Hi,

i have been trying to create a new NPC. That worked out well enough. I created him, placed him in the world and even made him a merchant. Now I am at a point where I would like to make him appear more like an actual person... meaning I would like to make him talk.

This presents me with a few problems:
1. How do I create a "casual" dialogue? Meaning that there should be no reference to it in the Questlog. The tutorials I have found all refer to dialogues tied to quests. I figure that there would be some setting to make a quest "invisible" but I have not yet found it.

2. Since I am a bit of a perfectionist I would like to create my own voicetype. It freaks me out that the NPC would greet me with one voice an then tell stories with another.

3. I tried to record voice in the creation kit. It didn't work. Since I am using both an external audiointerface and the built-in chipset I manually picked the correct one using the "Configure" button. It still didn't work. Any ideas?

4. How can I insert previously recorded Soundfiles into the game? I would like to record my dialogue parts beforhand and then simply insert them into the creation kit (instead of using the recording utility). I figure I will just have to put them into the proper folder... but I could not find it.


I think you get the idea of what i am trying to do. Is there anything else i have to look out for?

BTW the whole audiorecording part will not be a problem... working in a radiostation i do that sort of thing every day.

Hope you can help me,

bertibott

1. The normal and cleanest way to create dialog is to make a quest *).. This quest doesn't have to have any stages. You can still make dialog that shows up right from start. If you double-click on your quest and go to the Player Dialog tab, you will see that below the area called "Branches", there is something called "Branch Data", where you can choose between "Normal", "Top-Level" and "Blocking".
Make your topics "Top-Level" and they are there right from start.
If your guy is a merchant, you'll probably want to give him a selling topic. In this topic you have to add the following script in the end fragment:
akSpeaker.ShowBarterMenu()
You can compare with for instance Belethor's topic in quest "DialogueGeneric"->ServicesBranch (Go to Actor Belethor, click on the "Dialogue"-button to get access to his dialog).

2. Good idea. Just go to "Voice types" in the object window and create your own. Nothing difficult about this.

3. You probably made the same mistake as I did first and simply forgot to actually save what you recorded... However, I strongly recommend that you use Audacity instead of the inbuilt voice recorder - the quality is superior and Audacity is freeware. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/?lang=sv (EDIT: I just re-read about that you have access to all sort of recording equipment, so I guess you have better tools than Audacity. I wont remove the link in case someone else is reading this thread and find the information useful).
I usually do the recording in Audacity and then export my entry in wav-format to the right folder (Sound->Voice->MyQuest.esp->MyVoicetype). Then I re-open the entry in the ck, now you will see that the wav-file is there, and you can now make your lipsync-file for it.
Note that your recording have to have the correct format, which is Mono 44100 hz 32-bit float.

4. I guess I just replied to this... However, the easiest way to auto-create the right folder with the right folder-path is to make one dummy-recording with the ck-inbuild voice-recorder and save it. By doing this, the folders will be auto-created.

Hope this helps


*) One thing I should mention: currently, there is a bug with quests in Skyrim. In order to activate your quest ingame, you have to start Skyrim with your quest enabled, save the game, quit, reload your new save. This should make your quest work. Hopefully Bethesda will cure this issue soon; the bug is new with ver 1.7.

1. You can easily create a dialogue that is not tied to the quest but you should start it as a quest (maybe it sounds a bit confusing). Go to Character=>Quset, then right click and make new one. Craete the ID (e.g. DialogueGuard), but don't give a name to the quest(You don't need it). Put any priority you want. For example 60. Then press OK button and then open it again. Open Dialogue Views and then create one you want. This tutorial will help http://www.creationkit.com/Bethesda_Tutorial_Dialogue.

2. Same tutorial will explain how to create a voice file. If you don't want a voice of NPC itself just go edit your NPC and in Traits when it asks NPC voice type choose "None"

3. I don't know what's the problem just try it again. When you record your voice file don't forget to press save button. If you just use OK it is not going to save it. (It works for me both headset and computer)

4. Sorry but I have no idea how to help you here.

Ooops I was too late =)

Thanks Guys! I think that will get me a good portion of the way.

On 3.
I did save. A .wav file has been created. It only has nothing in it except for a little white noise (i can hear that when i press "preview"). I suspect it is using the external interface that has no microphone connected instead of the built-in interface.

I think I got the problem. I think it's the same one I had. Unplug your microphone set and use the one your computer has inside. (Somehow my microphone was recording not enough loud even when I was shouting. When I unpluged external one it worked much better.)

I am having a few problems with this. I put my separately recorded file into the folder (Sound->Voice->MyQuest.esp->MyVoicetype). And replaced the existing file. Still when i click "preview" i hear nothing but white noise.
He tried it out in game. Nothing happens.. and more over... he has forgotten that he is a merchent es well. EDIT: He still is a merchant... my mistake i had his "working hours" mixed up.
What do I do?

Originally I had the following stages in mind:

• create NPC "Agnilius" -> check!
  
• place him in the Dead Mans Drink -> check!
  
• make him a merchant for a few books, including the on he has written himself -> check!
  
• let him tell you stories about his travels (casual non-questrelatet dialogue) ->
  
• create new voicetype to polish him a little bit
  
• maybe a real quest

Does your wav-file show up in the ck? I.e. if you doubleclick on one of his dialog entries, you should below the voice-file name and the "Select sound" see a big box where you can see which voice-types are used for this entry, which kind of voice-files the entry (xml, wav, lip etc) and the file path.

If your wav-file shows up in the ck, instead of clicking preview, highlight the line in that box and double-click on it. Now you should be able to listen to the voice-entry!

As for nothing showing up ingame, did you see what I wrote about the 1.7 bug above? It is a nuisance, and as your quest probably is started game enabled, you have to follow the right steps to activate it. I.e.:

Choose a save that is totally free from your mod. Load this save with your mod activated. When you get ingame, don't go and talk to the merchant. Instead, save game and quit game. Reload your new save and go and talk to your merchant. Hopefully this should work! (I'm not quite sure about what you mean when you say "Nothing happens ingame" - obviously he is a merchant so that part exists :/)

The Preview button always plays the last thing you recorded in the CK. It doesn't play whatever sound you're looking at.

No it does not. Funny side note... even if it did that would not help much because the box's side is static... and the path is so lang that it does not fit into it... ergo i could not tell the files appart anyway...




I tried that... to no avail. (Deactivated the mod, created anew char, saved twice, actived mod, loaded)
The option "You don look like you are from Skyrim" (creative... I know) just does not show up when I talk to the guy.

Also I have noticed a strange behavior in the CK the topicname does not show up in the Dialogue view.

I created the quest according to the turorial on the http://www.creationkit.com/Bethesda_Tutorial_Dialogue except that i did not enter a name for the quest.

Any ideas?

Have you already given your npc an unique voice? If you have, I suggest that you temporary give him one of the standard voices, just to make it easier to trouble-shoot what the error is. Check if it works once you are using one of the original voices instead.

If you get that working, we'll return to adding a custom unique voice, but we first have to figure out what the problem is.

It could be that you actually have to give your quest a name. I had a similar problem which turned early on which happened to be related to that I... had not entered a name for my quest!

No, cuurrently I am using the "MaleCoward" voice Type.

I also gave the Quest a name.
No changes.
This is starting to be frustrating

I also had a problem with deleting parts of the dialogue. I could not delete a topic or response. Only the whole branch. So when I tried to re-create the dialogue I could not use the same names I had used before....
I think I will simply delete the whole plugin and start all over again.

You definitely do not need to give your quest a name. Not being able to delete a topic is weird, unless you just mean that, after deleting one, you can't use the same name again before reloading your mod - which is normal. But this:


is not the correct procedure to get around the new dialogue bug. You need to make one savegame without your mod loaded. Then you need to activate your mod, load the clean savegame, save it as a different save game, load this second savegame (i.e., one with the mod activated), and then try.

That worked!
Now the dialogue options shows when I try to talk to him.
Now I'll try to get some sound out of him.


EDIT:
Replacing the original voicefile (the empty one created using the CK) with one with exactly the same name worked. But the CK still won't recognise any other files I put in the folder.

I think I can make do with that but it's going to be hard to keep track of things when the dialogue grows (since the auto-generated names for the files ore a little cryptic).