Build Instructions¶

Overview¶

Building the Steam Audio Wwise integration involves the following steps:

Building the audio engine plugin (SteamAudioWwise.dll on Windows, for example). This step involves compiling C++ code, and must be done separately on each supported platform.
(Optional) Generating the zip file (steamaudio_wwise.zip) for distribution.

Directory Structure¶

Below is an overview of the directories contained within the source repository for the Steam Audio Wwise plugin:

Directory	Contents
`bin/`	Compiled binaries placed by the `INSTALL` target of the build system generated by CMake.
`build/`	Build scripts and the build system generated by CMake.
`dist/`	The zip file generated by the `PACKAGE` target.
`doc/`	Documentation.
`include/`	Header files for libraries that the Wwise integration depends on.
`lib/`	Binary library files that the Wwise integration depends on.
`src/`	Source code.

Building the audio engine plugin¶

Requirements¶

To build the plugin on any platform, you need the following software:

Python (https://www.python.org)
CMake 3.17 or later (https://cmake.org)

To build the Windows plugin, you will need:

Visual Studio 2019 or later (https://visualstudio.microsoft.com)

To build the Linux plugin, you will need:

clang 11.0 or later (install using your distribution’s package manager)
glibc 2.19 or later

To build the macOS plugin, you will need:

Xcode 14.0 or later (install from the Mac App Store)

To build the Android plugin, you will need:

Android SDK for platform 25 (Android 7.1 Nougat) or later (https://developer.android.com/studio)
Android NDK (install using the Android SDK Manager)

To build the iOS plugin, you will need:

Xcode 14.0 or later (install from the Mac App Store)

To build the documentation, you will need:

Sphinx (https://www.sphinx-doc.org)
Sphinx Read The Docs theme (https://sphinx-rtd-theme.readthedocs.io)
Sphinx Tabs extension (https://sphinx-tabs.readthedocs.io)
Doxygen 1.9 or later (https://www.doxygen.nl)
Breathe (https://breathe.readthedocs.io)

Preparing the repository¶

After cloning the Steam Audio Git repository, the first step is to download the Steam Audio API libraries and place them in the correct locations in the Git repository. To do this, run the following from a command prompt in the wwise directory of the repository:

$ python setup.py

This will download the appropriate release of the Steam Audio API from GitHub, extract it, and place the files in the appropriate locations.

Building using the build script¶

To build the plugin, run the following from a command prompt in the wwise directory of the repository:

$ cd build
$ python build.py

On Windows, this will generate a Visual Studio 2019 solution for 64-bit Windows (build/windows-vs2019-x64/SteamAudioWwise.sln) and build it in the Release configuration.

On Linux, this will generate a Makefile for 64-bit Linux (build/linux-x64-release/Makefile) and build it.

On macOS, this will generate an Xcode project (build/osx/SteamAudioWwise.xcodeproj) and build it in the Release configuration.

On Android, this will generate a Makefile for 32-bit ARM (build/android-armv7-release/Makefile) and build it.

On iOS, this will generate an Xcode project (build/ios/SteamAudioWwise.xcodeproj) and build it in the Release configuration.

If CMake cannot generate the build system due to missing dependencies, you can run CMake directly and adjust settings that control where CMake looks for dependencies, and which targets it builds.

The Steam Audio build script (build.py) lets you specify the following command line parameters to control its behavior:

-p, --platform NAME

Specifies the target platform. Valid options are windows, linux, osx, android, and ios. Default is the current host platform.

-t, --toolchain NAME

Specifies the compiler version (on Windows only). Valid options are vs2019 and vs2022. Default is vs2019.

-a, --architecture NAME

Specifies the CPU architecture to build for. Valid options are x86 (32-bit Intel, available on Windows, Linux, and Android), x64 (64-bit Intel, available on Windows, Linux, macOS, and Android), armv7 (32-bit ARM, available on Android), and arm64 (64-bit ARM, available on Android and iOS). Default is x64 for Windows, Linux, and macOS; armv7 for Android; and arm64 for iOS.

-c, --configuration NAME

Specifies the build configuration. Valid options are debug and release. Default is release.

-o, --operation NAME

Specifies the CMake operation to perform. Valid options are generate (generates the build system), build (build all targets in the build system), install (runs the INSTALL target, which copies binaries to the bin/ folder), package (runs the PACKAGE target, which generates the zip file and copies it to the dist/ folder), ci_build (which runs generate, then build, then install), and ci_package (which runs generate, then package). Default is generate followed by build.

Building using CMake directly¶

The Python build scripts discussed in above section are a wrapper around CMake. You can also directly use CMake to generate the build system. This is useful if you need to specify non-default paths for CMake to search for dependencies. To do this, first create the directory in which you want to generate the build system:

$ cd build
$ mkdir windows-vs2019-x64

Now run CMake:

$ cmake ../..

Alternatively, use cmake-gui if you prefer using a GUI to configure various CMake options:

$ cmake-gui ../..

When building for Android, Steam Audio provides the following toolchain files that you can use:

Toolchain File	Platform
`build/toolchain_android_armv7.cmake`	32-bit ARM
`build/toolchain_android_armv8.cmake`	64-bit ARM
`build/toolchain_android_x86.cmake`	32-bit Intel
`build/toolchain_android_x64.cmake`	64-bit Intel

When building for iOS, Steam Audio provides the following toolchain files that you can use:

Toolchain File	Platform
`build/toolchain_ios.cmake`	64-bit ARM

Below are some of the CMake options you may want to configure:

Option	Description
`STEAMAUDIOWWISE_BUILD_DOCS`	`TRUE` if you want to build documentation, `FALSE` otherwise.
`CMAKE_ANDROID_NDK`	Absolute path to the Android NDK.
`CMAKE_MAKE_PROGRAM`	Absolute path to the `make` executable in the Android NDK.
`Sphinx_EXECUTABLE_DIR`	Absolute path to the directory containing the Sphinx executable.
`DOXYGEN_EXECUTABLE`	Absolute path to the Doxygen executable.

Building using the Wwise SDK directly¶

The CMake build system generated by the Steam Audio Wwise plugin source code is itself a wrapper around the Wwise SDK plugin build scripts. Instead of using build.py or CMake, you can directly use the Wwise SDK plugin build script, wp.py, to build the plugin. This is useful if you need more fine-grained control or customization over which build tools and configurations are used when building the plugin.

As an example, from the wise directory of the repository:

$ cd src $ $WWISEROOT/Scripts/Build/Plugins/wp.py premake Authoring $ $WWISEROOT/Scripts/Build/Plugins/wp.py build -x x64 -t vc170 -c Release

Here, $WWISEROOT is the directory in which Wwise has been installed. In the above sequence of commands, the second command generates the Visual Studio projects for building the part of the plugin that integrates with the Wwise authoring app. The third command runs the Visual Studio 2022 (vc170) C++ compiler to build the plugin for 64-bit Windows, in the Release configuration.

For more information on how to use wp.py to build Wwise plugins, refer to the Wwise SDK documentation.

Generating the zip file¶

As an optional step, you can package the plugin, including documentation, into a zip file. To do this, run the following from a command prompt in the wwise directory of the repository:

$ cd build
$ python build.py -o install
$ python build.py -o package

This will place the generated zip file in dist/steamaudio_wwise.zip.