Some of the internal data managed by CRI Atom Craft is interdependent.
Although you do not need to understand all the dependencies, when an error occurs, it easier to solve the problem by tracking all the related items.
GlobalSettings
Global Settings determine the basic (and common) settings of the project, such as categories, bus maps etc. These settings are mainly written out as part of the ACF file.
WorkUnits
Since each work unit is saved as its own file, it is a convenient level at which to divide the project for version control.
A work unit can contain several CueSheets.
Each CueSheet will be exported as an ACB file.
Reference from CueSheet
Items with arrows do not have information in the ACB file but globally in the ACF.
Everything referring to the ACF depends on that information, so editing it has a big impact on the whole project.
It is useful to set the behaviour of many items at once.
Reference to waveform
Waveform files used in a CueSheet are exported in the correspodning ACB. If two CueSheets are using the same waveforms, they will be exported several times, i.e. in each ACB.
If you want to design several sound effects based on the same waveforms - but with different parameters - , you should try to put them in the same CueSheet so that they can share the waveform data. This will prevent the project size from increasing.
External Cue link
By using an an external Cue link, you can create a Cue that references Cues in other ACBs.
The reference Cue varies depending on the situation at the time of the game execution.
For more details, refer to External Cue link .
About References
Increasing the referencing between sound objects is not very desirable because the configuration of the project becomes complicated and harder to manage. Generally, please try to avoid adding extra references between objects as much as possible.
However, you can also reduce the data by using overall references.
For example, when using the same effects globally, you can refer to the common item in the ACF.
Other items
Atom Craft also manages bus maps, target settings, speaker settings and so on. These are also defined at the global level.