LE Editing a sound descriptor trigger inside a .nif

[lazyskeever]

Okay, so I want to change the sound descriptor being used by certain animated .nifs. Doors, to be precise. Since they don't have any sounds assigned to them inside the CK, it appears they are embedded inside the actual .nif model. I just took a shot in the dark and opened the .nif with Notepad++, and indeed I can actually see the name of the sound descritpor in there. But mostly it's just a bunch of NULL symbols so it doesn't seem fully readable, so I also assume that just opening and editing a .nif via Notepad isn't a good idea. .Nif models aren't really my area of expertise, but it looks to me that they have XML info embedded in them somehow and this is what I'm partly seeing? NifSkope's XML options seem to suggest this is the case.

 

So what I assume I need to do is to separate the XML and mesh data somehow, make the edits I want, and then save them back together. How would I go about doing that exactly?

[Tamira]

I am not quite sure if it is this what you are looking for?

These are the sound descriptions inside the animated nifs:

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/xyJ2GbCHbsJ_jdsbRlW_dRCFLCnzsD7qR454jiW1kGM?feat=directlink

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/4mtK45AwCDCYXiKpVeA0zRCFLCnzsD7qR454jiW1kGM?feat=directlink

[Hoamaii]

I didn't even know you could open a nif in Notepad, good to know - but you should get Nifskope which is specifically designed for that.

 

http://niftools.sourceforge.net/wiki/NifSkope

 

When you've opened your nif in Nifskope, look for the NiTextKeyExtraData block inside the NiControllerSequence block. Expand it, go to TextKeys in the block detail (lower part of your Nifskope window). On the second TextKeys line, you'll find a value describing the sound allocated to that door in plain text. You can change or copy there any other sound taken from any another Skyrim door (or animated object). You'll have to do that for both sequences of course, open and close. (Just don't forget to 'save as' a custom name when you're done, so you don't to modify all the doors in the game)

 

I've never done this for doors, but I believe if you want to replace CK sounds with custom ones, you'd probably need to leave these TextKeys strings empty in Nifskope, import your custom sound in the CK, then in the CK tab of the door you want to customize select your sound for 'Open', 'Close' or 'Loop'. If I remember correctly, if you do not previously leave that string empty in Nifskope the game will play the default sound anyway.

 

If you select 'preview' of a door in the CK, the 'animation Notes' should display the animation timing so you can edit your custom sound to fit the animation.

 

Edit: Well, Tamira just showed you images of the blocks I was describing :)

[lazyskeever]

I've never done this for doors, but I believe if you want to replace CK sounds with custom ones, you'd probably need to leave these TextKeys strings empty in Nifskope, import your custom sound in the CK, then in the CK tab of the door you want to customize select your sound for 'Open', 'Close' or 'Loop'. If I remember correctly, if you do not previously leave that string empty in Nifskope the game will play the default sound anyway.

 

Okay, so just replacing the text in the .nif with a new sound descriptor from a custom .esp won't work?

[Hoamaii]

Not sure, I've done this with other animated objects but I seem to remember I also had to add the custom sound in the CK. The Value of these TextKeys is a string, so if you know how to create new strings it may work by just replacing the string, especially with a custom door. If it's not a custom door however, I think the default sound will still play in game. Best way to find out is to try anyway :wink:

[lazyskeever]

It's the small metal nordic doors (nordoorsm01, nordoorsm02, and their load variants). In vanilla Skyrim they share the same sounds as the wooden nordic doors, and I wanted to change that.

[Hoamaii]

Like I said, if you want to replace that sound with another Vanilla sound found on another .nif, just copy and paste the sound from that other .nif into your nordic doors' TextKeys values. Just to be sure, I'd advise you check in the CK preview afterwards that your new sound does appear in the 'animation Notes'.