Please remind me how to work with sound files

[Qwinn]

Hi all. Been making good progress recreating my fixpack (so I can add Awakenings and other bug fixes to it). I'm running into a stumbling block though, and I've spent enough time on it that I'm just going to give up and ask you guys for help.

 

I copied a line within Alistair's main dialogue file. I can't "paste as link" (I think because it's a state directly below "root", and you can't "link" those), so it gets a new Lineid. And with a new lineid, it loses the sound file associated to the old lineid, and Alistair remains silent. (It's just the word "Yes?", but it's annoying that it's missing).

 

So, I got myself this far:

 

I used an FSB extractor to get the .wav file out of Alistair_main.fsb. Actually, what I used converted it to an .mp3, but it still plays with windows media player if I just rename it to a .wav. If this is the source of my problems, and I actually need to run a conversion program to change it from an .mp3 to a .wav, let me know. Better yet, if someone has a link to an FSB extractor that doesn't annoyingly convert the .wav to a .mp3, please provide.

 

Anyway, as per the Toolset wiki, I renamed "oldlineid_m.wav" to "newlineid_m.wav", and placed it in My Documents/Bioware/Dragon Age/Addins/qwinn_fixpack_3/module/override/toolsetexport.

 

I go into the toolset, pull up Alistair_main.dlg, then do Tools -> Generate VO -> Generate VO Local.

 

Export, Generate XML, Generate Manifest.

 

Aaaaaand.... nothing. I know I'm supposed to see a new .fsb file in My Documents/Dragon Age/packages/core/override, but nope, nothing. And still no sound in game.

 

I did WAY more complicated sound work than this for the mod 6 years ago, but for the life of me I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong now.

 

Any tips? What am I leaving out?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

[Taylor17387]

The correct format for .wav files is PCM 24 kHz 16 bit mono. Audacity can convert mp3 files to this, for example. However, if you only want to add audio to a single line inside the alistair_main.dlg, it's better that you create a cutscene for that line. Otherwise, you'd need to extract and convert ALL the .wav files, and recompile the whole fsb (plus the new line) again.

 

For the cutscene, you create a new conversation resource with just a copy of your new line. Generate the VO and FaceFx for that line (using the new ID, that is). Then go back to alistair_main.dlg, click on the line without VO and choose Convert to Cutscene. In the cutscene Object inspector you can choose your new .fsb for the speak line. Export the cutscene and alistair_main.dlg, and you're done.

 

I used to place .wav files in My Documents/Bioware/Dragon Age/modules/Single Player/override/toolsetexport. At least when working with Single Player resources that's the folder which works. I suppose that if you were working with a new resource from your mod, then you'd use the My Documents/Bioware/Dragon Age/Addins/qwinn_fixpack_3/module/override/toolsetexport.

Edited January 6, 2017 by Taylor17387

[Qwinn]

Thanks for the response, Taylor. That's a very interesting workaround, and if I can't figure out how I did it before I'll try that, but I don't think it's necessary. In my original fixpack I'm positive I actually got the new .wav's into Alistair_main.fsb without having to export all of the .wav's or anything like that. I did it quite a bit in fact. And to confirm, I downloaded my v2 fixpack and I did indeed find Alistair_main.fsb, morrigan_main.fsb and others. So I'm sure it can be done, I'm just missing something minor to make it work...

 

EDIT: Do we know what specific step actually generates a new FSB? Is it Tools - Generate VO - Generate VO Local? Is it exporting Alistair_main.dlg? At what step should I expect to see the new .fsb in the destination directory? I'm getting the feeling there's some compile step I'm missing here.

Edited January 6, 2017 by Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Upon further reflection, I think you're right. I think I *did* extract every .wav out of Alistair_main.dlg and would recompile them all every time I wanted to do this sort of thing. I think it was just that extracting them all was so easy and such a small part of the process that I didn't remember it.

 

I am going to go down that route again. Will let you know if I have any success. This tutorial I just found is being quite helpful and rings a lot of bells, especially the use of fsbext for the extracting.

 

http://social.bioware.com/1331245/blog/3370/

 

Thanks again for your help. Audacity worked great (it didn't on my last computer!) and I'm having better luck with the directories you suggested.

Edited January 6, 2017 by Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Well, my big problem now is that I can't get the FSB's properly converted to WAV files. The two big FSB converters I know of (and I'm almost certain I used fsbext in the past) are converting to .mp3's, so I wind up with stupid filenames like "81231_m.wav.mp3". I don't remember having *that* problem before. Trying to convert from .mp3 to .wav's is a horrific pain in the ass, because A) it either distorts or slightly truncates the file, and B) the file names become "81231_m.wav.wav". If that last issue was the ONLY issue, I could write a script to rename them properly, but what's irritating me is that I did this 6 years ago and did not have these issues, I was just able to convert straight from .FSB to .WAV. Anyone know what's going on? Two frikkin' hours of googling trying to maybe find a command line switch for fsbext to get it to *not* convert the files to .mp3 has turned up nothing. Another 2 hours using converters from shady websites has done nothing as well.

Edited January 6, 2017 by Qwinn

[Taylor17387]

For the FSB extraction I use this tool: http://aezay.dk/aezay/fsbextractor/

But this is probably what you're using already. Then to convert all the mp3 to the proper wav format in one step I use AVS Audio Converter: http://www.avs4you.com/es/AVS-Audio-Converter.aspx

It's true there's a problem with the rename thing. To remove that additional .wav ending I use Bulk Rename Utility: http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Main_Intro.php

 

This tool allows you to delete a specific word (in this case ".wav") in all files at once. I also noticed that the audio loses quality, or at least sounds "strange", however.

In general, I prefer the cutscene approach because there's less chances of messing up one of the lines, to better keep track of the lines I've edited, and because the .cut file is smaller than the whole .fsb. But I had to use the other approach for dialogues which don't use cutscenes, like the party banter, for example. In the end, it's a matter of preference.

 

I don't know if there's any FSB extractor which gives you the audio in .wav. I know that the FMOD Designer which comes with Toolset can compile .fsb and .fev directly (for example, I've used it to compile audio for the DLC, since their dialogues aren't available in Toolset). But I'm not sure if it can also decompile.

 

The Generate VO Local is indeed the step in which the .fsb is created. My Toolset usually sends them to packages/core/override.

[Qwinn]

Wow. Okay. I am totally stumped.

 

Here's the great news: I found all of the Alistair .wav's on an old backup, and some morrigan ones too. This includes some new lines that had to be cobbled together from various existing sound files (Lady Olivia of the Alistair mods helped greatly with this back then) in order to make certain fixes possible. That's *great* news. Recreating those would've been - well, considering the trouble I'm having now, *completely* impossible, heh.

 

So. I previously generated my mods with these .wav files. They HAVE to work. I even put them in EIGHT different directories, just to cover all bases:

 

 

Documents\Bioware\Dragon Age\Addins\qwinn_fixpack_3\core\override

Documents\Bioware\Dragon Age\Addins\qwinn_fixpack_3\core\override\toolsexport

Documents\Bioware\Dragon Age\Addins\qwinn_fixpack_3\module\override

Documents\Bioware\Dragon Age\Addins\qwinn_fixpack_3\module\override\toolsexport

Documents\Bioware\Dragon Age\modules\Single Player\override

Documents\Bioware\Dragon Age\modules\Single Player\override\toolsexport

Documents\Bioware\Dragon Age\packages\core\override

Documents\Bioware\Dragon Age\packages\core\overrite\toolsetexport

 

 

And the log window when I run Generate Local VO even indicates success. But the .fsb file simply isn't appearing anywhere. I ran Agent Ransack looking for *.fsb on both my Documents folder and the Steam common folder, and I get no relevant hits. It's getting maddening.

 

Taylor, can you try something for me? Use the command line to run fsbext on any .fsb of your choosing, but use the -R switch. So, at cmd, "fsbext -R Alistair_main.fsb", for example. For me, this generated .wav files directly from the .fsb which, according to the output, were in the correct Hz, 16 bit, perfect format too! And they could be played and sounded great. But they didn't work for me. However, since the old wav files I *previously* created my mods with don't work either, that means nothing. I'm curious if you can create an fsb from them directly. It'd be cool to know if that method produces superior (and easier) results than what you've been trying.

Edited January 7, 2017 by Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Ok, I've made some real progress. Was able to create the FSB with FMOD, and it mostly seems to work, though lip syncing was awful until I ran HeadFX again. I'm pretty sure I didn't need to use FMOD before, but it's not that painful and if it works, it works.

 

Actually all this investigation led me to completely rework the following fix, which is the one I was trying to recompile the voice overs for:

 

"(v2.0) You can now interact one time with Alistair after receiving the darkspawn blood quest, which opens up a previously inaccessible conversation about the joining. After that, he reverts to his normal stringhead responses."

 

I realized I was making a LOT of unnecessary work for myself with the "one time only" aspect of the fix, and I can't really think of a good reason for it besides "let's create a sense of urgency by only having him give little tiny let's hurry responses". Urgency's nice, but weigh that against the fact that you can talk to Jory and Daveth at length, and that if you don't want to miss out on a TON of conversation with Alistair, you *have* to have ALL of it either between meeting him and getting the blood quest (potentially a period of 10 seconds as you run across the camp site), in the vanilla game, or during my one time thing. Frankly, if the quest is so urgent, then split this huge long conversation up between battles while you're healing or something, rather than have to take a sabbatical to get through it all in one or two shots. That's how I see it now anyway. So going forward, you can talk to Alistair all during the blood quest just like you can with Jory and Darveth, he'll open up each conversation with whichever of his five "let's hurry" stringheads is appropriate, so no content is lost, and this does still open up the previously inaccessible conversation about the Joining. And this makes the voice over recompile I have to do MUCH simpler, as the only reason I need to do it now is because, as previously compiled as stringhead lines, they're much quieter than normal conversations. I'm assuming at this point doing the VO process will fix that. Let us pray.

 

Thanks for your ton of help Taylor, the information you provided definitely helped me get here quicker. Appreciated.

Edited January 7, 2017 by Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Eureka! It all works! Woohoo! I find if I do everything in Dragon Age/Bioware/packages/core/override (which is where the headfx stuff gets placed), it's working well for me. Got rid of the .wav files I had everywhere else and all is sorted.

 

Between sorting that, and with the modified Alistair and morrigan files I found on that backup, I don't foresee any major roadblocks left to completely recreating the fixpack (several of them with what I consider improvements, such as the Alistair bit above and the Luthias Dwarfson conversation with the Ash Warriors in Ostegar, that dialogue was a bigger mess than I thought. I've also run across a few more bugs in the Vanilla game I plan on killing - did you know that if you try to cross the Ostegar bridge after the Joining but before meeting the king again, it'll autosave and start the battle music even though the battle doesn't start yet? That'll get fixed.

 

I just spent 30 hours straight, with no sleep, working on solving that problem. Thank God it's over. G'nite all, and thanks again Taylor.

Edited January 7, 2017 by Qwinn

[LadyHonor]

Lol your excitement over this is cute. It reminds me of the first camp I made for a standalone. No matter how many times I rewrote my script, I couldn't get it to let me cycle through my party members to change their equipment or whatever. It took me two YEARS to realize all I had to do was put a flipping 1 in the area variables to make it a party camp. Lol best of luck with what you are trying to do. May it take you a little less time than it did me. :P