already become a player habit. Innovative social games such as Roblox and Among Us are also widely popular among Gen Z. Although multiplayer gaming and social interaction have become mainstream in the game world, how to deeply integrate game voice into gameplay and restore the real world experience for players remains a challenge.<h2 id="What-is-the-GME-for-Wwise-solution?" id="What-is-the-GME-for-Wwise-solution?" style="margin-left:0px;">What is the GME for Wwise solution?</h2>The <a href="https://trtc.io/products/gme">GME</a> for <a href="https://www.audiokinetic.com/en/products/wwise/">Wwise</a> solution not only helps games easily integrate the voice chat feature, but also maximizes the immersive gaming experience. This article will introduce the unique benefits of this solution from three aspects: solution strengths, technical implementation, and voice features.<img class="image_resized" style="width:75%;" src="https://trtc.io/media/dc95852c-8f04-4662-8063-5ed3aac7a3a5.jpg" alt="Wwise with GME.jpg">Game Multimedia Engine (GME) is Tencent RTC's one-stop voice solution tailored for gaming scenarios and provides abundant features, including multiplayer voice chat, voice messaging, speech-to-text conversion, and speech analysis. You can connect to the GME SDK by calling APIs to implement voice features in your game. The connection process of traditional standalone voice SDK solutions is designed independently of the game sound effects. In contrast, for games developed based on the Wwise sound engine, the Wwise + GME solution can include voice features in the game sound effect design process. Wwise's powerful audio processing and control capabilities can be applied to the voice features, which provides a larger space for designing voice features for game sound effects while improving the sound quality. Below is the basic flowchart:As shown above, GME's plugins send all the local voice stream (voice of the player recorded by the mic) and the voice streams received over the network (voice streams of teammates to be played back locally) to the Wwise audio pipeline, where the GME voice streams are abstracted into Wwise's basic audio sources for processing. It is based on this novel design that the Wwise + GME solution has unique strengths over traditional standalone voice SDK solutions.<h2 id="Unique-strengths-of-the-Wwise-+-GME-solution" id="Unique-strengths-of-the-Wwise-+-GME-solution" style="margin-left:0px;">Unique strengths of the Wwise + GME solution</h2>Unified design for voice and game sound effects:In a Wwise project, GME voice streams are seamlessly connected to the Wwise audio pipeline, and the voice connection process is deeply integrated into the Wwise sound effect design process, <span style="color:rgb(0,159,218);font-family:Inter, Roboto, &quot;pingfang SC&quot;, &quot;hiragino sans gb&quot;, &quot;Apple SD Gothic Neo&quot;, ui-sans-serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, sans-serif, &quot;helvetica neue&quot;, arial, &quot;microsoft yahei ui&quot;, &quot;microsoft yahei&quot;, &quot;Apple Color Emoji&quot;, &quot;Segoe UI Emoji&quot;, &quot;Segoe UI Symbol&quot;, &quot;Noto Color Emoji&quot;;">avoiding audio conflicts that may occur during connection to a separate voice SDK. On the game client, the operations of sending and receiving GME voice streams are abstracted into triggers of Wwise events. This makes such operations consistent with the standard Wwise development process experience, which is more straightforward than previous API call-based connection.Effective solution to the problems of declined sound effect quality and sudden change in the volume level after mic-on:In traditional standalone voice SDK solutions, the declined game sound effect quality after mic-on, sudden change in volume level, and dry voice all are pain points in the industry; especially, the sound effect quality of the entire game will degrade to the sound quality level of phone calls (mono signal at a low sample rate) immediately after mic-on, which severely deteriorates the game experience. In contrast, the Wwise + GME solution <span style="color:rgb(0,159,218);font-family:Inter, Roboto, &quot;pingfang SC&quot;, &quot;hiragino sans gb&quot;, &quot;Apple SD Gothic Neo&quot;, ui-sans-serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, sans-serif, &quot;helvetica neue&quot;, arial, &quot;microsoft yahei ui&quot;, &quot;microsoft yahei&quot;, &quot;Apple Color Emoji&quot;, &quot;Segoe UI Emoji&quot;, &quot;Segoe UI Symbol&quot;, &quot;Noto Color Emoji&quot;;">effectively solves the problem of sound effect decline caused by volume type switch. This greatly improves the sound quality and enables players to identify other players' positions during smooth voice chat with the original sound effects retained.Powerful design capabilities for unlimited gameplay and creativity:The Wwise + GME solution allows a vast design space for game voice features. As all voice streams flow to the Wwise audio bus, <span style="color:rgb(0,159,218);font-family:Inter, Roboto, &quot;pingfang SC&quot;, &quot;hiragino sans gb&quot;, &quot;Apple SD Gothic Neo&quot;, ui-sans-serif, system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, sans-serif, &quot;helvetica neue&quot;, arial, &quot;microsoft yahei ui&quot;, &quot;microsoft yahei&quot;, &quot;Apple Color Emoji&quot;, &quot;Segoe UI Emoji&quot;, &quot;Segoe UI Symbol&quot;, &quot;Noto Color Emoji&quot;;">the rich sound processing and control capabilities of Wwise can be applied to the voice, and each voice stream can be customized, making gameplay more immersive and fun and allowing players to communicate in a natural way.<h2 id="Tech-Inside" id="Tech-Inside" style="margin-left:0px;">Tech Inside</h2>For each player, voice chat mainly involves two audio stream linkages: the upstream linkage where the local mic captures the player's own voice and distributes it to remote teammates through the server, and the downstream linkage where the voices of all teammates are received from the server, mixed, and played back on the local device.Upstream linkage The player's local chat voice stream will be sent to the Wwise engine through the GME capture plugin. Based on the rich sound effect processing capabilities of Wwise, the game can process the voice stream based on the actual environment and needs, with operations such as texture processing, reverb, and voice changing. Imagine that the player's character is in a church. The processed voice stream with church reverb will be sent to the server through the GME sending plugin and then to remote players. Similarly, if the game is configured with the voice changing feature, the voice stream processed by the real-time voice changing algorithm will be sent to remote players.<img src="https://trtc.io/media/d1c7f880-8914-4b8b-a9fe-d150c839cef8.webp" alt="upstream linkage processing flowchart.webp">Upstream linkage processing flowchartDownstream linkage Unlike the upstream linkage where only one local voice stream is involved, the downstream linkage generally receives multiple voice streams from all teammates, which will be passed to the Wwise engine through the GME receiving plugin. In addition, the game can process the corresponding sound effects based on the actual player conditions in each received voice stream, including position relative to the local player, distance, and presence of obstacles in the way. The processed data is mixed by Wwise and then played back on the local device. In a specific game scenario, for example, if teammate A is standing on the front left of the local player, then the local player will hear teammate A's voice from the front left direction; and if teammate B jumps behind a rock, then the local player will hear teammate B's voice obstructed and reflected by the rock. In addition, the voices of approaching and departing players will be amplified or attenuated.<img src="https://trtc.io/media/362b5e8a-4c75-499f-bafd-28ee10948ea1.webp" alt="Downstream linkage processing flowchart.webp">Downstream linkage processing flowchart&nbsp;Compared with traditional standalone voice SDKs that only provide an audio conference-like game voice experience, the Wwise + GME solution processes the voice based on game scenarios and takes the voice experience to a whole other level (i.e., a game scenario-specific immersive voice experience). The demo video below shows some basic usage of the Wwise + GME solution. If you watch it on your phone, please put on headphones, because it uses the binaural virtual sound field technology. In the following demo video, the gray robot opposite you is your teammate talking to you through GME. 3D audio, voice changing, and reverb are applied in voice chat processing. All voices in the video are from real-time recording of the voice stream sent by the remote player instead of post-production synthesis.&nbsp;<div class="raw-html-embed"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3MPhscvG2dg" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>Please watch the demo video (As the demo uses binaural virtual sound field technology, please put on headphones for optimal effect.)<h2 id="More-Voice-Features-and-Gameplay" id="More-Voice-Features-and-Gameplay" style="margin-left:0px;">More Voice Features and Gameplay</h2>The unique design of the Wwise + GME solution makes it possible to implement voice features as a part of game sound effect design. Below are some proposed voice processing features, and there are more to be created by audio designers. Sending ambient sound or accompaniment: The Wwise + GME solution provides the capability to send not only player voice but also other audio streams to the voice server. The most obvious application of this capability is karaoke. For example, in a game scenario where a player's character is in the rain or wind, when the player talks with a teammate, the immersive experience requires that sound of rain or wind be properly mixed into the voice. There are also some other use cases, such as sending sound emojis based on the player's progress in the game to make the voice more fun. Simulating voice reflection and diffraction: To create an immersive voice experience, voice rendering and actual game scenarios must be taken into account together. The aforementioned texture processing, attenuation, voice changing, reverb, and 3D positioning are only basic processing features. To better simulate the voice transfer path between the speaker and the listener in game scenarios, you can leverage the reflection, diffraction, occlusion, and obstruction models provided by Wwise to process voice chat, and such processing effects are exactly the ultimate voice experience that the metaverse seeks. Processing character personality and status: In order to make game voice more fun, some specially designed DSP processing can be performed on the voice when character personality and status change in games. For example, if a character is attacked by an enemy and loses HP in a battle, then the voice can have some distortions, lags, or trills added to indicate that the character is in pain; when the character defeats the enemy or picks up an item, the voice can have some high-pass filtering or acceleration processed to reflect the excitement. Side-chaining: Side-chaining is an essential processing method in audio mixing. It controls a signal with another. The purpose of adding voice features to a game is to enhance in-game social networking, so the voice must be clearly delivered to listeners. When a player speaks, the focus of game sound mixing should switch from the game sound effects to the voice, as they do on radio stations, where the DJ decreases the music volume level when speaking and restores the original volume level after speaking. In the Wwise + GME solution, all voice streams are sent to the Wwise audio bus, which makes side-chaining possible in games; for example, you can set a Wwise Meter at the place where voice is received and then dynamically control the volume levels of other sound effects based on the value of this Meter. Below is a demo video of the Wwise + GME solution's multiple capabilities, such as how sound reflection, obstruction, and side-chaining are processed by GME. The video shows the first-person view, third-person view, and top view, and the green robot is your teammate talking to you through GME. As the robot's position and environment change, the corresponding processing features will be applied to the voice (as described in the video subtitles). Voice chat processed in this way can deliver an immersive gaming experience. All voices in the video are from real-time recording of the voice stream sent by the remote player instead of post-production synthesis.<div class="raw-html-embed"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1gTCa_hiAIE" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>Please watch the demo (As the demo uses binaural virtual sound field technology, please put on headphones for optimal effect.)<h2 id="Summary" id="Summary" style="margin-left:0px;">Summary</h2>The Wwise audio engine middleware and the GME game voice solution can improve the game quality from different perspectives. Wwise greatly increases the efficiency of developing interactive sound effects for a better game voice experience, while GME enhances social networking in games for a higher player retention. When Wwise is combined with GME, the two create better synergy for multiplying effects. The Wwise + GME solution will become a powerful tool for game sound effect designers to create most realistic, vivid, and creative sound and voice effects in games.If you have more advanced requirements such as AI-powered noise cancellation and spatial audio, we offer a fully customized audio/video communication SDK &amp; API family for web, mobile, and games. Tailor your video communication experience to meet your specific needs and captivate your audience with <a href="https://trtc.io?utm_source=website&amp;utm_medium=blog&amp;utm_term=trtc&amp;utm_campaign=blog&amp;_channel_track_key=vk1DdHNL">Tencent RTC</a>.If you have any questions or need assistance, our support team is always ready to help. Please feel free to get in <a href="https://trtc.io/contact?utm_source=website&amp;utm_medium=blog&amp;utm_term=trtc&amp;utm_campaign=blog&amp;_channel_track_key=EB6l06UE">touch with us</a> or join us in <a href="https://discord.gg/hq7jW7zChW">Discord</a>.

GME Integration for Wwise: Unlock More Voice Features to Deliver an Immersive Game Experience | Tencent RTC Blog

Wwise

Game Voice Evolution: RTC SDK, In-Game Voice, and Immersive Audio

Game Voice Evolution: RTC SDK, In-Game Voice, and Immersive Audio.png

<img src="https://trtc.io/media/e82e606b-db16-4cdb-8fd9-149237b3694e.png" alt="Game Voice Evolution: RTC SDK, In-Game Voice, and Immersive Audio.png"><h2 id="1.-Unveiling-the-Evolution-of-Game-Voice" style="margin-left:0pt;">1. Unveiling the Evolution of Game Voice</h2>Social networking now is an essential aspect of gaming experiences. On one hand, gaming is inherently a social activity that offers a range of topics and scenarios for social interaction. On the other hand, social networking fulfills our human nature and improves the gaming experiences, which can significantly increase player retention.As an important feature of social networking, game voice has drawn growing attention from game developers and gained considerable popularity among players. There are myriads of game voice applications and solutions in the market, which provide a wide variety of features. Below is an overview of the evolution of game voice.Game voice tools have evolved with the development of the internet. The last 20+ years have witnessed huge leaps in game voice technology：<ul><li>from support for a single platform to cross-platform interoperability.</li><li>from one-to-one chat to interactive voice chat in a room with tens of thousands of online users.</li><li>from third-party voice communication SaaS tools to PaaS SDKs.</li><li>from monotonous voice chat to immersive voice experiences.</li></ul>Instead of following a chronological order or revisiting the evolution of their features, this article looks at the development of game voice tools from the perspective of game voice experiences.<img src="https://trtc.io/media/8f950a8f-8638-439f-9bc8-b64613712e74.webp" alt="game voice experiences in the game scene.webp">The most basic experience brought by game voice is that players communicate with each other through voice chat. Gaming creates a virtual world where the dialog between players is actually that between game characters. In tandem with the improvements in gameplay design and image quality, players have higher expectations of voice chat, and the voice experience similar to a conference call can no longer meet their demand. In response, a disruptive technical solution has emerged, which is called "Immersive Voice Solution".<img src="https://trtc.io/media/444811c1-a9ac-4200-8176-5f26bea5a66b.webp" alt="Immersive Voice Solution.webp">Game voice technology has gone through several stages, starting from the most basic voice chat to immersive voice experiences and beyond. As breakthroughs in sensors, computing power, audio algorithms, IoT, and other technologies are on the horizon, all-real voice will eventually become a reality, delivering the ultimate voice experience the metaverse demands.<h2 id="2.-Version-Iterations" style="margin-left:0pt;">2. Version Iterations</h2><h3 style="margin-left:0pt;">/ 2.1 Game voice v1.0: Third-party voice chat tools</h3>At this stage, players use third-party voice chat tools to communicate with each other in the process of gaming. Whether the game itself offers a voice communication feature or not, using third-party tools allows players to quickly create chat channels and communicate with each other through voice chat.<img src="https://trtc.io/media/df1dd867-f833-496b-bf12-b66097b07e06.png" alt="Third-party voice chat tools: skype, discord, Wechat, yy, zoom and so on.png"><h3 style="margin-left:0pt;">/ 2.2 Game voice v2.0: In-game voice</h3>In-game voice solutions mainly take the form of game developers connecting SDKs developed by voice communication PaaS providers. The basic APIs that come with the SDKs are used to implement various in-game voice scenarios:<ul><li>channel voice between teammates: teammates can have a voice chat at any position coordinates in the game.</li><li>range voice between different teams: players of different teams can hear each other only when their position coordinates in the game are within a specified range.</li><li>blocklist/allowlist.</li></ul><img src="https://trtc.io/media/fb014d31-9fd5-490a-afed-8dd7af43c3cf.png" alt="In-game voice chat with Tencent RTC's gaming voice solution.png">Unlike third-party voice chat tools, third-party voice solutions require game developers to integrate and design specific voice scenarios. For players, the establishment of voice channels, audio attributes, and the features will be automatically and adaptively adjusted based on the game progress and specific scenarios, thus taking the game voice experience to the next level. Some voice SDKs. Tencent RTC's gaming voice solution (GME, Game Multimedia Engine) provides a broad suite of APIs to meet other game voice needs than voice chat:<ul><li>voice messaging</li><li>speech recognition</li><li>accompaniment playback</li></ul>Based on these APIs, game developers can design more powerful social networking features for games.In-game voice solutions have preliminarily integrated voice and gaming business scenarios, yet basically at the level of feature integration. As a result, standalone voice SDKs can only give players a game voice experience similar to a conference call, although players don't have to establish a chat channel themselves, or run any resource-consuming third-party software.<h3 style="margin-left:0pt;">/ 2.3 Game voice v2.5: Upgraded version of in-game voice</h3>To further improve players' game voice experiences, voice SDKs like TRTC offer voice processing capabilities such as voice changing and virtual 3D sound field. With these features, players can change their voice in real time based on their selected voice type, which adds fun to gaming and allows a vast design space for game voice features.<img src="https://trtc.io/media/5ceb7dcb-db05-474f-a59f-cdaaa6c1feb1.jpeg" alt="3D audio effects in real time in vr. game.jpeg">In FPS, battle royale, or VR games, players need to accurately identify the positions and directions of other players, which is vital to player communication about tips/tactics and an immersive gaming experience. The 3D audio effects technology that comes with voice SDKs offers an effective solution. The positions perceived by players through voice correspond to the relative positions of their characters in the game. As the relative distance between the characters changes, the voice intensity will increase or decrease accordingly, which well simulates real-world dialog scenarios.<img src="https://trtc.io/media/bb7f3a23-db71-4ef0-a882-40997ad3943c.jpeg" alt="3D audio effects in game scene.jpeg">Through the 3D audio effects technology, voice processing and gaming scenarios are combined, which, however, are limited to position and distance information in gaming scenarios. For a truly immersive experience, voice processing should cover all aspects of gaming scenarios. A voice SDK is unlikely to provide a dedicated API for every potential factor; otherwise, the SDK would be extremely complicated and bulky, and that's not really necessary. To take the game voice experiences up a notch, we need a new solution, namely the "Immersive Game Voice Solution".<h3 style="margin-left:0pt;">/ 2.4 Game voice v3.0: Immersive voice</h3>An immersive voice solution means that players' voice effects are rendered in real time based entirely on the game process. All players' voices are processed through digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms, and then played back in the headphones to simulate voice communication in real-world settings. Voice chat processed in this way can deliver a more immersive game voice experience, allowing players to communicate in a natural way.<img src="https://trtc.io/media/550e2c40-4b59-4fe9-ab6d-e635587b11ed.png" alt="Wwise with GME.png">Then, how is an immersive voice solution implemented? As mentioned above, it is not advisable to have a single voice SDK packed with all sorts of APIs. Moreover, voice service providers are generally not experts in audio processing algorithms compared with specialist audio technology companies. Therefore, to develop an all-encompassing voice SDK is virtually unviable.In view of this, a combination approach will work best, just as with the Wwise + GME solution. GME is dedicated to end-to-end real-time voice communication, and the Wwise interactive audio engine is adopted by many game developers as a tool for game sound design. The Wwise plugin acts as a bridge for data interactions between GME and the Wwise engine, and GME voice streams are seamlessly connected to the Wwise audio pipeline, so Wwise's rich sound effects processing and control features can be used in voice chat. Such a design makes it possible to deliver an immersive game voice experience.<figure class="image"><img src="https://trtc.io/media/3952e728-9ee0-4196-8111-40fc4b536c89.jpeg" alt="immersive game voice in real time in the game scene.jpeg"></figure>As an interactive audio authoring tool, Wwise is generally used to create high-quality audio content for games, and GME complements Wwise in the field of game voice. Now sound engineers can also use Wwise to create immersive and interesting voice features, opening up new gameplay possibilities.<h3 style="margin-left:0pt;">/ 2.5 Game voice v4.0: All-real voice</h3>Immersive voice, however, is definitely not the acme of game voice experiences – all-real voice takes it further.With the advances in AR, VR, and MR technologies, the metaverse has become a hot topic. Many technology giants are expanding into the metaverse, which is considered the next biggest opportunity in the realm of the internet in the coming decade. The metaverse refers to a parallel virtual world that is both independent of and interconnected with the real world, where people can interact, work, and do much more realistically.To make virtual worlds more lifelike, software and hardware technologies need to be integrated to simulate human senses. As voice communication is an important form of human interaction, metaverse scenarios have higher requirements for voice, that is, all-real voice. Currently, the metaverse is still more of a concept than reality, and we'll see what the future holds.Gaming is inherently a social activity in the internet age. Although voice chat is not a core feature for most game genres, it makes gaming more enjoyable and thus increases player retention. Therefore, it has become a common feature of online games.<img src="https://trtc.io/media/b3d8afa0-b6cd-41fb-a1ca-b9ac3d35e0c2.jpeg" alt="all-real voice in the online social games like WEREWOLF.jpeg">Game voice technology has evolved in response to players' growing demand for better experiences and gameplay. As players have higher expectations of gaming experiences, voice is bound to hold greater weight in gaming.

"Wwise"