THX Spatial Audio+

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Installation
• Usage
  • Authoring
• Parameters
  • Room Direct
  • Late Reverb
  • Early Reflections
  • Emitters
• UE5
  • Packaging

---

Introduction

THX Spatial Audio+ is a spatial audio processing plugin for Audiokinetic Wwise. It is built for Wwise version 2024.1.6.

This is a demo version with the following restrictions:

• Platform: Windows x64
• Wwise Version: 2024.1
• Channel Configuration: 7.1.4 input (12 channels) to Stereo output (2 channels)

Installation

1. Download the plugin from this link.

   

2. Follow the Audiokinetic documentation to install the plugin.

   • Start the Audiokinetic Launcher.
   • Open the Plug-ins tab.
   • Choose the Wwise version and click Add from directory.

   

3. Select the folder with the unzipped files and press Modify.

   • The plugin will be installed to the selected version of Wwise.
   • Currently, only Wwise 2024.1.6 is officially supported.

   

4. Follow additional steps to install plugins to the engine integration. The Unreal/Unity Audiokinetic docuimentation can be found here.

   • Go to the Unreal Engine tab in the launcher.
   • Select the project using integration and click Modify Wwise in Project.

   

   • Click Modify on the next page.

   

Note: UE5 Wwise Integration uses dynamic libraries by default. That is the suggested way of usage.

Usage

Authoring

1. Create a new Wwise project.

2. Add a child Audio Bus to the Master Audio Bus.

   

3. Choose 7.1.4 channel configuration for this new bus.

   

4. Add the THX Spatial Audio+ plugin to this Audio Bus.

   

5. Create a test SFX in the Actor Mixer hierarchy.

   

6. Route it to the Audio Bus created with the THX Spatial Audio+ plugin.

   

7. Enable 3D positioning for this SFX.

   

8. When playing the SFX, THX Spatial Audio+ processing will be applied.

Parameters

THX Spatial Audio+ provides a set of parameters to control the spatialization effect.

Room Direct

Controls the direct path of the signal, representing the unprocessed audio reaching the listener without reflections or reverb.

• Enabled: Enables or disables the direct path of the signal.

• Gain: Controls the gain level of the direct signal in decibels.

• 10-bands EQ: A 10-band equalizer applied to the direct signal path.

  • Filter type: Selects the filter type for each EQ band (Peak, Low Shelf, High Shelf, High Pass, Low Pass, Notch, Band Pass, All Pass).
  • Band Frequency: Sets the center frequency of the EQ band in Hz.
  • Band Gain: Controls the gain of the EQ band in decibels.
  • Band Q: Controls the Q-factor (bandwidth) of the EQ band.

  

Late Reverb

Generates the late reverb to simulate the acoustic characteristics of a room.

• Enabled: Enables or disables the late reverb processing.
• Gain: Controls the gain level of the late reverb in decibels.
• Number of comb filters: Sets the number of comb filters used to generate the reverb.
• Number of all-pass filters: Sets the number of all-pass filters.
• Comb filter delay multiplier: Multiplies the delay times of comb filters, affecting perceived room size.
• Room size: Controls the perceived size of the reverb space.
• All-pass feedback: Controls the feedback amount in all-pass filters.
• Damp: Controls high-frequency damping to reduce brightness.
• Width: Controls the stereo width of the reverb output.
• Stereo Spread: Creates stereo separation and spatial width.
• Wet: Controls the level of the wet (reverberated) signal in the output mix.
• Pre-/Post-EQs: 10-band equalizers applied before and after processing.

Early Reflections

Calculates and processes early reflections, simulating the first few sound reflections arriving before the reverb tail.

• Enabled: Enables or disables early reflections processing.
• Gain: Controls the gain level of early reflections in decibels.
• Early Stagger Enabled: Adds a random delay offset to each reflection for natural patterns.
• Virtual Room Dimensions: Defines virtual room dimensions (Length, Width, Height) for timing calculations.
• Number of reflections: Sets the maximum number of reflections to process per emitter.
• EQ: 10-band equalizer applied to the early reflections path.

Emitters

Defines virtual emitter positions in spherical coordinates relative to the listener.

• Azimuth: Horizontal angle of the emitter relative to the listener (degrees from front center).
• Elevation: Vertical angle of the emitter relative to the listener (degrees from horizontal plane).
• Radius: Distance from the listener to the emitter position in meters.

UE5

Packaging

When packaging your Unreal Engine project, THXSpatialAudioPlus.dll is automatically copied to the packaging output (e.g., Plugins\WwiseSoundEngine\ThirdParty\x64_vc170\Debug\bin).

However, you must also copy data.bin (the file installed with the plugin into the Authoring/SDK folders). There are two ways to ensure this:

1. Manually: Place data.bin into the same folder as THXSpatialAudioPlus.dll in the packaged build.
2. Automatically: Modify the Wwise integration code before packaging.
   • Open Plugins/WwiseSoundEngine/Source/WwiseSoundEngine_2024_1/WwiseSoundEngine_2024_1_OptionalModule.Build.cs.
   • Inside Apply(...), replace the runtime dependency block with the following snippet:

	SE.PublicDelayLoadDLLs.AddRange(WwiseUEPlatformInstance.GetPublicDelayLoadDLLs());
	foreach (var RuntimeDependency in WwiseUEPlatformInstance.GetRuntimeDependencies())
	{
	    SE.RuntimeDependencies.Add(RuntimeDependency);
}

• Replace it with the following snippet so that data.bin is staged automatically

SE.PublicDelayLoadDLLs.AddRange(WwiseUEPlatformInstance.GetPublicDelayLoadDLLs());
string runtimeBinDir = null;

foreach (var RuntimeDependency in WwiseUEPlatformInstance.GetRuntimeDependencies())
{
    SE.RuntimeDependencies.Add(RuntimeDependency);
    if (runtimeBinDir == null)
    {
        runtimeBinDir = Path.GetDirectoryName(RuntimeDependency);
    }
}

if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(runtimeBinDir))
{
    var dataBinPath = Path.Combine(runtimeBinDir, "data.bin");
    if (File.Exists(dataBinPath))
    {
        SE.RuntimeDependencies.Add(dataBinPath, StagedFileType.NonUFS);
    }
}

• Rebuild project / engine to update Wwise UE integration.
• In the final packaged folder (for example YourProject\Plugins\WwiseSoundEngine\ThirdParty\x64_vc170\Debug\bin) verify that data.bin sits next to THXSpatialAudioPlus.dll. If it is still missing, double-check that the file was already present under ThirdParty/.../bin/ before you started packaging.