I do not use any music in my game. I like the realism of the games sound effects rather than a "movie score" following me everyplace.

Unfortunately the games optional footstep volume control changes both the PC and the actors volume at the same time (not separately.) So far the only way I can see to do this is to manual increase the footstep sounds for all the creatures either in the CS or directly on the wave file.

So I have 2 questions, is there a batch volume changing program I can use to do this?

and or

Is there batter way to do this than the way I am planning to do it?

Another idea I had was to make a mod that made "twig snap" sounds when out side if any actor was coming up behind me. "bump" sounds while indoors and so on.

Maybe this would be a much easier way but man I really would like to just hear the actor's footsteps with out my ears being pounded by my own footsteps...

The walking sounds are embedded in the skeleton.nif. If you duplicate the character folders for _male, then point the entry for "Player" to the skeleton.nif in the new folder, you'll separate the player from the rest of the NPCs. Then you can create new quieter versions of the footsteps for the player, and modify the skeleton.nif to point to those new sounds instead. That way you can keep the sound up for the creatures and NPCs while keeping your own footsteps low.

edit: Probably have to repoint the sounds in the skeleton.nif in _firstperson as well, but no need to duplicate that one since NPCs can't be in first person.

I thought the 'fPlayerFootVolume=0.5000' in the oblivion.ini gave you control over just the PC.

I have done the rest as you suggested, but I cannot find the sound entries in NifSkope (after loading in the skeleton nif.)

Any idea where they are at?

I will try this and see!

I've gotta learn to start checking these things first. It's in the KF files, not the skeleton.nif.

NiTextKeyExtraData
Text Keys
Text Keys
Value Enum:Right

But, I hope that other idea works because, unlike every other sound in the animations, the Right and Left sounds don't seem to correspond to any of the Sounds in the Construction Set. Seems like it's hard coded, although you might still be able to change them by creating new footfall sounds and putting them in the Text Key.

Thanks Showler, I am trying ThumperZ's suggestion now, and I "think" it is working. I may still need to adjust the other volumes (fx and voice and the master and so on...)
to get just what I wanted. But if this works out ThumperZ just saved the day!

Now if I could adjust the volumes dynamically (which I think I can) I might allow actors with a high sneak to have no footstep sounds. :hehe:

Only in cases where it is just one NPC or all the NPC have a high sneak that are behind me. Not a perfect mod (lots of issue with this idea) but one that will work fine for my personal use.