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Tutorial: Adding Custom Voice even if the CK won't


SinderionsBones

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@OP: Much love for the walkthrough, particularly the parts about bringing in files recorded using 3rd party software. I like to sweeten my audio files before use, so I was banging my head against the wall trying to figure this one out.

 

Hats off to Bethesda for making it particularly difficult to import voice files, though. They really outdid themselves on this one. Considering that there's absolutely no way to manipulate what you record using the CK, you'd think that giving us the tools to bring in externally-recorded files would be the logical conclusion. I mean, did they seriously record all of the vanilla voice files this way?

Edited by JanusForbeare
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In order to troubleshoot this issue, I have started from scratch. Both attempts used a brand new NPC. The first one used the even-toned male voice type, the second was left as none, worked, but then broke once I created a new voice type (as described here) and had audio added. I've just switched the NPC back to Voice Type NONE to see what happens.

 

Edit: And setting voice type to none also does nothing. I just LOVE being the only person on the planet with this problem. Makes me feel real special.

 

So, I can't get dialog to appear, quest banners don't work, oh and making quest specific items appear also somehow fails. WTF?

 

This is what I have in my #10 index for the Quest Stages Papyrus Fragment:

Alias_SWS_WellVisMark.GetReference().Enable()
SetObjectiveDisplayed(10)

 

Objective index #10 is an alias that points to my NPC (The mute). The first line of code SHOULD use alias SWS_WellVisMark to make the water well I've placed in the world visible once the quest is at stage 10 (the first). The well and some other items are tied to an Xmarker which is set to start disabled. The well is NOT set to start disabled because its visibility should depend on the Xmarker (And it sure as hell doesn't show up, problem is, even when that script runs along with stage 10, nothing.)

Edited by AurelTristen
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@gahnzz

 

If that's all your doing your job is pretty straight forward :D that doesn't mean it's easy though.

 

Once you have an understanding of how the dialog works, and what makes people say things at certain times (Far outside the scope of this tutorial, I recommend going to creationkit.com and looking at the quest and dialog tutorials)

 

What you are attempting will require an intimate knowledge of what triggers dialog, and where each specific line is, regardless of the file names being completely not helpful.

 

I would imagine, for each new desired occurrence of a given dialog line you would have to:


  • 1. Find examples of this line in the dialog in the editor.
    2. Work out if simply adding new conditions to the existing line will be sufficient to not screw up everything in the game.
    3. If not, you will have to find a suitable place to create a new one that will trigger when desired.
    4. Create the new dialog (in the Misc section of some dialog quest somewhere, quite possibly different for each line, is probably where all these things will be) with appropriate conditions.
    5. Find what file name and directory this new line will be expected to be in. This may be the same directory as the original if it's the same voice type.
    6. Find the original line, based on what the original dialog line says the file is called.
    7. Copy and rename this dialog line. You may not even have to change it's directory, just copy and rename.

 

As far as I know, there is no way to get 2 dialog lines to point to the same audio file using the editor. I'm not even sure if the game checks a directory path variable, or just makes up the path on the fly based on the quest name, dialog topic, actor ID etc...

 

Lots of leg work is what you have ahead of you lol. I'd probably start by browsing the dialog with a notebook handy, and writing down files I wanted and their filenames and voice types(i.e. the folders their in). You could do this all at once, versus going all over for each line. Then just make yourself a fresh quest and put it all where you want it (The creationkit.com tutorials only touch on this, but give good on instructions on how to do it).

 

As your going through the existing dialog, remember double clicking on the file in the list will play it for you (at least the premade ones). So you can be sure which file sounds like which NPC type (Guard, male inkeeper, etc).

 

Good Luck!

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@OP: Much love for the walkthrough, particularly the parts about bringing in files recorded using 3rd party software. I like to sweeten my audio files before use, so I was banging my head against the wall trying to figure this one out.

 

Hats off to Bethesda for making it particularly difficult to import voice files, though. They really outdid themselves on this one. Considering that there's absolutely no way to manipulate what you record using the CK, you'd think that giving us the tools to bring in externally-recorded files would be the logical conclusion. I mean, did they seriously record all of the vanilla voice files this way?

 

No way, they recorded in a sound studio, probably into Protools and imported it after editing. It's funny that they bothered programing a vanilla sound recorder, as if everyone using the CK was going to plug in a little skype mic and start making NPCs.

 

In the time they made that set up (which was unfinished) they could have just added a decent import function. The last thing I'm going to want to do is download some mod with voices that haven't been cleaned, EQed and otherwise.

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I'm just going to throw this out there... it would be pretty awesome if someone could design a plugin that streamlines the sound file import process for dialogue. Right now, what should be a three step process takes six steps (for me, at least).

 

Strangely, importing external files for use as sound descriptors is no problem at all, but you can't generate .lip files for sound descriptors. :wallbash:

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@allan

 

Quests are where the dialog goes. The key is that the 'quest' is only like.. a data type, you don't have to use all of the things involved. ALL the games dialog is in quests, but not all of it is in quests with stages, objectives and such.

 

If you look in the editor under quests and go to the ones that start with 'dialog' that's what I'm talking about. As a matter of fact, It's not bad just to make a seperate dialog quest for your mod if you have more than one quest. The quest need have no stages or objectives. All it has are aliases, and dialog in the misc section. The misc section, as hinted at in the creationkit.com tutorials, is where the dialog like 'hello' 'goodbie' 'Can I help you?' and such go. All it is is lines of dialog with conditions that specify it to the actor(the speaker), or actor type(Whiterun guard, or Innkeeper for example), and maybe some conditions related to quest stages so they don't cry about the scary door outside of town after you've already cleared it.

 

So yes, you have to have a quest form in the editor. At the same time, no, it doesn't have to be a real 'quest'

 

Edit: After reading your signature, I see what you might be hinting at. Most of the stuff in your regular male voice file is exactly the sort of thing I was talking about above. It belongs in the miscellaneous tab. Some of it can go in the services tab I believe as well. The game chooses when exactly to play them, you just make sure it's got conditions to only be said by specific npc(s).

 

Look through the dialog tutorials on creationkit.com, some are in quest I think, there maybe some other ones related I forget. That should be all you need for general dialog.

 

Voice packs seem like a cool idea :D Especially if someone custom requests you do like, 3 or 4 lines for them, but still needs the generic parts too to avoid mismatched voices from the same npc.

Edited by SinderionsBones
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