New sounds for ToEE

the step by step will have to wait til tomorrow, i am exhausted, its 2am, and worst of all, the stout has run out. Bed time!

 

Hey, what's wrong with Mazza? Anyway it's at least good that the battle cries are coded correctly, now if we could just work out what isn't triggering them.

 

Ted -

Great news about the new music for new maps crack. Excellent! Also, very impressive research RE the battle cry issue. One question there: the fact that Zaxis speaks up when he flees seems inconsistent with your thesis - which leads me to believe not that your thesis is wrong, but that Troika may have given the matter some SA (special attention) because they knew it was going to happen and wanted an explanation for players. I don't believe I've ever seen another NPC flee. (?) At any rate, if that's so, it might mean that no other combat-related speech will work without some similar SA.

I never cared for ToEEs musical style, so I replaced all the map and combat themes - yes, with classical strings music, not Rob Zombie . Further, I reconstructed the vignette movies to remove the original ToEE canned music and replace it with the same themes that I used for the map music. It's slightly more comlplicated, but that's the gist of it. And no, I didn't insert any PC voices into the vignettes - I don't believe there are supposed to be any - but I did retain the voice overs, ala "You arrive in Hommlet, the bearer of bad news . . ." etc. I can go more in-depth as to how this is done if you want; it does require some fairly capable software to do it well. The tricky part is that the vignettes (and all other movies) are not handled like maps where a musical piece or other element is assigned to play. They're actually movies in Bink format, with all the elements integrated. So you have to deconstruct the videos, separate the elements out, add whatever new elements you want (music), reconstruct them, and re-convert them to Bink video.

Bullshit! Get back to work!

<yawns and turns back to solitaire game>

 

Yeah that seems fair enough. U know, I got a shock when I checked Zaxis' script, because there are 2 subroutines in there that are about what to do when he 'runs off'. I thought that must have been it, but in hindsight, I think they are for him leaving the party and heading off into the distance rather than fleeing (like when Gremag's spy in the barn runs off, or if you let Smigmal get away - that sort of running off. Very different than fleeing in combat). Certainly there's no dialogue trigger in there that I can see (though script files rarely have them plainly - they get the instructions to fire things like the greetings etc from somewhere else).

I could copy the script, but trying to get other NPCs to flee to test it... meh, there has to be a better way.

O well, back to the grind

Didn't say a word, that was a typo <whistles innocently>

 

Adding new music to new maps

So, you've just made a whole new map or area or whatever following Jota's "how to make a new map" thread (its a bit more fiddly than he suggests, but it works ). And you want to add a custom soundtrack. Well I will tell you what I did step by step.

First I made my new map - we'll call it Frank's house, because that is what it is. It will occur in that empty house north of the brewery. I am using Jinnerth the tailor's house as a template: i may modify it graphically later but I doubt it, since I just don't have much skill with those arty programs (some may have noticed...).

So... my new map is in the maps folder, its called map1-int30-Frank. Its name in map_names.mes is {5120}{Frank's house} (note I went straight on to 5120 rather than leaving a gap like I normally do, beacuse I couldn't get it working any other way - what I meant when i said it was a bit more fiddly than first thought). I changed other files of course but they are irrelevant for the music.

Anyways, lets get our new music file and put it in. It is mp3, right? Mine is an old Chicago song, i swear it was the only mp3 i could find on my PC, and the good Lord alone knows how it got there (rolls eyes). Anyway, copy it and stick it in the folder data\sound\music. I named mine 'testingmusic.mp3'.

Now, lets look at the music files. These are schemelist.mes and schemeindex.mes. These are in ToEE2.dat.

Crack schemelist. Mine ends at 3100, future generations may go later.

Soooooo... I insert a couple new lines:

§§§ FRANK'S HOUSE §§§

{3200}{music\testingmusic.mp3 /VOL:60 /loop}

Have a good look at this file: notice you can add ambient music too if u feel the need. For now, save, and stick this in the folder data\sound, right along side the music folder you just went into.

Now for schemeindex.mes. I added the line:

{32}{Frank's house #3200}

This, as the rem stuff at the top suggests, points straight into the schemelist.mes file you just modified. Also notice I spelled 'Frank's house' IDENTICALLY to how it occurs in map_names.mes. Dunno if that is important, but lets not tempt fate. Save and stick this file in the sound folder next to the other one.

Finally, go back to the folder in maps (map1-int30-Frank). Open it up and go down the bottom to the mapinfo text file. I don't know if this is called or not or just for info but again, lets not tempt fate and be consistent.

Since I copied Jinnerth's house, it will say "soundscheme: 1, 0" - thats the basic sound u hear wandering around Hommlet.

As u may have noticed in schemelist.mes, it goes in hundreds. Ours is 3200, so of course we change the mapinfo thing to "soundscheme: 32, 0". Save.

Thats all there is to it - simple eh? Modify 3 files, stick in the music and your done.

So... I run the game, start down near the Renton's (seem to spend my whole game in that house), pop the console and enter (after the utilities bit) game.fade_and_teleport(0,0,0,5120,489,485) to go to my new map. Presto, there I am.

The Hommlet music fades out, and the painful strains of Chicago's 'you're my inspiration' or something begin to swell. Not too far though - the music is too soft. Obviously I can change that by fiddling the vol setting in schemelist.mes. But the main thing is, IT WORKS!

Ok, I am off to the forums at Ultima V Lazarus to locate an mp3 of 'stones' (not for Frank's house, for a wilderness encounter i have in mind). I can imagine the reaction from the Ultima Dragons - "you want that 8 bit? 16? 24? Mono? Stereo? Quad?"

I tell u, people who obssess over computer games and spend all day on forums, are a worry ;-)

 

"Having more luck..." - do you mean you tried some of this stuff I described and it didn't work?

Allyx, u mentioned removing Marilyn's details from the mp3 before sticking it in. This was not an issue for the Chicago stuff which sensibly was anonymous ;-) Did u have to do that for Mazza to get 'him' to work and if so, how did you do it?

 

More mixed news

I found what I was after, but i think you can all wait for the mod to hear it ;-)

As for the battle stuff, I must have had a brain explosion, as there is another case when it always DOES appear: friendly fire. I tested this, took Elmo and Spugnoir off to meet the ogre in the moathouse: I threw them into the fray, then had my wiz stand back and 'burning hands' the three of them. On every occasion (out of about 5) one or the other of the NPCs voiced a complaint. I played out the battle til they both died, but alas, no death-throes from either, though they did come (as they should) from the PC's that I threw in to get killed. <sigh>

I thought of writing a script, one file that could trigger the various dialogues that all NPC's could call in combat (since the line numbers are always the same). But when I tried the easiest one - calling a death-throws line for Elmo (who already has a dying thing in his personall scr thing, i just added a line to it) - i got no response at all. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it will certainly need a more experienced modder than me.

Bugger.

Well I am at an impasse, and have gone back to werking on my mod today. If anyone has any ideas, speak up!

 

To clarify, what I was thinking of was simply locating an appropriate still image (for the moathouse, for example), animating it to some degree (making it pan in slowly, maybe), scrolling text over the whole thing (like we discussed before re the original module material), and adding background theme music. Creating new animations of sneaking kobolds or anything like that is quite beyond me, although I'm not above stealing someone else's material for our own use.

In fact, I thought recently that ToEE's opening cenematic could be cut up and redistributed to greater effect, portrayed as a "flashback" or "shadows of the past" type thing for players as they arrive at ToEE's different locales. For example, play the segment of the intro that displays the Battle of Emridy Meadows when you first arrive at Emridy Meadows (naturally), play the Zuggtmoy banishment scene when you first arrive at the temple, etc., that sort of thing.

The only problem is that cinematic (and that one alone) has some type of copy protection coded into it, so I'd have to find another way to "capture" the data. I think I can. ("You're so sly . . . but so am I.")

 

I didn't check if it would work with the track details, I removed them as a precautionary measure, as none of the other mp3's have them, it makes sence (to me at least) to make my file as similar to the one i'm replaceing as possable.

I did this by opening the properties for the track, click on the summary tab, click on >>advanced, right click on each line there is text on, and press delete, then click ok.

 

WaveAtMP3 by River Past is a suitable conversion tool. A google search of those terms should yield links to a free download.