I’m considering using FMOD for a new project, and am curious as to how existing users are handling subtitles and localisation for dialogue. Obviously UE’s native audio engine has the in-built Dialogue Wave and Dialogue Voice system to handle this, but I’d rather keep all audio within FMOD, avoiding having to use both FMOD and SoundCues side by side. Does FMOD have a system for handling subtitles and localisation which works with UE out of the box, or would some programming time be required in order to get it working?
We’re working through the same issues here, and it dosent sound like Epic will be delivering on their Loc Audio updates anytime in the near future. We’re evaluating XLoc this week as a potential 3rd party solution, but unsure yet how well/easily it plugs into Unreal. We would also likely need to build our own subtitle solution, as you say, Dialogue Voice/Wave components are not compatible with FMOD events. Will update here once we have a chance to demo XLoc…
We demoed XLoc last week and it looks great for handling the text and audio localization with 3rd party translation companies, but still does not handle subtitles and does not easily plug into UE4, there is some work required there. The Localization Panel in UE4 (still in experimental form, due to be fully useable by V4.12 or 4.13) would deal with pulling the text strings from the game, and importing and exporting .csv/.xls files for translation. The Loc panel still dosent deal with audio strings however, and Epic doesnt have an eta on when this might be ready (ie. pulling the English text from the Dialogue Wave components). Also as noted above, Dialogue Waves arnt compatible with FMOD events, so if Epic or Firelight cant assist here, we would have to put an SE on building this functionality ourselves.
If anyone else has any additional input on this, please advise!
Thanks for your feedback Jesse and Simon. I’ve had a look at the UE4 dialogue wave stuff. To be honest it looks like there is a fair amount of work still needed by Epic on that system.
I’ve investigated how it can play nice with FMOD.
1.)
Ideally, we could redirect UE4 inbuilt audio into a FMOD bus and then have the all the control of the FMOD mixer while using the inbuilt localized sounds. However, this isn’t possible currently. It will be possible if/when the UE4 audio is rewritten to be software mixed across all platforms. That is a planned feature by the Epic audio lead programmer, but its realistically a very long way off.
2.)
A stopgap solution would be to at least apply the FMOD mixer volumes to the inbuilt audio, so for example mixer snapshots would work. This is possible with a small amount of extra code which I can provide in an example. The code looks at the volume of a FMOD bus and sets that into a UE4 Sound Mix class. I’m not sure how useful you think this would be - it isn’t really routing effects through the mix so it won’t have any DSP effects, sends, or reverb, but it will at least make it easy to have the volume controlled from the FMOD side.
I’m getting that example code together and I can post it in a Q/A when finished.
3.)
You mentioned playing all the UE4 Dialogue Wave through FMOD, but unfortunately I don’t see a feasible way to play have all their inbuilt dialogue code working but somehow redirecting all the audio into FMOD instead of their audio device.
4.)
The next release will have better support for the audio table and programmer sounds, to make it more feasible to go just use FMOD for the localized audio. It won’t have subtitles though, so you might not find it very useful.
5.)
Regarding XLOC, I’m finding out more info about that now. If there is anything that needs to be done on the FMOD or the plugin side, I can help out there. Although it looks like it doesn’t do UE4 subtitles either.
Hi Geoff, thanks very much for your reply. I guess #1 or 2 would work, but doubtful Epic will be able to get to it in time for us. Also, we would have to manage all of the DSP/reverb/occlusion/etc for the dialogue separately in the UE4 audio engine which would not be fun. I think we’re best to wait for the additional support for audio tables/programmer sounds and then come up with our own way of displaying subtitles.
I dont think theres anything we need from you guys re. XLoc, we will just have to figure out how to link the string names in the XLoc doc to the audio files in FMOD (ideally via an audio table/programmer sounds)