ABSTRACT
Groups give sound designers and programmers convenient ways to control, prioritise, switch and route sets of voices, tailored to the needs of the situation being modelled. Groups simplify game coding and tuning in situations like replays and front-end menus or changes in emphasis, but nested hierarchies of groups are problematic, so ways to get that effect without nesting are explained.
This chapter shows how Groups are interposed between Virtual Voices, Listeners and Endpoints, listing 15 useful Group properties, explaining the use of Group Mode Volume configuration files, group reporting and visualisation and the binding of effects and endpoints to sets of Virtual Voices. It shows how to stop certain groups monopolising resources without compromising them when resources are plentiful. It also cites specific categories of sound which benefit from grouping.
