Adding custom music to Oblivion Remastered

[Shahargalm]

3 hours ago, Greatlance420 said:

FOUND A SOLUTION!!!

This is NOT easy though, and does take some time. I have only tested this for the menu music and so far, it works. I am doing this on windows and it was a hassle to get this going, I have been trying to get this to work for 10 hours straight and drank 8 bottles of IBC root beer.

First you will need some applications

Fmodel(You need this to view and extract the pak)-FModel

UnrealPak(This will repackage the newly made .pak file)-unrealpak/README.md at main · RiotOreO/unrealpak · GitHub

Wwise(You will need to make an account and download the program, you cannot make a .wem file without this)-Overview | Audiokinetic

Sound2wem(Turns your mp3 file into a .wem file)-GitHub - EternalLeo/sound2wem: Converts audio file to Wwise Audio (.wem)

ffmpeg(Needed for sound2wem to work)-FFmpeg

Once you have all these downloaded and unzipped/installed, its time to get the process going.

First, make sure you have your custom song on standby as an mp3. Next, drag that mp3 onto the zSound2wem command script directly. This will have a command be started and it will convert the mp3 to a .wem file. Keep this .wem file somewhere you can remember on your computer(desktop, documents, etc.)

Second, open Fmodel and you will need it to detect a new game manually(In this case, Oblivion remastered). Click on "ADD UNDETECTED GAME" and in the directory, go to the file where OblivionRemastered-Windows.pak is located (should be C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Oblivion Remastered\OblivionRemastered\Content). Then press the little blue add button, opening up the file and showing whats in it. This will show the OblivionRemastered-Windows.pak we want. Double click on it and it should show 2 folders: Engine (Which has the Unreal logo) and OblivionRemastered. You need to export BOTH of these. Right click on the OblivionRemastered folder and choose "Export Folder's Packages Raw Data". This is going to take a few minutes so dont panic if at first it doesn't seem to be working, just let it do its job. You will see a yellow bar at the bottom of the program that says "loading" or something like that (I cant remember it was 9 hours ago) and it will go back to blue once it has exported the entire folder. Then do the same thing for Engine.

Third, once they are both exported, go into the Fmodel folder and then the Output folder. In here you will find the "Exports" folder, and this is very important. In here you will have 2 folders: Engine and OblivionRemastered, just like in the steam directory. Now open the folder path OblivionRemastered/Content/WwiseAudio/Media. You will see a bunch of .wem files on your screen and a folder that says a language (In my case, English). Sort them by name and look for 496000234.wem, this is the main menu music the game calls from! Now keep it right there and go back to that converted mp3 to wem file(the custom one) and rename it EXACTLY to 496000234.wem. Now take it and drag it into the Media folder with all those .wem files. If you did this right, it will ask if you want to overwrite the original 496000234.wem file with the new custom one. Overwrite/Replace it and there you go! Custom menu music (but we are not done yet).

Fourth, this part is really tricky so follow closely and carefully. Once you successfully replaced the .wem file, you now need to repackage the .pak file. Open up the folder that has the unrealpak-main and look for the batch file called "UnrealPak-Without-Compression"(I have not used the one with compression so I wouldn't recommend using that one). Then go back to the "Exports" folder (the one containing Engine and OblivionRemastered) and drag it ontop/directly onto that batch file. A command window should pop up saying it has the information and is converting it to a pak file. This will take about 30 seconds to a minute to complete. Once its done, the Exports.pak file will be in the "Output" folder with the new Exports.pak right above the "Exports" folder. Now take this .pak file and rename it EXACTLY to OblivionRemastered-Windows and take it to where the original .pak is located (steam directory). Replace the old pak file with the new one you just made.

Now run the game and test the new file. If all was done correctly, you'll have new music once the menu pops up!

This is very tricky but so far is the only way to do this until somebody makes a program to make this easier (or we get mod tools). You technically could overwrite any of those .wem files to whatever audio you want, but you'd have to go through every single one in Fmodel to figure out which ones are music, ambience, sounds, speaking, etc. I only figured out what the specific menu music .wem file was by reading this post by zzenuss, so shout out to that guy!-Oblivion Remastered High Quality Music at Oblivion Remastered Nexus - Mods and community (nexusmods.com)

With all that said, after spending hours with no sleep using different programs and methods to get custom music, I have finally cracked the code and now we have custom music. Hope this guide helps and gets spread around so somebody can come up with an easier solution. If people are still confused and I get enough replies, I'll make a video tutorial on the process. Anyways, i have to go now because im already 42 minutes late to work.

Great job, that's amazing.

But damn... I wanted to add music, not replace. Thanks anyway. I'll try figuring it out.

[Noobatron22]

Afraid someone discovered a much less bloated method here: 

However, the tools you linked are still a requirement for replacing sounds/music.

 

Already managed to get custom music playing in-game via OblivionRemastered/Content/WwiseAudio/Music/music_global_play.uasset in FModel, but the tracks are changing way too suddenly mid-way. Would have to dig through the code on my free time to see if additions are indeed possible.

 

EDIT: Think I figured it out, the play length seems to be tied to the music_global_play.uasset file using the original music file's audio length, hence why it is cutting off early. If there's any chance we can edit and package it in a mod, we should be able to finally start publishing music mods.

 

Edited April 27 by Noobatron22

[Noobatron22]

While I take a break from smashing my head against the wall trying to convert the music_global_play.uasset file I extracted into a .ucas file (or .utoc, haven't figured that one out yet), I do have an important discovery to share with my work. Taking a closer look at the music_global_play.uasset file, it appears to be a bridge between the original Oblivion Engine and Unreal Engine communicating what music files to play, the original music folders are all here listed so yes, it does look like it will be possible to add or replace music tracks. The issue going forward once all this is sorted out would seem to be music compatability in the event someone were to use several music mods, but that will be a problem for later.

 

(OBSOLETE) As for the cut off issue regarding custom music, the fix theoretically is to bundle the same music_global_play.uasset file along with the music mod so it reads the audio length from the custom music tracks instead of the original source, however I cannot really confirm this until I actually figure out how to convert the file into the appropriate file format. If anyone happens to figure this one out, please share your findings; this really does appear to be the last step needed here.

 

EDIT: Definitely found something promising that I can't believe I overlooked, the OblivionRemastered/Content/WwiseAudio/Event/music_global_play.bnk under the .pak file, it appears a .pak file alone will be enough, but I can't say with absolute certainty without testing; will continue to go through the code and see if this is the magic file.

Edited April 30 by Noobatron22

[DunedainRanger76]

Wishing you luck! I've been following this music development for the past few days while trying my own stuff. Managed so far to get the main menu replaced but the music cutoff fix is still aluding me. Been trying to find ways to edit the .uasset or .bnk files but haven't really been able to find anything. Most of this goes over my head sadly too so hoping someone can find something

[Blueterran]

Good luck! I've been wanting to add additional music tracks ever since release!

[lightsourced]

How is this working out for you? I'm trying to replace some player voice combat files that rely on a .bnk otherwise they are silent. Would love some help getting it to work, thanks!

[Noobatron22]

20 minutes ago, lightsourced said:

How is this working out for you? I'm trying to replace some player voice combat files that rely on a .bnk otherwise they are silent. Would love some help getting it to work, thanks!

It's becoming more clear that the suspect file is indeed the music_global_play.bnk file dictating audio length and I'm currently trying to figure out how to import the soundbank into Wwise to take a closer look. This could also very well be the file where you set up the additional tracks, but I cannot confirm that at this time.

 

EDIT: I should clarify that this is for music, but it should also apply to any related .bnk file that dictates any custom audio you are trying to add.

Edited May 1 by Noobatron22

[lightsourced]

2 hours ago, Noobatron22 said:

EDIT: I should clarify that this is for music, but it should also apply to any related .bnk file that dictates any custom audio you are trying to add.

Yea, I'm assuming this is the issue I'm currently running into for the non-music mod as a sound without a .bnk replaced just fine, while the ones I want to use just ended up being silent.

Can't wait to see what you discover!!

[EluneGoddess]

After poking around in these files... would any of you happen to know if there is a way to prevent battle music? I don't mean mute it, as that can already be easily done. Old Oblivion had a few mods that would simply just stop combat music from even triggering all together, current track would just keep playing. Was really good because it adds a lot of jump scare moments to the game.

[Noobatron22]

17 minutes ago, EluneGoddess said:

After poking around in these files... would any of you happen to know if there is a way to prevent battle music? I don't mean mute it, as that can already be easily done. Old Oblivion had a few mods that would simply just stop combat music from even triggering all together, current track would just keep playing. Was really good because it adds a lot of jump scare moments to the game.

That would involve an event trigger being disabled for battle music altogether with the Unreal Engine and as for which file would dictate it, it could be the very same file I'm currently taking a look at: the music_global_play.bnk file.

 

As soon as free time allows me, I'm going to see if I can reconstruct the same settings the original uses; theoretically it should solve the audio length cutoff issue as well as give more insight into what sets off what, including whether or not battle music is preventable.