Sound
From GECK
Sound forms are used for most game audio (Aside from most actor dialogue) to tell the game how loud or at what distance to play them. They can be placed directly into the world through the Render Window to create emitters and be directly associated and emit from some object types, such as statics, containers, doors and creatures. They can also be indirectly associated with some objects via the NIF file (some meshes have a sound associated with a certain material type or animation state) as well as KF animation files. Sounds can also be played from scripts such as when using PlaySound.
Sound Dialog
The Sound window has two tabs (Main, and Attenuation):
- Main:
- ID: Unique editor ID for the sound.
- Sound Filename: Path to the sound filename or folder containing multiple sounds.
- Start/Stop: Start/Stop the sound preview.
- 0: This checkbox is actually 'Enable live update preview' and the 0 being displayed is a bug in the GECK. Fixed in GECK Extender
- Minimum Attenuation Distance: Adjusts the sound's inner radius, or the distance from the sound at which the sound's volume will be at its maximum (its Static Attenuation). Measured in game units.
- Maximum Attenuation Distance: Adjusts the sound's outer radius, or the distance from the sound at which the sound's volume will be at its minimum before cutting off completely. Measured in game units.
- Static Attenuation: Adjusts the sound's maximum volume, relative to it's volume within the source sound file. For example, if the source sound file's peak volume is -3 dB(FS) and the Static Attenuation is set to -3 dB(FS), the maximum volume within the game (the sound's volume at its inner radius) will be -6 dB(FS). In other words, you typically want to author the source sound file at or near its maximum full-scale volume, then attenuate that volume using this slider rather than within the file itself. Note that you cannot add gain ... only attenuate.
- Random Frequency Shift: When this box is unchecked, the Frequency Adjustment percentage above affects how much the sound's pitch is shifted (higher or lower) upon playback, and the shift will always be the same (when set to -5%, the sound will always be pitch shifted down 5% from its current unaffected pitch. If this box is checked, the percents above now affects the Frequency Variance of the sound upon each instance of playback (when set to 10%, the sound's pitch will be shifted randomly upon playback as high as 10% or as low as -10% and all points in between).
- Random Location: (not currently supported)
- Menu Sound: bypasses any reverb send settings. Playback is forced 2D.
- Environment Ignored: bypasses any reverb effects send settings.
- 2D: forces playback in 2D with no 3D positioning or inner/outer radii settings in the game world.
- 2D radius: forces playback in 2D but with 3D positioning and inner/outer radii settings in the game world. Use with stereo files only.
- 360 LFE: Enables Low Frequency Effects.
- Dialogue Sound: (not currently supported)
- Mute When Submerged: mutes playback of the sound when the player or camera is below the surface of water. Example: rain and wind.
- Looping:
- None: the sound will not loop and will play back only once upon being called.
- Loop: the sound will loop indefinitely until disabled or otherwise told to stop playback.
- Envelope Fast requires loop region metadata within the sound file (the sound editing program must support creating loop points; Audacity doesn't have it, but e.g. Wavosaur does). Playback will start, loop region will loop indefinitely until the sound is told to stop at which time playback will immediately jump to the 'release' portion of the sound file.
- Envelope Slow requires loop region metadata within the sound file (the sound editing program must support creating loop points; Audacity doesn't have it, but e.g. Wavosaur does). Playback will start, loop region will loop indefinitely until the sound is told to stop at which time playback will be allowed to continue from its current point in the loop through the 'release' of the sound file.
- Starts at/Ends at: start and end times (in 24 hour format) within which the sound is allowed to play in the game. Example: a looping stereo cricket sound is set to play in the forest and is set only to play between the hours of 21:00 and 06:00. The sound will fade in and out at these times according to parameters within the game's .INI file. If both times are set exactly the same, the sound will be allowed to play 24 hours a day.
- Attenuation: This tab has five sliders to modify the attenuation curve.
- Sliders: The topmost slider is the sound's volume percentage at its inner radius. The bottommost slider is the sound's volume percentage at its outer radius. The values in between these top and bottom sliders describe the volume falloff curve between the inner and outer radius of the sound. The curve defaults to a logarithmic falloff.
- Reverb Attenuation Control: When set to 100, the sound's reverb send is 100% attenuated -- no sound is sent into the current reverb preset. When set to 0, the sound's reverb send is completely unatteuated -- all of the sound is allowed into the current reverb preset.
- Priority: Used to assign priority to a sound which is taken into account by the audio engine when not enough audio memory is available. Lowest priority sounds' playback will be cancelled before higher priority sounds.
Notes
- Sounds can be in .wav, .ogg or .mp3 format. GECK will not be able to play sounds in .ogg or .mp3 format. Note that MP3s and OGGs work for some specific things such as music but they do not work when used as sound effects like weapons, common sound effects should always be WAV.
- Sounds should always be in .wav or the engine may not play them.
- Sounds that are not menu sounds or player exclusive and are meant to play in the game world or emit from game objects should usually be mono otherwise they may not function correctly and play at full volume regardless of distance. However if you want to use stereo sounds with distance based volume then set the "2D radius" setting.
- Be careful when renaming sound IDs, as NIFs or KF files (Animation files) sometimes reference sound IDs to play various different sounds. To change sounds played in these files you will need to open them in Nifskope.
- Checking "Use Info" on a sound record can be misleading, the GECK does not report uses of sounds inside of dialogue responses inside of quests nor sounds called from NIFs or animations.
- All Sound files should be nested somewhere within the "FX" or "Music" folders, sounds not nested within those cannot be played by neither the game nor the GECK.
