Hi there. I’m starting to work with Haptics for the first time and got a bit confused with what’s in the documentation.
I understand Haptics Instruments are a new addition (I believe on 2.03.11), but is it supposed to replace the Vibration Port workflow?
Are they 2 different ways to add haptics to a game, or should I route an event containing a haptics instrument to the vibration port?
Hopefully I was clear enough with my question! Cheers.
Haptics instruments aren’t a replacement for “vibration” port buses. Rather, port buses and haptics instruments both provide different ways of controlling controller vibration, each with its own uses and advantages.
“VIbration” port buses can handle signals routed from anywhere in your project. This means that you can create mixes of multiple signals, spatialize them, and otherwise process them in a wide variety of ways before routing them to the port bus, granting you a great deal of flexibility and control over the final vibration. However, as of the time of writing (May of 2026), vibration port buses currently support only the PS5 controller.
Haptics instruments, by contrast, can only play haptics clips, which cannot be processed by effects or mixed and routed as the outputs of other instruments can be. However, they are compatible with a much wider variety of controllers, their being instruments means that you can assign them complex trigger conditions, and their support of haptics clips means that you can take advantage of Meta Haptics Studio’s many features.
You will therefore tend to use haptics instruments in some games and port buses in others, depending on those games’ unique requirements. You might even use both in the same project, so that their outputs can be mixed by the platform’s operating system.
As time goes on, we are likely to expand the variety of controllers supported by both “vibration” port buses and haptics instruments, especially as new controllers are released onto the market.
Very clear, thanks Joseph!
To my understanding, vibration/haptics testing can only be done on Windows, not on Mac, right? Doesn’t matter the controller or if it’s testing in the game engine editor (Unity in my case) or just inside FMOD Studio, I need to be on a Windows operating system?
That’s right. As of the time of writing (June of 2026), we only support auditioning haptics on the Windows operating system.
Thanks Joseph! Hoping for an update sooner rather than later so I can test on my main workstation.
In the meantime, I managed to test on a windows OS and the haptics I created in Meta Studio are triggering fine inside FMOD.
But in Unity, despite following the setup step in item 9.3 of the documentation here, it doesn’t seem to work. I’m supposed to just type in “fmod_haptics” under the Dynamic Plugin dropdown menu, right?
Any other steps that need to be taken for us to be able to test in Unity’s Play in Editor?
FMOD Studio 2.03.11
FMOD Unity Integration 2.03.13
Hi,
Thanks for the update!
Yes, that is correct. Normally, adding fmod_haptics to the Dynamic Plugins list, without the .dll extension, is all that is required for the Unity integration to load the haptics plugin at initialization.
Just to clarify, are you testing the haptics event through the Unity Event Browser play button, or by assigning the event to an Emitter in the scene and entering Play Mode?
There was a previous issue where plugins specified for the Editor platform were not loaded when auditioning events through the Event Browser, but your Unity Integration version should already include the relevant fix. If the issue only occurs when auditioning from the Event Browser, that would be useful to know.
Another thing worth checking is the FMOD Studio build platform. For Unity Play in Editor on Windows, please make sure the banks are rebuilt for the Desktop platform. If FMOD Studio is currently set to another platform, such as HTML5, then a normal Build may only update that platform’s banks, while Unity continues loading the older Desktop banks.
Also, could you please confirm which controller you are using for the Unity Play in Editor test, and whether there are any FMOD/plugin loading errors in the Unity Console when entering Play Mode?
