Scene components reference

Understand the role of each core Convai scene component — manager, room manager, character, and player — and how they depend on each other.

Every Convai-powered scene is built from four core components. Understanding what each one does and how they relate to each other makes building and debugging your setup straightforward.

Component overview

The diagram below shows how the components depend on each other at runtime.

ConvaiManager is the root. It bootstraps the SDK, manages the room connection through ConvaiRoomManager, and owns references to all ConvaiCharacter and ConvaiPlayer instances in the scene.

ConvaiManager

ConvaiManager is the SDK's entry point. It must be present in every scene that uses Convai. It initializes all internal services and injects dependencies into the other components automatically.

Add it: Use GameObject > Convai > Setup Required Components to add ConvaiManager and its companion components in one step. Do not add it manually via Add Component — the wizard ensures the correct setup.

Key behavior:

• Singleton. Only one ConvaiManager may exist per scene.
• Runs at execution order -1100 — it initializes before all other components.
• Auto-discovers ConvaiCharacter and ConvaiPlayer instances in the scene on startup.
• Injects dependencies into discovered components automatically when _autoInject is enabled (default: on).

Useful properties at runtime:

Property	Type	Description
IsBootstrapped	bool	SDK internal services are initialized
IsInitialized	bool	Bootstrap complete and event hub ready
IsConnected	bool	Room connection is active
Characters	IReadOnlyList<ConvaiCharacter>	All characters owned by this manager
Player	ConvaiPlayer	The player component in this scene
ActiveConversationCharacter	ConvaiCharacter	Currently active conversation target

ConvaiRoomManager

ConvaiRoomManager manages the connection lifecycle between your scene and Convai. It handles connecting, disconnecting, and reconnecting the audio session. It lives on the same GameObject as ConvaiManager.

Key behavior:

• Auto-connects on Start() when ConnectOnStart is true (default: true).
• Reconnects automatically on transient failures, up to _maxReconnectAttempts (default: 3).
• Manages the microphone — starts capturing audio _autoMicStartDelaySeconds (default: 0.5s) after the connection is established.

Inspector fields:

Field	Default	Description
ConnectOnStart	true	Connect to Convai automatically when the scene starts
_connectionType	Audio	Audio for voice-only; Video to also send camera frames
_pushToTalkKey	KeyCode.T	Keyboard key used for push-to-talk input mode
_maxReconnectAttempts	3	Attempts before giving up on reconnection
_autoMicStartDelaySeconds	0.5	Seconds to wait after connection before opening the microphone
_roomRejoinTtlSeconds	60	Seconds after disconnect during which the session can be resumed

Turn-taking settings are also configured here. See Configure conversation input mode.

ConvaiCharacter

ConvaiCharacter represents one AI character in your scene. Each NPC or virtual instructor that talks to players needs its own ConvaiCharacter component. Multiple characters are fully supported: a scene with two or more registered characters connects as one shared multi-character session, and a scene with exactly one connects as a single-character session. See Multi-character sessions for how the room is built and how player input is routed to one character at a time.

The Character ID field is required. Get this value from your character's profile on the Convai dashboard.

Inspector fields:

Field	Default	Description
_characterId	(empty)	Required. Unique ID from your Convai dashboard
_characterName	(empty)	Display name shown in transcripts and logs
_nameTagColor	White	Color used to identify this character in the transcript UI
_autoConnect	false	Start a conversation immediately after the scene loads
_enableRemoteAudio	true	Play back the character's voice audio
_enableSessionResume	false	Resume the previous session on reconnect
_characterReadyTimeoutSeconds	30	Seconds to wait for the character-ready signal (0 = no timeout)

Useful properties at runtime:

Property	Type	Description
IsCharacterReady	bool	Character has received the ready signal from Convai
IsSessionConnected	bool	Connected to the room (ready signal may not have arrived yet)
IsInConversation	bool	Connected and ready — true conversation state
IsSpeaking	bool	Character is currently outputting audio
SessionState	SessionState	Full connection state enum

Component dependencies: ConvaiAudioOutput (handles audio playback for this character) must be on the same GameObject. ConvaiAudioOutput requires an AudioSource on the same GameObject.

ConvaiPlayer

ConvaiPlayer identifies the user in the conversation. It provides the player's display name and color to the transcript UI and lets Convai attribute player speech to the correct participant.

One ConvaiPlayer per scene. Multiple player components in the same scene are not supported.

Inspector fields:

Field	Default	Description
_playerName	"Player"	Display name shown in the transcript UI
_playerId	(empty)	Local ID for transcript attribution (empty = use _playerName)
_nameTagColor	Green	Color used to identify the player in the transcript UI

PlayerId is a local display identifier for the transcript UI only. It is not the server-generated speaker ID used for Long-Term Memory. The server-assigned speaker ID is resolved after connection and is not set manually.

Useful methods:

// Override display name at runtime (for example, after a player logs in)
GetComponent<ConvaiPlayer>().SetRuntimeDisplayName("Dr. Reyes");

// Set both name and ID together
GetComponent<ConvaiPlayer>().Configure("Dr. Reyes", "user-123");

Optional components

ConvaiAudioOutput

Handles audio playback for a single character. Add it to the same GameObject as ConvaiCharacter. Requires an AudioSource on the same GameObject.

Field	Default	Description
Volume	1.0	Playback volume (0–1)
IsMuted	false	Mute this character's audio output
_use3DAudio	true	Enable spatial (3D) audio
_minDistance	1	Spatial audio minimum distance
_maxDistance	50	Spatial audio maximum distance

ConvaiSceneConfig

An optional ScriptableObject (Assets > Create > Convai > Scene Config) that lets you define character IDs, prefabs, and auto-connect behavior in a reusable asset rather than inline in the Inspector. Useful for managing multiple characters across scenes. See Advanced Topics for full details.

Embodiment infrastructure Convai adds automatically

Five additional components can appear on a character's GameObject without you adding them. Convai adds each one the first time an embodiment module — Gaze, Body Animation, Body Language, or Emotion — needs it on that character, typically the first time you enter Play Mode after adding one of those modules. Seeing them appear is expected; nothing is broken.

Component	Added when	What it does
EmbodimentContext	Any embodiment module resolves its character	Character-scoped composition root that embodiment modules use to find the character's rig and each other's shared data
StandardRigBinding	A module needs the character's bones or face meshes	Detects the rig convention (ARKit, ReallusionCC3, ReallusionCC4Extended, MetaHuman, or Custom) and resolves bones and blendshapes for modules to read
AnimatorConductor	A module needs to drive Animator parameters	Single writer for Animator parameters, so two modules can never overwrite the same parameter
EmbodimentTickScheduler	Any embodiment module registers a per-frame update	Runs embodiment modules in a fixed cognition → expression → finalize order every frame
FacialBlendshapeCompositorHost	A module needs to write facial blendshapes	Single writer for facial blendshape output, combining LipSync, Emotion, and other sources into one result each frame

None of these components appear in the Add Component menu. StandardRigBinding is the only one you can add yourself — from Add Component > Convai > Embodiment > Character Rig — if you want to configure rig detection before Play Mode. The other four are internal to the SDK and are never added by hand.

Next steps

Now that you understand the components, build your own scene from scratch.

Build a custom scene