How Can I Speed Up or Slow Down NPC Dialog?

[David Brasher]

TES CS 1.2.0.404 is broken and prevents people from inserting quality dialog in their mods. If I understand correctly, the problem has been around since Shivering Isles was released. Some people can use TES CS 1.0.0.30 to actually do the voice acting and LIP file creation to make quality dialog, and then merge it with a mod done on the new CS, but you don't see many mods done in that fashion.

 

I have tried to follow the instructions to do that, but am having severe software problems. I have lowered my sights and simply want to have the NPCs in my mods talk, and have the gamer be able to read it and enjoy it. Half of the mods people make have lightning speech. It is gone in a flash and you have no idea what the NPC said and hope it was not important. The other half of the mods have lethargic speech where the NPCs say, "Hello." and it stays on the screen for 30 seconds. You can go get a drink, read in your book, or take a quick nap. Both speech options are terrible for the enjoyment of the game.

 

My software generates lightning speech. I can make it almost workable by only having the NPCs speak three or four words at a time, but to say anything meaningful, they may have to speak ten times in rapid succession. If the gamer blinks, he or she might miss something.

 

Does anyone know how I can speed up or slow down NPC dialog?

[Imperialmodder]

I dont know how to speed it up, u`d have to record and re-sync all the voices lol have fun, + it dose sound like all the NPC talk to us like we are a little slow.......

[xxXEvandarXxx]

You will have to use silent .MP3 files.

You can download one here (it's only one 9 seconds long file though). Then in the Construction Set, open the Quest window, and in the Topic tab, open the Edit Response for the response you want to add a silent .MP3 file to.

 

There it should be a Audio section, and a box with information about the race, sex, and so on. Look to the right in that box, in the Path part of the box.

 

Take a look at the path, it can be something like 'Data\Sound\Voice\Oblivion.esm\Argonian\M\Horses_BuyHorseLeyawiin005432_1.mp3'. Create a folder structure like that, but replace 'Oblivion.esm' with the name of your .esp (or .esm, if you have one) file, like 'MyMod.esp'. Change 'Argonian' to the name of the race of the NPC that is talking, and change 'M' to the sex of the NPC, M for male, and F for female.

Then copy the .MP3 and .LIP file to that folder, and change the name of the files to the name written in the Voice Filename box in the Edit Response window. Then it should work.

 

But if you really want real dialogue, and have the voice files recorded, I could create the .LIP files for you. I love mods with voice acting.

[LoginToDownload]

The generally used solution for the dialogue in voiceless mods are to place a bunch of blank, 8-second long MP3s that correspond with the dialogues. TESGecko can do it easily. An alternative if you're already using OBSE would be to make it dependent on Elys' Universal Silent Voice, which automatically does this for all files that don't have sounds. I don't see why it's a problem, though. Can't you just click through when done reading?

 

The lightning-fast dialogue is what happens when you don't do anything with the sounds.