28 réponses à ce sujet

[Nitro9a]

So that I may pick their brains...

I'm trying to create new .fsb files for dialogue with additional .wav files.  Creating a new source file list that lists all the .wav files in the original .fsb plus the new one jumbles up all the dialogue when the .fsb is created but when I tried to examine the original .fev to edit it... well, there's a lot of gibberish in there and FMOD will not recognize it as as a source file list.  I can't figure out any reason behind how the files in the .fev are ordered.  They are not in number order nor are they in the order that they are in the dialogue tree.


I understand that even being able to access the dialogue files is new with the update but maybe someone has experience with this from modding another game?  Any help would be appreciated!

Modifié par Nitro9a, 16 décembre 2009 - 03:54 .

[KingEtzel]

As far as I know the only way of putting custom VO audio into the game is by putting WAVs in the respective folder. If some of your source files you want to include are in FSB format, you first have to extract the WAVs from this and then recompile the whole directory as a new FSB. One Dialog-File (DLG) corresponds to one FSB/FEV set by the way.

As I have seen the FSB/FEV story, the FSB only contains the actual audio files, and the FEV file is a pointer that shows the game which StringID corresponds to which file(number/name) in the FSB.

Why the files in the FSB have completely differing names from their StringIDs (at least in the original part), I cannot say. But I guess there is a better and more easy to use way to integrate VO audio into the game than putting numbered files into a deep subfolder. But this option hasn't yet been discovered or isn't even implemented...

It would be logical to import a whole soundset for a character and afterwards assign the lines to the appropriate soundfiles. But with the current toolset - just a wish

Modifié par KingEtzel, 18 décembre 2009 - 03:33 .

[Nitro9a]

Yeah, I wish I knew a way to read the .fev files better (The best result was with notepad++ and there's still a ton of unreadable information) It seems like there's stuff in there that's different from the 1000+ .wav files I extracted and put back together. If I could correctly edit it to make a source file list that tells FMOD what to load instead of creating the list from scratch I might be on the right track but that doesn't seem like an option. Then I'd need to figure out where in the list to put the new .wav files but that's not clear either. So frustrating...

[KingEtzel]

You can open the FEV files via FMOD Designer (in the toolset directory under the same name). As I already wrote, those FEV files are only pointer files that tell the program, which StringID is which file plus a ton of other special audio-filters/-effects that should be used on this specific file. You'll see once you open the FEV with the Designer.

[sherlockemery]

Well, i am having no luck with the FMOD programs. How do you open those fev files? It only allows you to select fdp files in the FMOD Designer. FMOD Event Player allows you to select fev file types, however I get an incompatible version error.



I'm sure I'm missing some easy option, but I can't figure it out...

[KingEtzel]

I'm sorry, of course it is the FMOD Event Player (fmod_eventplayer.exe) in the same directory.

And if some error comes up with something like "Version not matching) or something, you simply have to download the newest version of the FMOD Designer, install it, and afterwards try loading the event in the Event Player again. Then it should work in any case!

EDIT: The FMOD Designer designs a sound project and produces both FEV and FSB files from it. That's why I confused this in the hurry I was in

Modifié par KingEtzel, 18 décembre 2009 - 10:25 .

[Nitro9a]

I looked at the .fev in FMOD when I first downloaded it, but all I can see is 4 VO files and one .wav id. It could be just that I don't know how to use the program. Would you mind providing more specific instructions on how to look at the file? Thanks.

[KingEtzel]

Don't know what you mean exactly.



Every FEV seems to begin with those four variables: VOambient, VOambient_ss, VOnarration, VOconversation; don't know exactly what they are for.



But after that the StringIDs for the dialog related lines appear. One for each spoken line. For example, in my testmodule, the NPC speaks 4 lines. And every line is referenced there with its own set of data...



(Getting back on the first four variables - they seem to contain additional information about the conversation/the presentation of the sound etc. But haven't gotten down there yet. But if you create a FMOD project of your own, they don't appear, meaning, they are added throughout the process, the toolset applies to the sound files. Another mystery that has yet to be solved )

[sherlockemery]

Don't sweat it. Any help is good help!



You know, you'd think they'd bundle in the right version in the toolset!!!



I had a good laugh at my silliness there, I should have know about the new version of the program. (sighs at own stupidity)



I must say it is not what I expected. King, I think you mentioned in one of the earlier posts about the FEV/FSB relationship, & how you think to add custom audio (I'm gunning for Voice sets). But I am unable to find a description of the "action" naming conventions (ala BG series) or a string set id that will illustrate what events trigger the sound files.



Also looking at some of the fev files (like dwarf wise, elf suave both for pc), they don't have a full list of the audio files within the fsb. Am I missing something (again )

[sherlockemery]

Link

That gives a bit of breakdown on the Event Player  with the screenshots at the bottom.  Not sure if it will be that useful...

However, if you open up one of the character fev, it doesn't have nearly that many entries in it...

[KingEtzel]

I think the way of integrating a custom soundset is some other way than tweaking with FMOD. I found a template-conversation for soundsets under



Conversations->_Core-Soundsets->soundset_template_player



This comment is included there:

This is the template file to be used when writers are creating PLAYER soundsets. Please do not translate or record.



Each root node must be mapped into the file ss_types.xls



Also consult the example soundset document to see the required entries for various templates.

the ss_types is in the toolset directory->source->2DA



Now one only has to find out, how this should work. But I suppose it will work via a conversation in the toolset...

[sherlockemery]

The first one you mention
Conversations->_Core-Soundsets->soundset_template_player
did you find that in the toolset? I have seen it in the toolset when fiddling in the character creator, but can't locate it in a regular directory.

Also, there is a playersoundset.xls file located
Dragon Age\\\\tools\\\\Source\\\\2DA
that provides some basic info on the prebuilt soundsets. Not sure if it is critical or not. Maybe just adding the ss file & inputing here would add it? Nothing like random conjecture...


******edit

I have found the ss_types file, & that seems to give the breakdown as to what each sound would activate for.  I still can't find that template...

Modifié par sherlockemery, 18 décembre 2009 - 04:56 .

[KingEtzel]

I don't mean a file directory in the explorer; it's when you activate the dialog-tab in the palette window.



Am trying something different now ... perhaps I can get a dirty way of inserting a new soundset...

[Nitro9a]

KingEtzel wrote...

Every FEV seems to begin with those four variables: VOambient, VOambient_ss, VOnarration, VOconversation; don't know exactly what they are for.

But after that the StringIDs for the dialog related lines appear. One for each spoken line. For example, in my testmodule, the NPC speaks 4 lines. And every line is referenced there with its own set of data...

When I open up one of the fev files associated with the one of the game's dialogues all I see are the four vo files you mentioned and then one string id.  I haven't had any problems creating conversations from scratch (no FMOD needed) but when I edit a dialogue it's a totally different animal.

[Lady Olivia]

Hey.

This isn't a straight answer to your question, Nitro, it's just what I did in order to get a new, voiced line inserted into existing single player dialog and get it playing properly in the game. Hope it helps.

A word of caution before I go on: I am very new to the toolset, though I have experience with modding other games, so my steps may be partially or totally wrong in the sense of how things should be done.

In order to make stuff clear, I'll tell you exactly what I wanted to do, so SPOILERS AHEAD, I guess.

I wanted to replace Alistair's "Something you need, my dear?" with "My love?" which you can get when you click on him in the game. So I:

1) Checked out alistair_main.dlg.

2) Copied "My love?" from ss_alistair.dlg and pasted it under  "Something you need, my dear?" in alistair_main.dlg, then copied all the nested options, conditions and cinematics from "Something you need, my dear?" so that the two lines were exactly the same apart from the text itself.

3) Deleted the "Something you need, my dear?" branch.

4) Extracted* the .wav files from ss_alistair.fsb to a temp place and copied the "My love?" voice file into Users/My User Name/My Documents/BioWare/Dragon Age/packages/core/override/toolsetexport (not, say, C:/Games/Dragon Age and so on. Should be the local path, not the install path; I think there's a mistake in the wiki regarding this).

5) Renamed the said file so that it matched the ID of my new dialog line (something like [new_line_ID]_m.wav).

6) Extracted* the .wav files from alistair_main.fsb right into Users/My User Name/My Documents/BioWare/Dragon Age/packages/core/override/toolsetexport (so that the old .wavs and the new .wav were together).

7) With only alistair_main.dlg open in the toolset, selected Tools>Generate VO Local. Waited some minutes for the log window to say "Success". After this I could verify that files alistair_main.fev and alistair_main.fsb appeared in Users/My User Name/My Documents/BioWare/Dragon Age/packages/core/override.

8) Selected Generate Gestures for the new dialog line from the dialog window context menu; don't know if that was even necessary. After this I could verify that files [new_line_ID]_m.fxe and [new_line_ID]_m.fxm appeared in Users/My User Name/My Documents/BioWare/Dragon Age/packages/core/override.

9) Selected Export without dependent resources from the dialog tab context menu. Waited some minutes for the log window to say "Success". After this I could verify that files alistair_main.dlg and alistair_main.dlb appeared in Users/My User Name/My Documents/BioWare/Dragon Age/modules/Single Player/override/toolsetexport.

At this point both the Preview Line from the dialog window context menu and the game itself played the new line with the appropriate lipsync, animations and voiceover.

Since for some reason I need admin privileges to run the toolset, I transfered the following files to a limited account:

Users/Other User Name/My Documents/BioWare/Dragon Age/packages/core/override/ alistair_main.fev
Users/Other User Name/My Documents/BioWare/Dragon Age/packages/core/override/ alistair_main.fsb
Users/Other User Name/My Documents/BioWare/Dragon Age/packages/core/override/ [new_line_ID]_m.fxe
Users/Other User Name/My Documents/BioWare/Dragon Age/packages/core/override/ [new_line_ID]_m.fxm
Users/Other User Name/My Documents/BioWare/Dragon Age/modules/Single Player/override/toolsetexport/alistair_main.dlg
Users/Other User Name/My Documents/BioWare/Dragon Age/modules/Single Player/override/toolsetexport/alistair_main.dlb

and could verify that the new dialog worked perfectly in the game on this limited account.

That's it!


*About the extraction of the .wav files. I tried many things and went through a lot of frustration.

Audacity opens .fsb files, but does not extract.

The fsbextract tool that somebody recommended, used without command-line options, produced .wav files that seemed healthy, but the toolset said they lacked a "fmt flag" or somesuch. So I used fsbextract with -pc, -a and -A, but then it produced .mp3 files instead of .wav files. So then I had to convert them, using another tool recommended here, a MusicPlayerEx for FMOD. That finally worked. 

This MusicPlayerEx can also extract the .wavs from .fsbs, but it changes the filenames so that they no longer match dialog line IDs.

In direct answer to the OP, I managed to do exactly nothing with the FMOD programs, heh.


I hope this helps. Please do tell me if in this process I have done things I shouldn't have - it was all trial and error, and even now I have no idea how I'd turn this into something usable by others.

Modifié par Lady Olivia, 20 décembre 2009 - 07:54 .

[Nitro9a]

Wow, thank you so much for the very detailed explanation of what you've done. As far as I can tell we are doing almost the exact same thing, except that I created new lines and entered in the text and all the attributes manually. I'm going to go through you list and follow your instructions to the letter and see if it works. In my case, as single .fsb has never been created. A few things that may be different are the module and .dlg properties. Would you mind posting what yours are?



By the way, I've been posting in this thread about doing this with FMOD and in another about using only the toolset, like you've done:



http://social.biowar...437645/2#478051

[Nitro9a]

OMG Genius! It worked. Thank you so much!



I figured out by following your tutorial what I did wrong and you did right. I needed to put all the .wavs together in packages/core/override/toolset export to compile the .fsb, a location I would have never thought of.



Even though altering a dialogue seems to change the core game files, I've been doing this in my own module, so all the export files are going into my module folder, with the exception of the .dlb and .dlg files which go in to modules/Single Player/override/toolsetexport. They worked this way, so if you make a module of your own you should be able to build a player package for others to import your changes into the game. It sounds to me like you were in the single player module but correct me if I'm wrong. As soon as I test this I'll let you know. Thanks again!

[Lady Olivia]

Glad I could help.



You're right, of course - I was doing everything in the Single Player module. I'm yet to figure out how things work with new modules, heh.

[Nitro9a]

If you want to create a new module go into file->manage modules. Select new. For something like this (as far as I can tell) you only have to give the file a name, a UID, and then scroll down to extended module and select ... and change it to single player. Open it up, then go into Manage Modules again and select Hierarchy then check the box next to Single Player.



There is a great tutorial about how to package your mod for release here:



http://dragonagemodd...od-for-release/



Actually there are several great tutorials on this site. They are well written and the creator doesn't assume you know anything. I'm new at this too

[Lady Olivia]

Thanks for the quickstart - t'was just what I was hoping for.



And good luck modding!

[Nitro9a]

You too!

[Lady Olivia]

So, ummm, have you been able to follow this through with success in a module other than Single Player? Because when I tried following my own instructions in a new module, sound bank (.fsb) generation just refused to happen. No errors, the toolset simply doesn't run its FMOD thingie. The result is that I can preview lines in the toolset, but in the game I get no sound.



Can't figure it out, so I'll just continue abusing the Single Player; it doesn't seem to matter much anyway - you can put the exported files into a module-like file system and the game won't be able to tell the difference... as far as I can tell.

[djfayt]

I've used an older version of FMOD back in another project good ole FMOD3. Anyway I would make sure you use the latest version of FMOD that's available on the fmod site. That's what I believe Bioware used. I think an FMOD forum would be a place where you can find a quicker answer than here. Maybe over on gamedev.net or something..

[Nitro9a]

Yes, it's working. I've haven't tried this in the single player module. What are your module properties?

[Lady of Lore]

Oh my goodness! I think you both, Nitro9a and Lady Olivia posted the solution to what I had been racking my brain for. I'm doing something similar as you, writing new dialog line for the PC character but using existing voiced over lines from Alistair he responds with. (Working on the Alistair flirt pack mod)



Thank you for posting this! I'm going to go through your step run through and see if I can get it to work for me as well.