Manual: overview

The Manual is the system’s deep reference — architecture, design rationale, and chapter-by-chapter coverage of every subsystem. Read it once front-to-back to build a mental model, or jump straight to the chapter you need.

Manual Chapters

1. Introduction — what this manual covers, prerequisites, how to read it
2. System Architecture — design philosophy, the audio pipeline, component hierarchy
3. Core Components — AudioManager, voice pool, GainStack, scheduling, parameters and scopes, emitters (offsets, moving sounds, teleports)
4. Audio Containers — Routing / Random / Sequence / Switch / Blend, and engines generated live (Unity 6.3+)
5. Events System — AudioEvent, EventAction, posting (timed posts, length estimates) and lifecycle
6. Bus & Mixing — bus hierarchy, ducking (the deepest wins), effect sends, pausing a bus, the player’s volume
7. State System — states, state groups, transitions, offset states for mixes
8. Multi-Position Audio — synchronized playback across multiple positions
9. Performance & Optimization — voice budgets, virtualization, LOD
10. Advanced Features — occlusion, ducking, crossfading, beat scheduling, and the sound tools: Audition, Live View and recording, Loop Analysis, Engine Builder, the validator, Engine Grains
11. Best Practices — recommended patterns for production projects
12. Troubleshooting — common failure modes and diagnosis
13. Ambient Propagation Subsystem — zone/portal graph routing for long-running beds
14. Occlusion Mixer Slot Pool — per-bus slot pools, multi-ray occlusion, propagation composition
15. Reverb Send Buses & Per-Zone Reverb — source-side routing and listener-side bus-character driver
16. Audio Loading & Memory — import policy, clip warming, and the optional Addressables backend
17. Multiplayer (Netcode) — backend-agnostic networked audio (NGO / FishNet); dedicated servers (Inert)

Appendices: Glossary, Quick Reference.