Attach sound to an NIF?

[DarkSpyda04]

Speaking of a pitch black house, what would I use, a shader effect that blackens the player's vision? I really don't know anything about shader effects. In fact, I know very little about a lot. It makes me want to pull my hair out that I can't just make some uber cool mod but I have to study half a million things first.

 

EDIT on 06/18/14 @ 1:51AM

 

No luck so far. I created a new cell with no lighting and a small course that you have to navigate where a buzzing sound plays if you're about to fall off the map and thus far it's been extremely stressful play-testing. I'll walk forward, hear buzzing, turn a little bit and walk, hear more buzzing - rinse and repeat. It practically comes down to luck and that makes it as annoying as possible. Then again, it's bad because sound is a sign of danger and apparently danger is everywhere you turn. I have yet to test out sound as a sign of reward.

Edited June 18, 2014 by DarkSpyda04

[The_Vyper]

Nothing fancy is needed for a pitch black cell. When a new cell is initially created, the lighting for it is set up for pitch blackness by default. As long as you don't change the light settings or add lighting to it, the cell will remain in complete darkness. That won't prevent players from casting 'Light' spells or equipping torches, though. I'm not sure how to go about doing that.

 

It is possible to modify meshes so they reflect little or no light, although I'm not sure what settings need to be changed to accomplish that. If you'd like to check out some examples, the Burnt Ayleid Tileset is set up like that.

[DarkSpyda04]

Not sure I like the idea of having to make black textures but maybe it's something to consider in the future. If you wanted to try it out for yourself, I saved the SoundTest01 obstacle course as an ESP and uploaded it to Mediafire.

 

http://www.mediafire.com/download/4f6d2cl94323siu/SoundTest01.zip

 

You will find the door in the side of the IC palace if you're heading out of the Elven Gardens district.

Edited June 18, 2014 by DarkSpyda04

[The_Vyper]

I don't think it's necessary to make black textures. You can modify the NiMaterialPropery of a mesh so that it doesn't emit or reflect color, thus making it appear solid black. Some meshes appear to support this better than others.

 

As for the obstacle course, I'm going to check that out right now.

[DarkSpyda04]

I'm having some troubles with teh scripts. I'm trying to set a script up so that a sound will play from a chest until it's opened.

 

I created a global variable "aaChestOpened01" and tried to use it to play the sound if aaChestOpened == 0 and then change the value when the chest is activated but this doesn't stop the sound from playing. To make matters worse, the object script prevents the chest from being opened and instead toggles it. I want the player to open the chest and then the sound to stop and no longer play. I'm not sure what to do.

 

In addition to stopping the sound, I'd also like to know if there's a function that checks if the object was activated and if there's a function that checks if the object is locked.

scn aaSoundChestQUESTSCRIPT

begin gameMode

     if (aaChestOpened01 == 0)
          aaChest01REF.playSound3D aaPlayThisSound
     endif

end

scn aaSoundChestOBJECTSCRIPT

begin onActivate

     if (aaChestOpened01 == 0)
          set aaChestOpened01 to 1
     endif

end

I think maybe it has something to do with the sound looping. When the sound is first set to play, it loops.

 

EDIT on 06/19/14 @ 7:22PM

 

Oh yes! I went into sound properties and unchecked "loop" and when I activated the chest, the sound waited until it finished and never player again. There's an odd moment of silence in between each play of the sound although that could probably be fixed by putting the sound to play on a timer. As for the sound waiting until it's finished to stop, sounds always stop when you enter menuMode and I want the sound to stop when the player opens the chest, not toggles it. This is something I still need to ponder. How to stop the sound from playing when the player actually opens the chest and enters menuMode.

 

On top of this I still want to know if there's a function that checks if the object was activated and a function that checks if the object is locked.

 

EDIT on 06/19/14 @ 7:49PM

 

Nope, the timer is useless and creates just as long a pause between replays of the sound as no timer at all and the timer is set to the same length that the sound plays for.

 

EDIT on 06/19/14 @ 8:35PM

 

I'm learning a bit more about playing blind. You can get an idea of your location between collidables by punching. If you punch, a sound plays when your fist collides with something. Therefore you can find out if you're looking at the floor, ceiling, or a wall.

 

Designing a room in a way that the player can find their way around and familiarize themselves with it without seeing it. For instance, what if there were torches along the wall but instead of emitting light, they emitted sound? That's something I need to keep working on. Current tests still show a heavy loss of direction.

 

EDIT on 06/20/14 @ 2:53PM

 

GREAT NEWS EVERYONE!!!!

 

I studied the nirnroot for a while trying to figure out why the sound stops when you harvest the plant. What I found out was a couple of things. First, the nirnroot does not emit sound. Rather, there is a sound positioned next to every nirnroot, and the sound is parented to the referenced nirnroot. Second is the script attached to the nirnroot plant that does the following:

begin onActivate
      activate
      disable
end

Remember how I said when I attach an onActivate script to a chest it's merely toggled and not opened? Calling "activate" in an onActivate will open the chest anyway. "Disable" on the other hand disappears the object and takes its childed sound effect with it. Therefore by placing this same script on my test chest, I can open it, loot its contents, and when I exit the inventory, the chest disappears and takes the childed sound with it. Or if I wanted to I could simply have the chest disappear when you try to open it and instead the game gives you 500 gold.

Edited June 20, 2014 by DarkSpyda04

[DarkSpyda04]

Alright, here is SoundTest02. This test does not seek to harm the player, but instead is about navigation. The player must traverse a labyrinth using only their ears, grab three treasure chests to unlock the mysterious exit door, and return to the light of day outside. Better yet once you complete the maze, the whole labyrinth resets and you can do it all over again!

 

The main reason I need someone else to try this out is because I need someone to be guided through the maze without knowing the layout. If said person can make it through, I know I'm onto something. I couldn't do it myself because I look at the compass and try to guide myself through the maze based on memory. This isn't true for someone unexposed to it. This is the very same reason why I turned off the dungeon's lights - if I had the whole thing lit up, you could easily open your eyes, be exposed to the layout, and run into the same problem I'm having. Not knowing what the dungeon looks like is key here. Here are some things to keep in mind:

 

-SoundTest2 is located through a door in the Imperial palace district. You will see it if you're entering from the Elven Gardens District

 

-Disable SoundTest01 and run BOSS before playing this mod. Both mods use the same entrance door.

 

-So you're not engrossed by the compass, have the mod "Immersive Oblivion" active.

 

-If possible, play with your eyes closed and sit close to the speakers with the speakers turned up.

 

-Know that a sound plays louder from the speaker that your character's ear is facing. If sound is entering the character's left ear, you will hear more sound through the left speaker. If both speakers play the sound just as loudly, there's a chance that you are facing the source of the sound directly.

 

-Sounds of fire (torches) mark the walls and corners. If you hear fire, you're close to the wall or a corner.

 

-Each area has its own unique sound. You may be able to recognize your location and even map out what you think it looks like based on this. I'd be thrilled if you drew up a map of what you think the labyrinth looks like based only on the sounds you hear and posted it here. The resulting data will show me how well the sounds guide the player.

 

-NEVER load an autosave in the SoundTest02 cell. To do so will cause the game to freeze when you finish and teleport back to the palace district. You can however load an autosave right outside the cell or load a pause menu save inside the cell.

 

Finally, since you're going to be increasing the volume on your computer, I included a silencer for a few sounds - namely the title music, the skill up sound that boosts your athletics skill, and a few menu sounds. If you don't want to install these, remove them from the folder. I also included the original files as backup just in case you replace them without knowing it.

 

Feel free to check out the ESP in the construction set after you did everything you needed to do with the dungeon. This will show you what it actually looks like and I included comments on the scripts so you can see what does what and how the gears grind.

 

http://www.mediafire.com/download/4fukqcruwvmjlh3/SoundTest02.zip