FMOD

“for immediate release”

Melbourne, Australia. 5th March, 2010: Firelight Technologies, the makers of FMOD today announce a complete integration between the FMOD Ex API, FMOD Designer 2010 and the Unreal 3 engine.

“The FMOD Unreal Integration is both deep and broad. We have integrated our low-level system underneath the Unreal sound system and integrated the Event System into Unrealscript and tools.”

This will provide some extremely valuable work flow additions for sound designers and with the integration being based on our API, it is now possible to add all your FMOD audio features into your Unreal project. We are very pleased with the results and we are looking forward to releasing this at GDC.” Peter Stirling: Lead Developer at FMOD.

Deep FMOD Integration

The extensive low level FMOD API gave us the power to create a deep integration into Unreal Engine 3. This means that all your sound is routed through FMOD's highly optimized mixer, but the benefit is more than just performance. Where a side-by-side integration could cause the system to get flooded with sounds from two sound systems, our deep integration means all sounds are subject to FMOD channel virtualization. Unreal Sounds are prioritized alongside the FMOD sounds giving you centralized control over the maximum number of audible sounds. In addition you can see all your Unreal Sounds along with your FMOD Events in the FMOD Profiler, so you can easily track the CPU and memory usage of all of your sounds. It also allows for merging existing projects to utilize the FMOD sound engine as all Unreal assets will continue to work as normal. This will be a valuable workflow asset for all audio teams.

Designer Integration

• Access your FMOD Designer generated content in Unreal Script, Unreal Kismet and Unreal Matinee

o This allows the designer to utilize all the FMOD features within your UE3 game.

• Real time property tweaking on any platform.

• Per Event DSP effects.

• More sound formats, including CELT.

Loading Strategy

• All FMOD disk reads go through the Unreal IO system allowing for streamlined disk access.

• Even streaming sounds go directly through the Unreal IO, finally bringing streaming sounds to UE3.

• All loading and unloading of Event data and Sound Banks is handled automatically on the C++ side of the integration.

o This removes any need for developers to manually manage their memory in Unreal Scripts and Unreal Kismet sequences.

Unreal Script

• The Integration into Unreal Script has two parts

o Interface Layer.

o Integration Layer.

• The Interface Layer exposes most of the FMOD EventSystem API, allowing you to directly manipulate your FMOD Events, Categories, Parameters and Music Cues from Unreal Script.

• The Integration Layer provides FMOD equivalents to the Unreal sound objects: where Unreal has AudioComponents, SoundCues and AmbientSounds our integration provides FMODEventComponents, FMODEventDefinitions and FMODAmbientEvents.

o This gives developers a familiar interface and allows a clean integration into the Unreal tools.

Unreal Browser

• Projects built from FMOD Designer can be directly imported into the Unreal Browser.

• The browser will be automatically populated with FMOD Event Definitions, which can be used in Unreal Script, Unreal Kismet or Unreal Matinee.

• You can also view important information about that event in the property sheet.

We have also paid special attention to workflow: it is important that users can make changes in FMOD Designer and quickly update Unreal Editor to reflect these changes. Designers can seamlessly re-import new FMOD Designer builds into the content browser during the development process. This will update all the Event Definitions in Unreal Editor.

Unreal Kismet

• The FMOD Kismet objects allow you to control your Events, Parameters, Music Cues and Music Parameters.

• This allows for complex event behaviour and dynamic music scores controlled by Unreal Kismet.

Unreal World Editor

• FMOD Event Definitions can be dropped from the browser straight into the game world as Ambient Event Actors.

• These actors behave just like Unreal Ambient Sound Actors, and display the minimum and maximum attenuation spheres.

• This system allows level designers to place as many instances of the actor as they like and the system will intelligently virtualize the quietest instances as the player moves around the world.

ABOUT FMOD

Winner of the 2008 Frontline Award for Best Audio Tool the FMOD Ex Programmer's API is a world-leading library for the creation and their playback of interactive audio. FMOD products are widely used in the games industry and have gained a strong reputation for its ease of use, powerful software-mixed architecture and comprehensive cross-platform support. FMOD supplies audio solutions to many of the leading video game developers. FMOD also has established support for the largest range of platforms and also supports many of the widely used development engines such as CryEngine, Unity, Vision and now Unreal 3 Engine.

Contact: martin@fmod.org Martin Wilkes | Sales & Business Manager

Firelight Technologies Pty Ltd.

FMOD Sound System | www.fmod.org

PH: +61 3 96635947 Fax: +61 3 96635951