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About this mod
A tutorial specifically dealing with adding custom combat voices to your custom race.
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I searched and searched, but could not find a tutorial that dealt specifically with adding combat sounds to custom races. So, through a little research and experimentation, I came up with the solution. I'm posting it here to help prospective modders quickly get up to speed on this topic, and save them a lot of time and heartache. I hope this helps.... someone. :thumbsup:
CUSTOM COMBAT VOICES
1. open up the TES Construction Set and create your custom race. make sure the Voice selector in the General Data tab is set to your new race's id. i used TestRace.
2. in the Text Data tab, be sure to give your race a unique name, and remember it. i used Test Race. now save your esp file.
3. in the Construction Set menus, go to Character -> Quests. right-click on the large list on the left side and click New. After giving it an ID, make sure it's highlighted in the list, and Quest Data tab is clicked at the top. make sure you set the "priority" to a number higher than 5, otherwise these changes will be overridden by defaults. if your custom race is not playable by the player (e.g. made just for use with npcs or something, which was the case for me), make sure to DELETE the Quest Condition that checks if its a Playable Race.
4. to make sure this new voice is only used by our new race, make a new condition by clicking the NEW button at the bottom. change the Condition Function dropdown menu to GetIsRace. click the button next to the dropdown menu, which should be titled 'INVALID.' in the dropdown menu that pops up, choose your custom race from the list and click ok. leave the comparison (==) and value (1.00) as they are. Additionally, you can click the OR checkbox if you want to use this same voice for multiple custom races, repeatedly adding more conditions for each race.
5. click the Combat tab at the top of the window. right-click in the new, empty list that appears next to the original list, and click Add Topic. the two most important ones for this tutorial are Attack and Hit. Attack quests are triggered when the npc attacks, and Hit quests will occur when the npc is attacked. we'll go with Hit for this tutorial, so select Hit and click ok.
6. in the empty list in the top right side of the window (just below Topic Text), right-click and select 'New.' enter whatever response text you want; i went with, 'Arg!' now click ok.
7. now double-click the new entry in the list. if you followed the tutorial exactly, it should be titled, 'Arg!' you should now notice two entries in the list at the bottom of the window. for example, if you named your race 'Test Race,' and your esp file 'TestRace.esp,' it should look something like this:
Test RaceMNNNNData\Sound\Voice\TestRace.esp\Test Race\M\TestRaceVoice_Hit_00000CE8_1.mp3
Test RaceFNNNNData\Sound\Voice\TestRace.esp\Test Race\F\TestRaceVoice_Hit_00000CE8_1.mp3
8. almost done! now, using windows explorer or whatever, browse to your Oblivion\Data\Sound\Voices folder, and create a new folder named after your esp file, in this case i would name it TestRace.esp. create a subfolder inside named, in this case, Test Race. then, inside that folder, create two new subfolders, one named M, the other named F. basically, you're recreating the directory structure listed in the dialog window we saw before. for instance, my structure looked like this, based on where i installed oblivion:
C:\Games\Oblivion\Data\Sound\Voice\TestRace.esp\Test Race\M\
C:\Games\Oblivion\Data\Sound\Voice\TestRace.esp\Test Race\F\
9. drag your sound files into the appropriate folder. for instance, if you have a file titled 'voice.mp3' and want to use it for the male version of the 'Arg!" attack we created, drag it into the Testrace.esp\Test Race\M folder. now rename the file to match the one specified in the dialog window when we created the quest. in this case, it was TestRaceVoice_Hit_00000CE8_1.mp3.
10. All done! now to test it out, create an npc using your new custom race, set him to Essential for repeated killings, and give him a faction that's Evil (i used VeyondCaveBandits, only because it happened to be the first one i clicked that was Evil), and place him in the game, preferably somewhere easy to get to. load up oblivion, making sure to enable your mod, and go attack your npc! you should hear the custom voice when he's hit, even if it takes 20 attacks before it triggers. you may notice him trying to talk with no sound, and some other oddities. read the FAQ at the bottom to fix that.
FAQ
Q. the NPC uses my custom voice, but it's intermixed with him opening his mouth but not saying anything.
A. this can be caused by a few things:
first, you most likely dont have quest dialog for every situation such as power attack, attack, etcetera. go back through the tutorial, repeating the steps for each unused combat-based category.
second, you may have checked the RANDOM flag when creating your dialog, which will enable the GENERIC combat dialog for your race. if you need to use the RANDOM flag (to have multiple sounds for the same action used randomly), read the next question to disable the GENERIC combat dialogs.
third, if you do not have the random flag checked, and all three combat actions set up (hit, attack, power attack), and are still experiencing the same problem, you most likely forgot to set the PRIORITY of your quest higher than 5. click your quest in the list, click the QUEST DATA tab, and set the priority to, say, 6.
Q. what the heck are these GENERIC combat noises you speak of, and how do i get rid of them?
A. each race is automatically asigned generic combat noises to be used randomly. when you created your custom race, the construction set automatically added your race to the list of generic dialogs. because your race is custom and the game didnt ship with sound effects for your custom race, the sound files they reference are blank. you can check out these generic dialogs, and even add your own, by going to the Quests menu, choose GENERIC in the list, then click the COMBAT tab. highlight hit, attack, or power attack, and you will see all the generic voices, as well as their directory structures and file names, in case you want to edit these as well.
you can very easily disable all default, generic dialog/sound for your character by following this easy tutorial: Removing Default Dialog Tutorial. simply put, you just add an exception to the various GENERIC quests that disables it for whoever you want. for instance, a certain race, the player, whatever.
Q. OK, my voices are in. how do i get the lip sync to work?
A. supposedly, the Generate Lip File button in the quest window has been disabled in the newest version of the Construction Set (1.2.404). the most common solution ive seen to this is to install the older version of the Construction Set (1.0.303) in which the button is still enabled. other than that, lip syncing is outside the scope of this tutorial. google is your friend!
Q. i followed the tutorial EXACTLY as writen, and it still doesnt work!
A. if you followed the tutorial precisely as writen and it still doesnt play your custom audio, the problem is most likely with your audio file. the file must conform to these standards:
Frequency: 44100 Hz
Bit Rate: 64 kbps cbr (constant bit rate)
Channels: mono
Q. how do i create/edit/convert audio files?
A. again, that is outside the scope of this tutorial. i will say, however, that most people seem to use the free audio editing software called Audacity. oh, and google is still your friend!
Q. so thats how i add attack noises. but what are all those other topics i can add?
A. basically, the "topic" is the action that determines when the responses are triggered. here's a list of all the other combat topics you can (and should) add:
AcceptYield: occurs when the actor accepts a yield request.
Assault: occurs when the actor witnesses an assault it considers a crime. this includes assaults on itself.
AssaultNoCrime: occurs when the actor witnesses an assault, but does not consider it a crime. for example, if his responsibility is set very low.
Attack: occurs when the actor attacks someone else.
Flee: occurs when an actor fails a confidence check. for example, when a low confidence npc drops below a certain percent of health.
Hit: occurs when the actor gets attacked by another actor or creature.
Murder: occurs when the actor witnesses a murder, including on himself.
MurderNoCrime: occurs when the actor witnesses a murder, but doesnt consider it a crime.
Pickpocket: occurs when the actor catches another actor pickpocketing.
PickpocketNoCrime: occurs when the actor catches another pickpocketing, but doesnt consider it a crime.
PowerAttack: occurs when the actor uses a power attack.
Steal: occurs when the actor catches another actor stealing. "You treacherous little filcher!"
StealNoCrime: occurs when the actor catches another actor stealing, but doesnt consider it a crime.
Trespass: occurs when the actor catches another actor trespassing.
TrespassNoCrime: occurs when the actor catches another actor trespassing, but doesnt consider it a crime.
Yield: occurs when the actor offers to surrender to another npc.
Q. what determines when the actor will flee, yield, accept yields, consider something a crime, etcetera?
A. these things are determined by various game and npc settings such as disposition, agression, confidence, factions, and a variety of other things.
Q. what if i want more than one response per conversation option? for instance, i want him to have race-specific taunt responses for the ATTACK conversation.
A. use conditions. each response will have a conditions list at the bottom of the quest window. add conditions to determine when each response is used.
Q. how du i git my voice in tha computer box!
A. through the power of awesome.
CUSTOM COMBAT VOICES
1. open up the TES Construction Set and create your custom race. make sure the Voice selector in the General Data tab is set to your new race's id. i used TestRace.
2. in the Text Data tab, be sure to give your race a unique name, and remember it. i used Test Race. now save your esp file.
3. in the Construction Set menus, go to Character -> Quests. right-click on the large list on the left side and click New. After giving it an ID, make sure it's highlighted in the list, and Quest Data tab is clicked at the top. make sure you set the "priority" to a number higher than 5, otherwise these changes will be overridden by defaults. if your custom race is not playable by the player (e.g. made just for use with npcs or something, which was the case for me), make sure to DELETE the Quest Condition that checks if its a Playable Race.
4. to make sure this new voice is only used by our new race, make a new condition by clicking the NEW button at the bottom. change the Condition Function dropdown menu to GetIsRace. click the button next to the dropdown menu, which should be titled 'INVALID.' in the dropdown menu that pops up, choose your custom race from the list and click ok. leave the comparison (==) and value (1.00) as they are. Additionally, you can click the OR checkbox if you want to use this same voice for multiple custom races, repeatedly adding more conditions for each race.
5. click the Combat tab at the top of the window. right-click in the new, empty list that appears next to the original list, and click Add Topic. the two most important ones for this tutorial are Attack and Hit. Attack quests are triggered when the npc attacks, and Hit quests will occur when the npc is attacked. we'll go with Hit for this tutorial, so select Hit and click ok.
6. in the empty list in the top right side of the window (just below Topic Text), right-click and select 'New.' enter whatever response text you want; i went with, 'Arg!' now click ok.
7. now double-click the new entry in the list. if you followed the tutorial exactly, it should be titled, 'Arg!' you should now notice two entries in the list at the bottom of the window. for example, if you named your race 'Test Race,' and your esp file 'TestRace.esp,' it should look something like this:
Test RaceMNNNNData\Sound\Voice\TestRace.esp\Test Race\M\TestRaceVoice_Hit_00000CE8_1.mp3
Test RaceFNNNNData\Sound\Voice\TestRace.esp\Test Race\F\TestRaceVoice_Hit_00000CE8_1.mp3
8. almost done! now, using windows explorer or whatever, browse to your Oblivion\Data\Sound\Voices folder, and create a new folder named after your esp file, in this case i would name it TestRace.esp. create a subfolder inside named, in this case, Test Race. then, inside that folder, create two new subfolders, one named M, the other named F. basically, you're recreating the directory structure listed in the dialog window we saw before. for instance, my structure looked like this, based on where i installed oblivion:
C:\Games\Oblivion\Data\Sound\Voice\TestRace.esp\Test Race\M\
C:\Games\Oblivion\Data\Sound\Voice\TestRace.esp\Test Race\F\
9. drag your sound files into the appropriate folder. for instance, if you have a file titled 'voice.mp3' and want to use it for the male version of the 'Arg!" attack we created, drag it into the Testrace.esp\Test Race\M folder. now rename the file to match the one specified in the dialog window when we created the quest. in this case, it was TestRaceVoice_Hit_00000CE8_1.mp3.
10. All done! now to test it out, create an npc using your new custom race, set him to Essential for repeated killings, and give him a faction that's Evil (i used VeyondCaveBandits, only because it happened to be the first one i clicked that was Evil), and place him in the game, preferably somewhere easy to get to. load up oblivion, making sure to enable your mod, and go attack your npc! you should hear the custom voice when he's hit, even if it takes 20 attacks before it triggers. you may notice him trying to talk with no sound, and some other oddities. read the FAQ at the bottom to fix that.
FAQ
Q. the NPC uses my custom voice, but it's intermixed with him opening his mouth but not saying anything.
A. this can be caused by a few things:
first, you most likely dont have quest dialog for every situation such as power attack, attack, etcetera. go back through the tutorial, repeating the steps for each unused combat-based category.
second, you may have checked the RANDOM flag when creating your dialog, which will enable the GENERIC combat dialog for your race. if you need to use the RANDOM flag (to have multiple sounds for the same action used randomly), read the next question to disable the GENERIC combat dialogs.
third, if you do not have the random flag checked, and all three combat actions set up (hit, attack, power attack), and are still experiencing the same problem, you most likely forgot to set the PRIORITY of your quest higher than 5. click your quest in the list, click the QUEST DATA tab, and set the priority to, say, 6.
Q. what the heck are these GENERIC combat noises you speak of, and how do i get rid of them?
A. each race is automatically asigned generic combat noises to be used randomly. when you created your custom race, the construction set automatically added your race to the list of generic dialogs. because your race is custom and the game didnt ship with sound effects for your custom race, the sound files they reference are blank. you can check out these generic dialogs, and even add your own, by going to the Quests menu, choose GENERIC in the list, then click the COMBAT tab. highlight hit, attack, or power attack, and you will see all the generic voices, as well as their directory structures and file names, in case you want to edit these as well.
you can very easily disable all default, generic dialog/sound for your character by following this easy tutorial: Removing Default Dialog Tutorial. simply put, you just add an exception to the various GENERIC quests that disables it for whoever you want. for instance, a certain race, the player, whatever.
Q. OK, my voices are in. how do i get the lip sync to work?
A. supposedly, the Generate Lip File button in the quest window has been disabled in the newest version of the Construction Set (1.2.404). the most common solution ive seen to this is to install the older version of the Construction Set (1.0.303) in which the button is still enabled. other than that, lip syncing is outside the scope of this tutorial. google is your friend!
Q. i followed the tutorial EXACTLY as writen, and it still doesnt work!
A. if you followed the tutorial precisely as writen and it still doesnt play your custom audio, the problem is most likely with your audio file. the file must conform to these standards:
Frequency: 44100 Hz
Bit Rate: 64 kbps cbr (constant bit rate)
Channels: mono
Q. how do i create/edit/convert audio files?
A. again, that is outside the scope of this tutorial. i will say, however, that most people seem to use the free audio editing software called Audacity. oh, and google is still your friend!
Q. so thats how i add attack noises. but what are all those other topics i can add?
A. basically, the "topic" is the action that determines when the responses are triggered. here's a list of all the other combat topics you can (and should) add:
AcceptYield: occurs when the actor accepts a yield request.
Assault: occurs when the actor witnesses an assault it considers a crime. this includes assaults on itself.
AssaultNoCrime: occurs when the actor witnesses an assault, but does not consider it a crime. for example, if his responsibility is set very low.
Attack: occurs when the actor attacks someone else.
Flee: occurs when an actor fails a confidence check. for example, when a low confidence npc drops below a certain percent of health.
Hit: occurs when the actor gets attacked by another actor or creature.
Murder: occurs when the actor witnesses a murder, including on himself.
MurderNoCrime: occurs when the actor witnesses a murder, but doesnt consider it a crime.
Pickpocket: occurs when the actor catches another actor pickpocketing.
PickpocketNoCrime: occurs when the actor catches another pickpocketing, but doesnt consider it a crime.
PowerAttack: occurs when the actor uses a power attack.
Steal: occurs when the actor catches another actor stealing. "You treacherous little filcher!"
StealNoCrime: occurs when the actor catches another actor stealing, but doesnt consider it a crime.
Trespass: occurs when the actor catches another actor trespassing.
TrespassNoCrime: occurs when the actor catches another actor trespassing, but doesnt consider it a crime.
Yield: occurs when the actor offers to surrender to another npc.
Q. what determines when the actor will flee, yield, accept yields, consider something a crime, etcetera?
A. these things are determined by various game and npc settings such as disposition, agression, confidence, factions, and a variety of other things.
Q. what if i want more than one response per conversation option? for instance, i want him to have race-specific taunt responses for the ATTACK conversation.
A. use conditions. each response will have a conditions list at the bottom of the quest window. add conditions to determine when each response is used.
Q. how du i git my voice in tha computer box!
A. through the power of awesome.