Krawll Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Hey guys So last night i basicly went from knowing nothing about Skyrim music files to actualy being able to change some of the songs in Skyrim to whatever song i choose . Not bad huh ?? for a beginner . But i still have a few unanswered questions that i'm hoping some of you may be able to answer. So, what i did was change the Dragon battle songs for some even more Epic songs . The file that i changed were : mus_combat_boss.xwmmus_combat_boss_finale.xwmmus_combat_boss_02.xwmmus_combat_boss_02_finale.xwmmus_combat_boss_03.xwmmus_combat_boss_03_finale.xwmmus_combat_boss_04.xwmmus_combat_boss_04_finale.xwm Now i'm pretty sure that any modder who has messed around with music files will recognize that type of file and the pattern that they follow right ?? The only problem i've come accross is that i can only change the files that are not labeled ( Finale) . I can change any of the other files but if i change one of the ( Finale) files, it simply will not play in the game. When i first saw those 8 files i was like WOOOHOOO, i'm gonna be adding 8 new songs to the game but then when i got in the game after changing all of them i was only getting 4 songs so i came to the conclusion that the ones with the Finale label cannot be changed. I did convert them into .wav files to see what they were and from what i've seen, they are basicly the last 20-30 seconds of each songs. Now i'd like to know why did bethesda split their songs into 2 files and why can't i use the second file to add a new song to the game. So far, the only way that i found that allows me to insert more songs in my Dragon battles is to put more than 1 song into a single file. For example using Wavepad sound editor , i was able to put 2 or 3 songs one after the other and then save them into a single .wav file. Then i converted that .wav file into an .xwm and renamed it "mus_combat_boss.xwm" . So by doing that, the game plays those 3 songs as if it was 1 very long song . So anyways , yeah i can pretty much put as many songs as i want by doing that but i'd still like to know why the "finale" files won't play and why Bethesda had to split their song in two files. To me it looks like those files don't serve a purpose. They're just in the way. Or teasing me even. They're like HAHA i'm here but you can't use me ... sucker !!!! i hate being humiliated by a file lol. :D So anyways , any infos will be much apreciated thanks in advance Krawll Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krawll Posted February 8, 2012 Author Share Posted February 8, 2012 This is just me reviving the thread . Sorry i had to do this , i realy don't mean to be a hassle. It's just that the thread was now wayy to far for anyone to see it and my question remains unanswered and i'm pretty sure someone , somewhere knows the answer . Even just a minor insight on the matter would realy be apreciated . thanks in advance Krawll Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hurra113 Posted February 8, 2012 Share Posted February 8, 2012 The songs are split so that at the end of the battle the current song switches to this fade-out track. This way the song just doesn't end aprupt or fades out on itself but gets a proper ending.So the _finale tracks play shortly after the battle has ended. So replacing it wouldn't make much sense since the battle is already over. I'm currently trying to get more control over the songs with the creation kit (which should be possible according to the wiki, for example: http://www.creationkit.com/Music_Track). But I really don't know how I should go about this since I only wan't to replace certain songs and set their fade-out time for example. If anyone has more info on this it would be appreciated.I also have a similiar problem like this (http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/543892-music-replacement-issues-sounds-bsa-directory-structure/page__p__4423056__hl__music__fromsearch__1#entry4423056) where not all my replaced music plays... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krawll Posted February 10, 2012 Author Share Posted February 10, 2012 The songs are split so that at the end of the battle the current song switches to this fade-out track. This way the song just doesn't end aprupt or fades out on itself but gets a proper ending.So the _finale tracks play shortly after the battle has ended. So replacing it wouldn't make much sense since the battle is already over. I'm currently trying to get more control over the songs with the creation kit (which should be possible according to the wiki, for example: http://www.creationkit.com/Music_Track). But I really don't know how I should go about this since I only wan't to replace certain songs and set their fade-out time for example. If anyone has more info on this it would be appreciated.I also have a similiar problem like this (http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/543892-music-replacement-issues-sounds-bsa-directory-structure/page__p__4423056__hl__music__fromsearch__1#entry4423056) where not all my replaced music plays... Thanks for answering my question. Funny part is i actualy came back here wanting to post and say that i finaly understood how the whole thing works and then explain it . I figured it out after my last fight with a dragon when one of my song started to play and lasted the whole 8 minutes after the fight was over lol. It was definatly Epic but the dragon was already dead haha. So i was walking around in the woods with a major Epic song playing . It basicly made the bunnies and foxes look like epic encounters . :P So i guess i'll have to change those files back to some more reasonable songs and make them short . Oh well, would've been cool to be able to use them in other ways though. But thanks again for explaining though. It confirms the theory i had . Krawll Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krawll Posted February 10, 2012 Author Share Posted February 10, 2012 I'm currently trying to get more control over the songs with the creation kit (which should be possible according to the wiki, for example: http://www.creationkit.com/Music_Track). But I really don't know how I should go about this since I only wan't to replace certain songs and set their fade-out time for example. If anyone has more info on this it would be appreciated.I also have a similiar problem like this (http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/543892-music-replacement-issues-sounds-bsa-directory-structure/page__p__4423056__hl__music__fromsearch__1#entry4423056) where not all my replaced music plays... I can't answer your question by using the CK because i haven't started playing around with it yet. But i think maybe i can try and give you pointers from the experience i got . About the files that don't seem to play, one thing i noticed is that the game chooses randomly so sometimes i'm actualy hearing the same two files twice in a row and then i'll hear the 3rd and 4rth files later one or in another battle. It doesn't play them in order. If the game realy doesn't play them at all then there might be a problem with the file you created and converted. Make sure that whatever file you convert to .xwm was in .wav first . SO for example if you want to convert an MP3 file, you'll have to convert it to .wav first and then to .xwm. From my experience, you can even convert the sound file of a video with the wmv or AVI extensions into a .wav and then convert it to .xwm and it will work perfectly. You'll have to use a software such as Wavepad or Audacity to convert the MP3 or other extensions to .Wav and then use the Xwmaencode.exe to convert the .wav to .xwm . If you are absolutly sure that the problem is not in the conversion, then realy make sure to double check the pathing of the file you're trying to replace . Make sure you didn't forget a certain location folder anywhere . The easiest way is to extract the files you want to replace onto your desktop or in an empty folder somewhere. Since the .bsa extractor will automaticly create folders following the correct path, it makes it a lot easier to duplicate it rather than trying to figure it out by yourself. Now when you say you want to control the fading time of a song, in my knowledge fading means gradualy lowering the volume untill it completly dissapears and then the next song would start. If thats what you mean, you can definatly edit that with Wavepad or Audacity. Just click on the "effects" menu , then on "fade" , then "fade out" and then you can edit how long you want the fade to be . For example if you select 2 seconds , then the song will fade out pretty quickly during the last 2 seconds of it. If you select 10 seconds then it will gradualy fade out during the last 10 seconds. Or you can also click and drag to select a specific area where you want the "fading effect " to occur. If you meant that you want to edit how long a file labeled ( Finale ) will last then i'd say that only depends on the lengh of the file that you used to replace it . Like i said in my previous post, i used an 8 minutes Epic song to replace one of my Finale files and that song played for 8 minutes after the fight was over so you realy do have a lot of control over that . Hope that answer helped at least a little . If not then simply reply with more details about the problem and i might be able to help more. We never know :P I'm by no means an expert but i've played around a lot with song files lately and managed to make everything work. later Krawll Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krawll Posted February 10, 2012 Author Share Posted February 10, 2012 Here is a little update on the problem that Hurra113 mentioned. The problem where some songs don't play ever in game even though you're sure you did everything properly. Well i experienced the same thing last night. I added a new song to my game and it simply wouldn't play at all . And i knew i had done everything the right way since i had been successfull with many songs before that . So what i'm thinking is that the Xwmaencode.exe might sometimes have trouble converting files correctly and might create coding errors in them making them unreadable for the game. Not enough to cause a crash but maybe just enough to make the game skip itor simply ignore it . I'm no tech expert , this is only an educated guess . So anyways, what i did was reboot my computer to make sure i was starting fresh. I went back to the original file and converted a brand new .wav file and then went through the xwmaencode.exe to create a brand new .xwm file and then used that new file to overwrite ( replace ) the non working file. After doing that , my song started playing in game . When i first started researching informations on the Xwmaencode.exe, some of the results i got were talking about errors in the program, i didn't pay any attention to those results since i didn't even have the program yet but after experiencing problems, it came back to me . So my best guess would be that it sometimes doesn't convert files properly and you simply have to start over. Hope this helps Krawll Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimmycalhoun Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 See my tutorial on editing the music with the Creation Kit: http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/561372-tutorial-addingreplacing-music-with-the-creation-kit Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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