WAQL Tutorial for Beginners Part 1

If you're a game audio designer or audio programmer, searching through thousands of objects in Wwise can be a challenge. Finding specific sound, event, and audio files quickly is crucial for improving your workflow.

For the demonstration, I will be using Sample Project from Wwise Launcher. However, it's also fine if you have a different project.

Download Sample Project from Wwise Launcher

Remember to open List View when you are ready.

WAQL Basics

The Wwise Authoring Query Language (WAQL) allows for querying of a Wwise project and its objects.

A typical WAQL query structure is:

// WAQL query structure
$from SOURCE where CONDITION select OBJECT

// Try these examples:
// Searching events by their name
$from type event where name : "Play"

// Searching all sound voice objects
$from type sound where isvoice = true

// Searching sound objects by their source file name
$from type audiofilesource where name : "footstep" select parent

The from keyword establishes an initial source for our query. The where keyword serves as a filter, exclusively producing matching objects. A select statement enables the acquisition of new objects from the input sequence.

Sometimes you may start with the where keyword.

// Searching all objects that enable stream,
// as well as their volume is greater than or equal to zero
$where IsStreamingEnabled = true and volume  >= 0

Difference between ‘=’ and ‘:’

Take a look at these two examples.

1. The equal operator

The equal operator compares values regardless of their casing. If the text matches in content, irrespective of its letter case, the condition will yield a true result. This is valuable when searching for precise matches.

2. The colon

The colon operator is used to check if a certain word exists within a string.

Where you can use WAQL

1. Wwise Toolbar Search

Wwise 2022.1.3

2. List View Search

3. Schematic View Search

4. WAAPI using the ak.wwise.core.object.get function

args = {
    "waql": "$from type event where path: \"\Events\Music\" select children select target"
}

Working with Regular Expressions

WAQL uses ECMAScript regular expressions. If you have no regex experience, I highly recommend regexlearn and regexone. They provide step-by-step tutorials. Regex should utilize ‘=’ for condition comparison.

Here are two examples of how to use regex in WAQL.

1. Searching random or sequence containers by their name

$from type RandomSequenceContainer where name = /^City.*Light$/

2. Searching sound objects by their name

$from type sound where name = /Footstep.*(Running|Walking).*Water/

You can also use regex in WAAPI

args = {
    "waql": "$from type sound where name = /^Amb.*Rain/ select children"
}

In Part 2, I’ll guide you through the process of searching for Wwise object references and harnessing the power of WAQL in a more adaptable manner.