Quick Start Guide

Quick start guide for installing and using Excited Waves Acoustics in Unreal Engine 5.6.1.

Try It

The fastest way to see Excited Waves Acoustics in action is to download the packaged demo build:

• Download standalone demo (Win64)

See how the demo works:

If you want to explore the trial project in Unreal Editor:

• Trial project source (UE 5.6.1)

To integrate the plugins into your own project:

• Plugin repository (Trial)

Requirements

• Unreal Engine 5.6.1

• Windows (Win64)

• Audiokinetic Wwise UE Integration 2024.1 or later

Installation

Core Plugin

1. Copy ExcitedWavesAcoustics folder into your project's Plugins/ directory

2. Restart Unreal Editor -- the precompiled plugin loads automatically

Wwise Integration

1. Make sure the Audiokinetic Wwise UE Integration plugin is installed (version 2024.1.11+)

2. Copy ExcitedWavesAcousticsWwise into Plugins/

3. For early reflections: install Wwise Reflect plugin via Audiokinetic Launcher

Chaos Destruction (Optional)

1. Copy ExcitedWavesAcousticsChaos into Plugins/

2. No additional dependencies beyond the core plugin

Verify Plugins

After copying plugins and restarting, verify that all installed Excited Waves plugins are enabled in Edit > Plugins:

First Setup

1. Add the Detector Component

Attach UAcousticsDetectorComponent to any actor (typically a character, audio listener, or sound emitter). In the Details panel: Add Component, search for Acoustics Detector.

2. Play

The detector automatically begins scanning. Enable debug visualization to see the system working:

Go to Project Settings > Plugins > Excited Waves Acoustics > Debug and enable Show Debug Rays, Show Hit Points, Show Results.

Press Play and move around the level. You should see colored rays, hit spheres on surfaces, and an on-screen text overlay with acoustic metrics.

3. Configure

All plugin settings are at Project Settings > Plugins. Three sections correspond to three plugins:

Core Settings

Project Settings > Plugins > Excited Waves Acoustics contains detection, distance bins, absorption, audio and debug settings.

Key settings:

Setting	Default	Purpose
Ray Scanning Method	Umbrella	Ray distribution pattern (Umbrella or Uniform)
Position Change Threshold	100 cm	Movement distance that triggers re-detection
Enable Frame Limiting	true	Spread rays across frames for performance
Max Rays Per Frame	8	Per-frame ray budget

Surface Absorption

Map Physical Surface types to absorption coefficients in Project Settings > Plugins > Excited Waves Acoustics > Surface Absorption. This drives reverb preset selection -- surfaces with high absorption select a drier reverb, low absorption selects a more reverberant one.

Component Properties

Select the AcousticsDetector component on an actor to see its per-detector properties in the Details panel. Set Is Listener = true on the player/camera detector to enable cross-room reverb blending.

Wwise Setup

Create reverb aux buses in the Wwise Authoring tool. The system needs Close, Mid, Far, and Outdoor buses for each absorption tier. A typical setup uses three tiers (Reflective, Neutral, Absorptive):

Each bus should contain a reverb effect with characteristics matching its distance and absorption (shorter tails for close/absorptive, longer tails for far/reflective).

For early reflections, create an additional aux bus with the Wwise Reflect effect.

Generate SoundBanks after creating the buses so they are available in Unreal.

Wwise Integration Settings

Assign the Wwise aux buses in Project Settings > Plugins > Excited Waves Acoustics Wwise Integration.

Reverb Presets – add one entry per absorption tier. Each entry defines Max Absorption and four aux bus references (Close, Mid, Far, Outdoor). Sort by Max Absorption ascending. The first preset whose Max Absorption is greater than or equal to the current mean absorption is selected.

Early Reflections Bus – assign the aux bus with the Wwise Reflect effect. Without it, reverb sends work normally but early reflections are inactive.

Chaos Destruction Settings

If the Chaos plugin is installed, its settings are at Project Settings > Plugins > Excited Waves Acoustics Chaos.

The plugin automatically discovers destructible Geometry Collections and nearby detectors. When geometry is destroyed, it notifies detectors within the Notification Radius to re-scan. Multi-iteration detection runs several passes after destruction for progressively accurate results as debris settles.