How to add custom voices/sounds to custom creatures?

[ThePaganWitcher]

Good evening, everyone. Please forgive me if my English isn't perfect. I've started creating personal mods for my mod list, and I'm currently focusing on making custom sounds for custom creatures. One thing that disappoints me is that creatures from mods use vanilla sounds due to their VoiceType/Animation setup. I'm 100% focused on addressing this, at least enough to significantly reduce the immersion gap.

I've done a lot of research and have explored various files, and I've come to a few conclusions. If anyone can help me, I'd really appreciate it. Here's what I've discovered so far:

 

1. Animation Files and Custom Voices

When I tried to assign different roar sounds to werewolves and werebears, I initially searched for any relevant annotations in the animation files that would trigger the sounds, but I couldn’t find anything. I know this is controlled by the VoiceType entries, which are managed through a Quest that has conditional dialogs to trigger the Sound Descriptors. However, even after creating a CrWerebearVoice with all the conditionals set, no sound is triggered. My suspicion is that the link between the animation and the voice is hardcoded somewhere that even Bethesda might not be aware of.

 

2. Custom VoiceTypes: Working in LE but Not SE?

I'm wondering if this might be a difference between LE and SE. I encountered the Skyrim Witcher Experience mod, which includes creatures with custom sounds using VoiceTypes, but even following its setup, my custom voices aren’t working.

 

3. The Elegant Workaround:

A more practical solution is to modify the original sounds and trigger the new ones using Quests and MagicEffect scripts. I've managed to give werewolves and werebears different sounds when they transform this way, and honestly, it’s almost unnoticeable that it’s scripted. But this method is very labor-intensive, and I'd prefer to avoid it if possible. If custom VoiceTypes are the issue, though, I’ll stick with this approach.

Now, I’m trying to make the frogs from MihailMods stop sounding like hares when they die. I've figured out that it’s simple to trigger new sounds using the OnDeath event, but I’m still working on how to make the OnHit target correspond to the NPC itself.

 

That's all for now, folks. If anyone can offer advice or point me in the right direction, I’d greatly appreciate it!

Edited Monday at 10:16 PM by ThePaganWitcher