Microsoft is rolling out a new version of Project Acoustics, its wave simulation engine. With the launch of Project Acoustics version 2.0, Microsoft is bringing several improvements to the platform. Several features focused on Unreal Engine and Unity engine are shipping with this release.
Announced in 2019, Project Acoustics is a solution that is similar to static lighting meshes that are integrated, allowing shadows and light sources to be calculated beforehand.
Project Acoustics “models wave effects like occlusion, obstruction, portaling and reverberation effects in complex scenes without requiring manual zone markup or CPU intensive raytracing.”
With the release of version 2.0, Microsoft is adding new tools for Acoustics’ integrations with the Unity and Unreal game engines.
Looking first at Unreal Engine by Epic Games, Microsoft is adding the following:
- Dynamic openings – handle changes in geometry at runtime
- Acoustics probe volumes
- Material override – set acoustic material for all meshes within a volume
- Material remap – swap material names for all meshes within a volume
- Probe spacing – change probe spacing within a volume
- Acoustics runtime volumes – update design parameters within a volume
- Pinned probes – place your own probes
Unity
On the Unity Engine, Project Acoustics version 2.0 brings faster bake times that are twice as fast that previous versions. Furthermore, there have been unnamed bug fixes and performance boosts. Lastly, Microsoft is also adding Wwise support for Unity.
If you want to know more about Project Acoustics or use the platform, here is the official page. It works across Windows 10 for Unity and Unreal and on Mac with just Unity.
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