How do you tap into existing voiced dialogue when setting up NPC Dialo

[RealmEleven]

Firstly, I'm looking for any tutorials or advice on how to set up standard NPC dialogue responses using the corresponding lipsink and voiceovers that ship with the game. I'd set some of my mod's NPCs to mute, but they don't even sign ('cause there's no available S.L.A.N.G. via actor animations). So that leaves me with the stock responses like "Yes...sir!", "Sure", "Bye", etc. The problem is that the way I've seen of setting up dialogue (see: http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1011099-tutz-companionfollower-tutorial) doesn't seem to offer a ready means of connecting stock responses to lipsink and voice files.

 

Does anyone know a way around this, ahh, "telepathic" mode of communication - preferably one that doesn't involve re-voicing and re-lipsinking those stock standard responses?

 

Secondly, is there a way to alter the text attached to the companion wheel? The existing text-tips are ambiguous and potentially confusing because they lack any indication of context (i.e. the difference between "is passive" and "make passive" or, better still, between "passive" and "pacify"). So, I was wondering if there is any way for me to fix this little HPE bug in Bethesda's game?

 

Thanks in advance

[davidlallen]

AFAIK there is no way to adjust the text in the wheel, but I am not an expert in modifying the gui. There are xml files which apparently capture a lot of the behavior, and gui mods such as DARN can adjust this. If your mod customizes the wheel, players "might" be confused as to whether this actually alters the behavior of the companions; I assume it would not.

 

If you want to reuse existing bits of dialog from the game in your own topics, and you cannot simply reuse the topics, then I only know of one approach. You would need to copy/rename the ogg and lipsync file. When you create a topic it is assigned a filename for the voice and lipsync file, you cannot change it. If possible, reusing the existing topic is a cleaner approach.

[RealmEleven]

...reuse the topics...

 

Thank you for your prompt reply. I understand your concerns about modifying the companion wheel and for this reason I think that it would probably be safer for me to do so as a standalone add-on that people can try out and throw out (if it doesn't work for them) - or not. But that may well be assuming a lot about feasablity.

 

What did catch my greedy eyes are those three little words I'm probably quoting out of context (from your post). I have been toying with the idea of reusing topics (without much success), but those three little words almost scream feasibility. I know I'm probably missing something obvious here, but if you have the time, could you offer me some pointers on the best approach to reusing topics. Is there a way to duplicate topics so that the player lines can be altered without altering the responses (and their voiceover applicability)?

 

Thanks in Advance...

[davidlallen]

AFAIK a topic consists of the player statement and the NPC response. So, you can't change the player statement. What exactly are you trying to do? It seems that copy/renaming the ogg and lipsync file may be the best approach.

[RealmEleven]

Thanks again for your prompt response and taking the time to answer.

 

With respect to how I've been trying to go about this, I can offer this example.

 

In the

Topics

tab of the

vDialogueCass

quest, Cass has a dialogue topic, "I've heard enough. Let's move on." - which has the response, "All right, then." If I context-click on the response, the context menu offers options such as

 

1. Copy
   , which duplicates the response under the same dialogue topic,
   
   
2. Move to Topic
   which seems to do nothing
   
   
3. Move to Quest...
   which, according to the elipsis, is supposed to bring up another window - presumably to browse for the destination quest and topic. Once again, nothing happens.
   
   

Generally, I'm finding that things in this area don't seem to work as documented on the labels. Responses will drag and drop between topics under the same quest, but cannot be dragged to a topic in another quest window (at least in my case).

Maybe I'm going about this the wrong way, but is there a setting or any other means to get those context menu options working as labelled?

 

On the other hand, assuming I've fallen out of my tree and have it all wrong (which is quite probably the case), how do you reuse a topic?

 

Thanks in advance...

[rickerhk]

On the other hand, assuming I've fallen out of my tree and have it all wrong (which is quite probably the case), how do you reuse a topic?

 

We're really talking about two things here - topics and infos. They are two different types of objects. Topic are listed on the left and infos are the actual dialog prompt/responses

To reuse a topic - just add it to your quest. As many quests as you like can share a Topic. But I don't think this is what you meant in your OP.

Once you add a Topic to your quest, it will have no infos - you then add infos with the conditions for your actor. However, these are new objects and won't have sound/lipsync.

If you 'copy' an info - say the Cass one, then 'move it to your quest', it's still a new object and won't have sound/lip

 

The sound/lip files are tied to a specific info in a specific quest. You have to extract them from the BSA and rename them and place them in a specific directory for your new infos in order to use them.

 

The only way to reuse an exact same info is to modify the conditions on the quest and the infos so that they appear for your actor as well as the original actor. I can think of a multitude of problems this would cause when result scripts run when they shouldn't, etc.

[RealmEleven]

Quotation reversal follows...

 

The only way to reuse an exact same info is to modify the conditions on the quest and the infos so that they appear for your actor as well as the original actor. I can think of a multitude of problems this would cause when result scripts run when they shouldn't, etc.

This is something that makes me reluctant to do things quite this way.

 

 

...You have to extract them from the BSA and rename them and place them in a specific directory for your new infos in order to use them.

If you have the time and inclination, could you direct me to a tutorial or give me some pointers as to how to get the dialogue hooked into these ogg & lip files once they are extracted from the bsa? I've tried renaming the ogg file without much success, so I'm obviously doing something wrong.

 

Thanks in advance...

[davidlallen]

Have you created your own infos and topics successfully? The screen where you type in the spoken line (titled "Edit Response") contains the information you need. In this screen, near the bottom, there is a spreadsheet widget which contains a "path" column. The filename in this path column is the exact filename you need to give when you copy the ogg and ltf files. You cannot change this filename, you must use exactly this filename. Once you have done that, it looks the same as if you had newly recorded this dialog.

[RealmEleven]

Have you created your own infos and topics successfully? The screen where you type in the spoken line (titled "Edit Response") contains the information you need. In this screen, near the bottom, there is a spreadsheet widget which contains a "path" column. The filename in this path column is the exact filename you need to give when you copy the ogg and ltf files. You cannot change this filename, you must use exactly this filename. Once you have done that, it looks the same as if you had newly recorded this dialog.

 

Thank you for confirming this for me. The filename was right, and the path looked right - but it wasn't. Now I've got my first stray response working, which leaves substituting in all the applicable ogg files to find out what their lines are - (unless there's a list of these files and their corresponding transcripts doing the rounds somewhere?)

 

Thanks again for getting me started...

[davidlallen]

Now I've got my first stray response working, which leaves substituting in all the applicable ogg files to find out what their lines are - (unless there's a list of these files and their corresponding transcripts doing the rounds somewhere?)

It is fairly easy to export spreadsheets which contain the transcript and the filename. In the dialog editor, you can filter all the existing topics in various ways, and export. However, it may be simpler to just browse in the dialog editor to see what topics and lines are available; or if you want a particular line or keyword of a line, you can use "edit->find text".