Fuz Ro D-oh and AFT Amazing Follower Tweaks Compatibility

[chickmetalhead]

Fuz Ro D-oh and AFT Amazing Follower Tweaks. Two great mods, with a slight but annoying conflict that I decided to at least partially address in my game. I am writing this topic to see if anybody else is interested in what I am doing. If so, I may create a compatibility mod to address the issue (no promises, but probably if there is interest). Starting with Skyrim Legendary, as that is what I use. If you use Skyrim Special Edition, and have the issue described below, let me know if you are interested in something as well. I don't use SSE, but what I intend might be fine with SSE, or this might not even be a problem with SSE.

 

If I am being an idiot and somebody is aware of another solution to the issue described below, please let me know. I have looked, and have not found anything, but nexus is a huge place and I have missed things before!

 

If you don't use both mods, and don't have the desire to do so, you can bail on this topic now - unless you are really bored!

 

Background Mod Info:

Amazing Follower Tweaks by Dheuster - an awesome (and amazing) mod that allows you to have multiple followers, with a ton of options to control them.

 

Fuz Ro D-oh - Silent Voice by shadeMe - another awesome mod that helps other mods when they don't have sounds files for all of their dialog responses. With simulated lip movement!

 

The Compatibility Issue:

Both mods work great by themselves. But if you want to use both, there is an issue:

 

AFT uses the Skyrim dialog system to implement the AFT menu system. This is part of why I really like AFT - you talk to your follower, and the first dialog option opens up the AFT Tweaks menus. But as this is the dialog system, AFT simply uses a single space or blank character as the response to each AFT menu or sub-menu you select. AFT does not actually supply any sound files, because the NPC isn't really saying anything back. Which works great unless you have Fuz Ro D-oh installed. Fuz Ro D-oh apparently doesn't expect a blank dialog response (in fairness, why would it), so it apparently tries to simulate a message that for me at least is several seconds long, with the NPC moving their mouths in the simulated lip sync that Fuz Ro D-oh generates. This causes a delay in the AFT menu selections. Plus, the NPCs look like idiots with their mouths moving but no sound coming out.

 

Again, I want to stress that I love both mods, both mods work fine on their own.

 

My intended solution:

Being the geek that I am, I want both mods - and I want them to both work the way they would without the other installed. And I wanted to do it without causing any unexpected conflicts down the road. So I created a test silent sound file, installed it in my game for the main AFT menu item in a single test voice. Now when I open the AFT menu on an NPC with that voice type, it immediatedly opens. Fuz Ro D-oh doesn't get involved, since the sound file exists. Cool!

 

To completely eliminate any compatibility issues between the two mods, I would need to create a voice file for every dialog response for every NPC voice type for every AFT menu, sub-menu, and option. As I mentioned above, AFT has a ton of options! So that may not happen.

 

My initial goal is to address the main AFT menu options that I use for the the main female voice types.

 

My intent at this point is that the mod would only supply a bunch of small sound files that don't already exist. In my limited testing, that is all that is needed - at least for Skyrim Legendary. The bonus to this approach is that it should eliminate any possibility of this mod causing problems with anything else. (unless someone has done this already, if so - let me know!)

 

So, any thoughts? Any feedback? Any interest? Is anyone still reading this?

 

If so, thanks for the interest, and let me know what you think!

 

Regards,

 

chickmetalhead - just a bonehead user trying to give back to the nexus community (ha ha - with something I am doing for myself anyway).

[Kapteyn]

I suppose it's similar to using a null in a script, if not identical actually. I'm sure I saw a way around it on some wiki some place, but since I forgot where that is I just tend to use a dummy thing. Whatever that thing may be, could be a global variable, an ability or explosion, but say I'm using a script which I can't be bothered to rewrite just for one NPC I'll attach these dummy references to the unused script properties so that Papyrus don't go throwing a strop. Personally, when I'm making a mod I don't want any errors turning up at all, however benign they may be.

 

So the moral of the story is, rather than having a null pointer you use a dummy or some other such object which never actually gets called. In your case, yes it gets called because there's no alternative, so you either have a null and potentially an error (or indeed mod conflict) or you use a placeholder.

Now I don't care about silencing the shouts, sometimes I do wonder what my neighbours think although I'm way beyond caring about that kind of thing... but AFT is one mod I could never be without. If you post a file, I'd test it on my end without the other mod to see if it's playing fair.

Edited September 28, 2017 by Kapteyn

[chickmetalhead]

Thanks for the offer to test, I'll keep it in mind.

 

It does bring up a point I hadn't considered, and don't think is an issue, which is would having the silent files present without Fuz Ro D-oh affect AFT in any way, good or bad. I don't think so, but I will test that before I proceed with anything.

[Grospolina]

Have you tried Immersive Amazing Follower Tweaks? It builds onto AFT and adds new features. I have iAFT and Fuz Roh D'oh installed and I didn't notice your issue, but it may or may not be there. Maybe followers give you a short response now (subtitles only) instead of a completely blank line?

[chickmetalhead]

@Grospolina - Thanks for reply! I have not used iAFT, and thank your for reminding me to review it again - I have heard of it, but don't remember why I never installed it. Maybe because of the menu difference, but I see now that there are options for that as well.

 

So I went ahead and installed iAFT 3.09 just to test this, went back to my ported 360 save before any mods were installed, and I still see the same problem. So a couple several questions:

 

1) Could you post your Fuz Ro D'oh.ini file from the SKSE\Plugins folder?

 

2) My Fuz Ro D'oh.dll has a 'Date modified' of 4/5/2013, and a right click in windows, properties, details tab, shows a version of 6.0.6.405, and the file size is: 184 KB (188,928 bytes) on the General tab. Does that match yours?

 

3) When you select an iAFT menu item, do you actually hear the NPC say something for each selection? Do their lips move? I don't hear anything, and it appears as though Fuz Ro D'oh is doing it's simulated lip sync thing.

 

4) Are you using iAFT 3.09?

 

5) Are you using any of the iAFT comaptibility patches? I only installed the base iAFT

 

Thanks for any and/or all answers! Sorry for the long list. I know I am not the only one that has ever had this problem, but I am surprised there are not more reports of it. Maybe there is something else going on here.

Edited September 29, 2017 by chickmetalhead

[Grospolina]

Looks like I was wrong. I just tried it now. Those versions and sizes all match by the way. When I use an iAFT dialog option, the follower doesn't reply with any subtitles and just mouths some imaginary lines for a few seconds as you say. I guess I just hadn't noticed. I normally just click again in order to advance to the next dialog selection.

 

I say go for it then! But I'm still not clear on what sound files you want to supply. Do you mean you just want to supply a silent sound file so that the options come up faster, or do you want to add voice responses? Some people have had success either using the standard replies that are already there, or editing lines together. It gets tricky with different voices though, since they have different responses and they don't all map to each other one-to-one. When I was adding different female voice types for my Girls of Skyrim patch, I only found 4 suitable standard voice types to choose from. The other voices were missing certain responses and I didn't know enough to edit them.

Edited September 30, 2017 by Grospolina

[chickmetalhead]

Hi Grospolina,

 

First, about iAFT: There are things I like about it, like the MCM options, and I can totally see why someone would want to use it for the immersive factor, which is not as important to me. But I did find one thing that will switch me back to regular AFT for now anyway. In AFT, when I am trying to take screenshots, I will tell one or more followers to wait at a spot, and then I will take some screenshots. With iAFT, even with the auto idle (or whatever) option turn off in the MCM, they don't stay put. I actually think that is a better way for it to work - but not when I am taking screenshots!!

 

Anway, back to the current situation. My original intent was to minimize the delay and stop the lip moment when there is nothing being said. I know what you mean about the different voice types not all having the same voiced responses, and I want it to work for any of them - and for custom voice types as well. It might be possible to work something out with simple responses, but that is beyond what I am thinking about doing.

 

I have considered having some kind of menu sound effect, but while that might be cool for the first few minutes of using it, it would probably get old fast. And, you know what would happen. I want a beep! Can I have a ding? Can you make it louder, quieter, longer, shorter, etc. So far now, silent audio is where I am going to start. There is another reason for doing it that way - the silent audio files can be much smaller (one would assume) because of shorter duration and maybe because of no better compression. And to handle every combination, there could be hundreds of files, so size may matter.

 

So assuming nobody chimes in with a simpler solution, I will start with the major menu options that are most often used, and move on from there. I have not opened up iAFT in TES5EDIT yet to see if it changed all of the dialog responses to different formids, or if it just changed the topic and response text, or just added some. But since you were nice enough to respond and investigate and respond again, I will certainly expand my investigations to include iAFT in addition to AFT.

 

The main thing I learned today, is that I am either more impatient or nuerotic than you are (or both!), because the delay and lip movement drive me bonkers!

 

Thanks again for replying, and I will keep you informed as we go. I am probably going to wait a few more days in case somebody else has a simpler solution like a setting or option somewhere. If not, I am going to dive in to dig out more of the dialog response audio names that will be required, etc.

Edited September 30, 2017 by chickmetalhead

[Grospolina]

Cool, so silent voice files then. I haven't worked with voice files much, but I do know that each file has an ID in the name. I guess that means that each voice file has its own form ID? I'm just wondering if it's possible just to have a single silent voice file and make all of the blank responses point to that one file? They're all the same "response" after all.

 

Also, the other solution I can think of would be to actually give subtitled responses to each AFT/iAFT option. Then when Fuz Ro D'oh kicks in, it should at least match the approximate length of the reply instead of going on for several seconds for no reason.

[chickmetalhead]

I really appreciate your replies! It is helping me think about our options.

 

Warning: Geeky Skyrim tech info ahead, which you may know already (which I am not putting in a spoiler tag, because the spoiler button isn't working for me in the Nexus forum site. On the Nexus mods site, the spoiler button works just fine for me. Very strange, but that is a separate issue (anyone that has ideas on that, PM me! I am using firefox with noscript and full use of it's ABE, and have a DNS proxy that filters crap out for privacy, but it is weird that it works on the mods site but not the forum site))

 

Each sound file, as you mentioned, has a unique name. For example, the main AFT dialog topic sound file name is:

 

TweakFollo_TweakOptionsTop_000012D2_1

It is made up of four parts separated by the underscore character, as follows:

• TweakFollo is from the quest editor id, which is TweakFollower
• TweakOptionsTop is from the dialog editor id, which is: TweakOptionsTopic
• 000012D2 is the formid of the INFO subrecord of the dialog record
• 1 (in this case) is the dialog response line number

Not sure of the technical term term for that last part, but if there are 3 lines of dialog response, there would be 3 sounds files, with the same first 3 parts, suffixed with _1, _2, and _3. I am also not sure how Skyrim comes up with how much of each editor id ends up in the sound filename. For example, the filename for the Gear submenu, which comes from the same quest, is:

 

TweakFollower_TweakGear_00001836_1

 

I assume that since the dialog editor id is shorter, there is more room so it uses the full quest editor id. It is a bit strange.

 

Conclusion

Anyway, the good news is that I did a quick check in iAFT in TES5EDIT, ran a compare between the two .esp files, and while there are obviously changes to the dialog prompts and responses, the editor ids and the formids seem to match, so I think (and hope!) that most of the same audio files would work in both. iAFT would probably just need several more.

 

As for making everything use the same file, because of the above conventions, I don't think you can. I don't have the knowledge to know if it could be done in a SKSE plugin. The biggest problem I see is the number of files, which would need to be duplicated in something like 18 voice types. So again, I may either limit the number of AFT menu options to the main topics used, or offer two downloads, one with a limited set and one with a more complete set.

 

My next step is to see if there is someway to use a TES5EDIT script (or write one) to extract the list of all the different audio file names, since the dialog records themselves don't have the actual filenames of the sound files specified. The few I did to test the concept I extracted from the CK, but I have to find a better way than that. Which will probably mean figuring out how the heck Skyrim constructs the audio filename from the four parts I described above.

 

Also, I wil think about your idea of giving some kind of response that would create a shorter Fuz Ro D-Oh response, but I was hoping to avoid making any change to the .esp files themselves. Adding just the sound files is the safer way to go. But I will run some tests.

 

Still hoping somebody has a better way! Wish I knew SKSE and Skyrim internals better...

 

Thanks again for your replies!

Edited October 1, 2017 by chickmetalhead

[Grospolina]

Ah, I see. Thanks for the explanation!