Game audio, Unity, Unreal and TouchDesigner

Add filtering, distortion, echoes or ambience to sounds in a game or interactive scene. Unity FX, Unreal FX and TD FX bring Maru effects into those applications as experimental preview packages. You can also prepare audio files in Maru and import them through your project's usual sound workflow.

Get the right package

Open Apps and integrations, find your application and read Setup & beta notes before downloading. The page lists the current package, platform, download and known limitations. Each ZIP includes a short testing checklist.

Package	What it adds	First setup
Unity FX	Native Audio Mixer effects with C# controls	Copy the included Assets/MaruUnityFX folder into a Unity project and add an effect to a stereo Audio Mixer group
Unreal FX	Submix effects with preset and Blueprint controls	Add MaruUnrealFX to a C++ project's Plugins folder and compile it with Unreal; this download contains source rather than a prebuilt engine plugin
TD FX	Audio operators for TouchDesigner	Run the included collection builder in the Textport, then connect an audio CHOP to an effect

These previews offer individual effects and a six-slot rack built from the same effects as Multifx. They process audio routed through the host. They are separate from the developing Maru FX DAW plugin and from FX Mini.

The free previews are unsigned downloads for macOS on Apple Silicon. Windows builds are pending. These are evaluation packages: setup, saved projects and exported games still need verification in the target applications. Setup & beta notes on the Apps page gives the current status.

Try one sound in one scene

Begin with a small test project and one stereo sound source. Route it through one Maru effect, enable the effect and change a control while the sound plays. Once that works, try a two-effect chain and compare the order. Save the project, close it and reopen it to check that the routing and settings return.

For example, a filter can make an existing ambience sound more muffled as the player moves into another space. Connect the effect to a scene control only after checking it manually. Test a built player or packaged game as well as the Editor before relying on it in a release. For an installation, also try sustained playback with the project's visual workload running.

If a step fails, send feedback with the package version, application version, operating system and error. The included checklist helps you describe what worked.

Bring prepared sounds or generation into a project

Prepared impacts, loops and textures can be imported as ordinary audio assets. Check their rights and the destination's file requirements. Export your work helps you choose the result to move into another application.

The FX downloads process existing sound; they do not add a hosted generation service to your game. Generation during use needs its own account access, waiting behavior and fallback. Generation in your products explains those choices.

For a responsive instrument, adaptive musical system or another engine, contact Maru with the intended behavior, target platforms and one scene to evaluate. Developers can continue with the integration reference.

Choose an interactive audio experiment

If your goal is sound that changes with gameplay, choose one interaction you can hear clearly. These browser studies use one game interface over internal Maru instruments and effects. They are separate from the FX downloads above; they do not establish portable parent-module packaging or native engine support.

Experiment	What the player does	What you listen for
Resonant Objects	Strike an object at different positions and change its size, damping or mallet	A different attack and ringing character, beyond a change in volume
Room and Receiver	Move one source and a stereo receiver inside a room; change a surface	Changes in reflection timing and decay; requested placement waits for a prepared response
Adaptive Score	Change Health, Proximity, Threat, density or seed; switch layers	Internal filters, damping, chorus and wavetable character respond; regenerated MIDI takes over at a cycle boundary
Physics Playground	Release balls from a hose; place, move and tilt planks	Contacts play independently panned resonators. Rolling produces quiet discrete pulses; sustained friction is separate work

Browse Games, choose a scene and press Play in the bottom transport. That activates audio and starts the simulation or score. Stop pauses it; the same transport responds to keyboard shortcuts. Use Strike for the resonator studies and Regenerate Music to prepare a new score variation. The game interface exposes only selected controls. Expand Parameter mappings to see their internal destinations. Save controls exports the top-level inputs, states and object switches as JSON; Load controls validates the whole document before applying it and stops playback. This saves control intent, not a running physics world, held notes, transport position or complete child resources.

Edit sound rack forks the underlying instruments, effects and wiring into Studio. It does not yet copy the game face or its top-level control snapshot as a standalone module. Embed copies an iframe snippet for the same game player; visitors press Play inside it to start audio.

Start with Gong for a struck resonant object. Its mallet, strike position, size and damping controls let you explore a stylized physical sound. For an evolving tonal source, use Wavetable and compare wave position, filter and envelope changes on the same notes. These instruments can also be auditioned independently on their own module pages.

Room Acoustics lets you experiment with source and microphone placement in a bounded room model. The left and right microphones are receivers; output meters simply show the resulting channels. Preparing a new room response takes work, so a dragging demonstration should show when the new response becomes active. This experiment does not establish fast moving sources, headphone HRTF rendering or acoustics for an arbitrary game world.

For the score experiment, Code Sequencer provides editable musical rules and MIDI for instruments. Keep the progression and seed fixed while comparing sounds, then change the seed to explore another take. The physics study distinguishes impacts from resting contact in a bounded four-body simulation with a recycled hose pool and editable planks. It does not supply inter-ball collisions, a portable physics-engine adapter or a continuous rolling-sound model.

Connect gameplay to controls

Give the game a small set of named inputs, such as Threat, Speed or Impact strength. Map each input to a sound-design choice: threat could open a filter and increase note density; impact strength could change a strike's excitation. Keep the instrument's own controls accessible so a sound designer can adjust what those mappings mean.

Continuous parameters, one-time events and modes serve different purposes. Speed changes continuously. A strike is an event. A room or material selection is a mode. A good integration defines each input's range, transition behavior and object scope, including what happens when an object disappears or the game pauses.

MIDI notes can trigger instruments. MIDI CC can provide hands-on control where the chosen host supports parameter mapping, but gameplay can drive named parameters directly. A game developer should not have to remember a CC number to change damping or filter cutoff. Check that both input methods reach the same parameter range and response curve.

The intended reusable product is one parent module per example: one game face, one exposed schema and state, with child instruments kept internal. The current browser studies run their real children through the shared rack host. Packaging that Processor composition as one portable parent module still needs shared runtime and release support. Complete child-state recall and simultaneous multi-child changes also need stronger host contracts; a successful submission does not prove that every child applied a change at one audio frame.

Agents can help author instruments, effects, mappings and musical rules, and prepare alternative phrases. Playback uses those prepared structures and gameplay inputs; an impact should not wait for a generation request.

Reuse a module or build a new one?

Reuse an instrument or effect when its sound already fits. Combine instruments, sequencers and effects in a rack when the experience needs several sounds. Create a new module when there is a distinct reusable sound behavior to author, such as a rolling texture with contact-speed and surface controls. Keep physics, scene picking and visual flashes in the game; the audio tool should still work when the graphics are hidden.

For a useful comparison, repeat the same action, hold the source level steady and change one sound control at a time. Listen to the source alone before adding accompaniment or room effects. Then test overlapping actions, pause and resume, and repeated scene changes in the intended game engine.

The game developer overview connects these experiments to the tools and collaboration workflow.