I have a lot of coastline and a lot of forest, so although I have placed audio components strategically everywhere to keep continuity where required, it’s a now a lot of components in the level…
Is it a better idea to attach a general audio system to the character and feed in different ambient sounds another way, like based on surface type or something? I guess it’s the same principal as attaching rain to the camera, so you don’t fill the whole landscape with rain - does the same apply to audio ?
Depends what sounds you are talking about. If it’s footstep or something then attaching to the character and applying dependent on physical material is the way to go. For actual ambient sounds you could spawn them on the character based on some circumstances but placing them around in the level is sufficient for most. If you are going for binaural audio then this kind of placement is actually quite important because you want to hear the sounds from a correct distance and location and have other objects interfere with them. But if you just want to hear some wind then sure attaching to the character works fine.