Sounds

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Soundscape

The addition of sounds in a game can often be what separate a newbie modder from an experienced one. I have played a number of mods that are completely silent — either because students did not have enough time to learn to use them, or they simply did not bother to do so. Remember that a world that is completely silent (without any snowfall) can be rather unsettling to a player.

Many professional games hire professional musicians to "pull" players into the game, so take heed when you mod. The Soundscape is a very important part of game world! (By the way, a soundscape typically does not include voices of NPCs (which may include voiceover).

[Note: Voiceover is a separate beast altogether and I will cover it in another tutorial.]


Area Sounds

The fastest and easiest way to give sound to your mod is to set it under the Area Properties. Right click on an AREA (in this case, I will be using the Tunnel under Frans' Inn), and select Properties, or Properties (New Windows) to bring up the Properties window as below.


Close off all the rest of the section, and look under Sound. You have several choices here.

[Hint: Set the Ambient Sound Volume to around 30, before picking an Ambient Sound. In that way, you will be able to hear/sample the sound/music before deciding which one you like.]

  1. Ambient Sound (daytime) — click on the down arrow and you will be presented with a list of music/sound to choose from.

  2. Ambient Sound (daytime) Volume — from 0 to 100%.

  3. Ambient Sound (nighttime) — same as above (for daytime).

  4. Ambient Sound (nighttime) Volume — from 0 to 100%.

  5. Battle Music — Music played during an encounter.

  6. Daytime Music — play a music track during the DAY. [See tutorial on how to import your favorite MP3 for this.]

  7. Environmental Audio Effects — Only work if player has a sound card capable of using EAX (such as reverb, echo, music hall, etc), for example: a Creative SoundBlaster card.

  8. Music Delay — value is in millisecond. The time gap between two consecutive Music file.

  9. Nighttime Music — play a music track during NIGHT. [See tutorial on how to import your favorite MP3 for this.]


Blueprints for Sounds

If you have been following the tutorials thus far (and have completed the Basic Skills), you will no doubt have noticed the SOUNDS button in the Blueprint section. Clicking on it will reveal a list of available sounds that are pre-included with the Toolset and of which you can used in your mods; as shown below: Background sounds, Chatter, City & Town,...,etc.


As you can see from the Toolbar, there are two different kind of sounds in NWN2 (as per NWN2-MotB-SoZ):

  1. Ambient Sounds (also known as "Area-wide Sounds"), and

  2. Placed Sound (sometimes being referred to as "Positional Sounds").


Note: You can choose to "Show/Hide" these sounds using the Toolbar.


Revisiting the Tunnels

Open up the Underground Tunnels area that is connected to Frans' Old Basement. Since this tunnel is rather cave-like with plenty of rats scattering about, we can make use of the "VERMIN" sounds already available in the Blueprint.

The goal here is to create a tunnel with sounds of critters scattering off into deeper portion of the tunnels. As you proceed further into the tunnel, you can hear the vermin making noises at irregular (i.e., random) intervals, at various volume and distances.

Under the "Sounds" Blueprint, choose CREATURES » ANIMALS » VERMIN and scroll down to CRITTER.


Note: If you are really sharp, you will notice "Rat Squeaks" further down the list. Goodness, did you see that "Wererat Cave Grunts" a few line down? Hmm, maybe we can made use of these to fill out our tunnel, and to enhance our player's encounter with Crimon!


Click on the sound for Critters and place an instance of it someone near the entrance of the tunnel. This will ensure that the player hears it fairly immediately upon entrance to the area. Hit "ESC" to get rid of the Blueprint, because you don't want to accidentally placed a 2nd instance at a wrong place. (You see, the Sounds Blueprint works just like the rest of the Blueprints.)

A ethereal sphere (with concentric blue dotted) with a blue megaphone icon (shown as the inset) as the core will appear, and the sphere is indicative of the "extend", or the reach of the sound. Meaning, a player who step beyond the blue sphere will no longer be to hear the sound.


Note: Neither the megaphone, nor the blue sphere will appear in the game environment. It only appears in the Toolset to aid placement of the sounds. You can toggle it off by click on the Sound button on the Toolbar (see figure 2 above).

Select the megaphone (so that it is now highlighted). Move your cursor to the Properties Tab on the right of your Toolset. Or just right-click on the megaphone, and then choose Properties (New Windows) to bring up the properties of the sound blueprint for CRITTER.


Basic

You will see the Localized Description, Localized Name, and Tag of the Critter Sound Object here. (There is no need to change any values here.)


Behavior

  1. Active? — a check mark will ensure the sound is "live" (or activated).

  2. Continuous? — this is defaulted to False, meaning this sound clip will not be played "continuously", i.e., no looping. If set to TRUE, the sound will be played repetitively, as directed by the "Interval" and "Interval Variation" values below.

  3. Hours at which the sound is active — a value from 0-23, signifying the hours of the (game) day. (You must first set the "Time at which to play sound" value as "Use Hours" before this will work.)

  4. Interval — self explanatory, in milliseconds. The default value is 25000 msec (or 25 sec.)

  5. Interval Variation — a range of time, again in milliseconds, to add or subtract from the interval. The default is 5000 msec. This means the actual interval of the sound played is 25000 +/- 5000 msec, hence whenever the player hears a critter sound being played, it may last anything from 20, 25, to 30 sec.

  6. Looping — if set to TRUE, the sound will loop repeatedly (without any interval of silence). This is different from Continuous, which takes into account of Intervals.

  7. Pitch Variation — this bends the pitch of the sound by the amount (in %) specified. Leave this alone if you don't know what you are doing.

  8. Priority — this tells the priority of play when several sounds are "meshed" together. "Unmaskable Sound" would take precedent over "footsteps". Two values are of special interest to modders. Looping_AreaWide_Ambients will allow players to hear the sound in the whole area as Ambient Sound; while Single_Shot_Positional" will allow player to hear the sound, once, when they step within a sound sphere, hence, as a Placed Sound.
  9. Random — like Tileset, the Sound Blueprints may consist of more than one "file". A CRITTER sound is a blend of several sounds, and when this attribute is set to TRUE, the mixture of CRITTER sounds will be played in different combination, creating a variety of CRITTER noises. By default, this is set to TRUE.

  10. Sounds — a list of the sound files that comprises the CRITTER sound set. If Random is set to FALSE, then the list here will be played in order.

  11. Time at which to play the sound — the values are: "Always", "Day", "Night", or "Use Hour". (Self explanatory.) See also the entry for Hours at which the sound is active, above.

    Volume — from "0" to "127", affects AreaWide_Ambients, and less so Positional sounds. (Note: This is not %, but 128 units of loudness. 0 is silence, and 127 is maximum loudness. Those who work with digital sound and MIDI will recognize this.)

  12. Volume Variation — Like Interval Variation. It is a value that is either added to (+) or subtracted from (-) the Volume, in order to give it some irregularity.


Misc

  1. Height Lock — Lock the position so that the sound blueprint (i.e., the blue megaphone) cannot be "raised" vertically.

  2. Position Lock — when set to TRUE, the position of the Blueprint is Locked, and can no longer be moved.


Position

  1. Elevation — is the sound coming from the ground, or above you? (Make sure Height Lock is not checked.)

  2. Maximum Distance — How far away will you be from the "megaphone" before the sound will drop to silence?

  3. Minimum Distance — What is the inner sphere when you will hear this sound at full volume? A value of 10 will indicate a sphere of 10 m around the core (megaphone). Case study: A sound sphere with Minimum Distance: "10" and Maximum Distance: "30" will mean that the volume is maximum from 0 to 10 m, and then gradually decrease in volume beyond 10m... to a mere whisper near 30m.

  4. Positional? — Set to TRUE for a Positional Sound! [Note: Remember to uncheck it (FALSE), to turn the sound into Ambient Sound. Don't forget to set Priority (above) to Looping_AreaWide_Ambients also.]

  5. Random Position? — (self explanatory), do you want to hear the sound fired randomly throughout the area?


Return to » Advanced Skills | Continue to » Practice No.10

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