[Re-RELZ] XES4MW and RAMW - Imperial : III

» Sat May 28, 2011 3:37 am

Hey everyone! I thought I'd dust this old release off once more and see if anybody wants it~
Two mods. XES4MW - "xTREME Enviromental Sounds 4Morrowind" and "Retextured Architecture of MorroWind - Imperial edition".

The sound replacer was released about 2-3 years ago as a temporary RELz till I got around to finishing it and tracking down who to give credit to for the original sounds...
Not much luck. But, I did update the mod from v0.2 to v0.3 with corrected volumes to better match the original, and fixed a small silent spot at the end of one of the sounds.

What is it? xTREME Enviromental Sounds was my answer to all of those replacers; better bodies, better faces, better textures, etc etc... but no better sounds :O So I went out looking for the very best sounds I could find and came up with a high definition replacer for some of the enviromental sounds. I personally edited the sounds, cut, looped, run filters for audio levels etc... This replacer is for those who don't use an existing sound mod, but use a good sound system or headphones.

It's only version 0.3 since if I ever get around to it, I'd like to continue replacing more sounds, or perhaps make a wav replacer for PirateLord's sounds or one of the existing replacers. The file is split into two 65~ MB pieces. I used wave pack to compress the wav's losslessly, so there will be no loss in quality while having a smaller download

Also some of the sounds are very long, so on some machines you might experience a small glitch in the matrix [pause for a second or a blackcat passing twice] when loading the first time.

Instructions for install are pretty easy. Extract to desktop or somewhere temporary, run the file called BatchExtract.bat and assuming there were no problems extracting the audio, run the other file RemoveEXE.bat to remove the compressed files. Otherwise just click on each file individually to have it extract one at a time.
Once they are extracted, just copy the Sound directory to your Data Files folder and play~ If might want to backup your original wavs if you think you won't like them.

I might upload a video to youtube, if requested, to let you sample the sounds~

Here's the readme :

*****************************************************************

The Elder Scrolls III
MORROWIND:
XES4Morrowind v0.3
xTREME Enviromental Sounds by X-Calibar (x-calibar@geocities.com) 4Morrowind!
*****************************************************************

Index:
1. Installation
2. Playing the Plugin

*****************************************************************

1. INSTALLING THE PLUGIN

*****************************************************************

Only assured to work on a Morrowind + BM + Tribunal install. [some of Morrowind's sounds get renamed in the expansions I believe]

To install the sounds, unrar the files and run BatchExtract.bat, which is included in the sound folder.
Alternatively, click on all the EXE files manually.
Then run RemoveEXE.bat to get rid of the EXE files from this archive after successful extraction! [or manually delete them]

Here are the sounds included in this mod :
Fx\_Thunder0
Fx\_Thunder1
Fx\bm_large_fire
Fx\BMWind
Fx\envrn\blight
Fx\envrn\cave_wind
Fx\envrn\fire
Fx\envrn\fire_trch
Fx\envrn\flies
Fx\envrn\Inflies1
Fx\envrn\rain
Fx\envrn\rainHVY
Fx\envrn\splash_lrg2
Fx\envrn\swamp01
Fx\envrn\swamp02
Fx\envrn\swamp03
Fx\envrn\thndr_cls3
Fx\envrn\thndr_far2
Fx\envrn\thndr_far3
Fx\envrn\thndr_far
Fx\envrn\undrwatr
Fx\envrn\watr_lake
Fx\envrn\watr_rivr
Fx\envrn\watr_stream2
Fx\envrn\watr_stream
Fx\envrn\watr_trikl
Fx\envrn\watr_wave2
Fx\envrn\watr_wave
Fx\envrn\watrfall
Fx\envrn\watrfallSML
Fx\envrn\wind_HVY
Fx\REGN\rocks1
Fx\REGN\rocks2
Fx\REGN\rocks3
Fx\REGN\rocks4
Fx\REGN\rocks5
Fx\REGN\rocks6
Fx\REGN\rocks7
Fx\REGN\rocks8

Best used with BCsounds (Bittercoast sounds plugin);
It doesn't mix well with other large replacers due to the difference in sound quality.

*****************************************************************

2. PLAYING THE PLUGIN

*****************************************************************

Plug and play! This is a simple replacer for some base enviromental
Morrowind+Tribunal+Bloodmoon sounds with better quality files.

Be awed by the majesty of sound realism. Try to brush away the flies, warm yourself by the fire;
Jump at the sound of thunder! Or just enjoy the peace of falling rain~
I edited large sound recordings down and looped them seemlessly, and to be volume accurate with the original sounds;
But, basically put it together for myself!
I found the original sounds googling randomly, if you recognize these sounds contact me~!

So on that note I reccomend keeping these sounds just for Morrowind~
[Until we can contact the owner?]
Enjoy!

Only problem I've encountered; on slower computers sometimes the larger sounds loading may momentarily pause Morrowind...
[also I haven't tested the sounds in 3d mode due to problems]

And here's the download links :
http://www.4shared.com/file/85150373/7959396/XES4MWv03part1.html
http://www.4shared.com/file/85151173/bcad209d/XES4MWv03part2.html

Enjoy! (I'm not sure about uploading to PlanetElderScrolls since the filesize is large...)

And the second mod is simply reminding people about the texture mod I released at the same time :
Retextured Architecture of MorroWind, Imperial textures.

It's a replacer that goes well with Plangkye's Hi-Res Telvanni Textures. I designed the mod attempting to keep the exact same texture and feeling as found with original Bethesda imperial textures, but with a much higher res.

Some Examples (top is original texture, bottom is my version) :
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y133/X-Calibar/Morrowind/Textures/tx_imp_step_05.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y133/X-Calibar/Morrowind/Textures/RAMW%20Imperial/Jan16th2007/RAMW3.jpg (Note the door's wood is not part of my replacer)
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y133/X-Calibar/Morrowind/Textures/RAMW%20Imperial/Jan16th2007/RAMW6.jpg

Here's the readme :

*****************************************************************

The Elder Scrolls III
MORROWIND:
RAMW - Imperial 4MW!
Retextured Architecture of Morrowind
Imperial v1.0 by X-Calibar (x-calibar@geocities.com) 4Morrowind!

*****************************************************************

Index:
1. Installation
2. Playing the Plugin
3. Storytime
4. Credits

*****************************************************************

1. INSTALLING THE PLUGIN

*****************************************************************

Remember to backup your existing Textures in case you don't like these!
To install the replacer, unzip the files into the Morrowind/Data Files
directory. [Textures go into the Textures directory]

No scripts in this version! No ESP or anything~! Drop and enjoy.

*****************************************************************

2. PLAYING THE PLUGIN

*****************************************************************

Plug and play! This is a simple texture replacer for Imperial Textures.
I did however build this while using Qarl's XT Replacer, so you might want to get that!

If you love the original Morrowind textures, but can't resist the temptation of a High Definition MW.
Then this texture pack might just be for you

Make sure you backup your textures before you replace them with these~ Just in case...
Other than that, just enjoy! And if there's something wrong look me up on
Elder Scrolls Fourms~ or e-mail me with the heading RAMW Imperial if all else fails

I don't believe there should be a performance hit,
but if someone truly believes this is the case, I can resize these and release a smaller version of these~

Other than that just enjoy! It's version 1.0; And I'm pretty happy with the results~
Although I started to get impatient and decided to release, as is:

But enough of this

Enjoy~

*****************************************************************

3. Super Fun Storytime

*****************************************************************

Yay! Okay how did this get started? Do I have plans to continue? Who am I?
Did I ask for permission to edit these?! What's the meaning of life...?
Some of these will be answered... NOW!

*
The meaning of life is....

*pause*

*ahem* Where was I, oh yeah; This got started thanks to Burgomaster, CrisG9, Earth_Wyrm [bet he doesn't know he did yet!];
the great amazing huge, monsterous modding community and the many many many mods, and my own whims!

I had just been visiting The Elder Scrolls Fourms for a while; I started to watch the Your Morrowind World thread, when
Swampy Swamps, and a thread Called Retextured Architecture of Morrowind showed up :O Yes! The name of the mod is thanks to Burgomaster~!

I didn't start right away, I made random comments here and there,
released screenshots as the original purpose of the thread was to share screenshots of retextures~
I began to create large charts to compare the different textures that are out there... and before I knew it;
I used these charts to pick and choose the textures I wanted and if that wasn't enough I started to edit them :O

*
Do I have plans to continue? I think so. There's so many things I can be doing or need to do;
I'd love to see MW continue to be retextured over and over; and of course if I have the time, and I find the right textures~
I'll continue this here and there

But, don't get your hopes up! I'm still learning to finish things ;P

*
oh right I've been an avid Morrowind fan for a long time, I bought MW when it came out~
Beat it a few years later and finally started browsing the MW Modding Community!
Now 2006, I finally actually started to lift my own weight

I've done some simple mods now, sound, texture, repointing and fixing a few mods...
But, THIS is the first mod I'm officially releasing

This is a pretty lousy story

...
And so they lived happily ever after... [until my next release]

*
Oh yeah, except for the Shingles textures; I was able to confirm permission.
[The Shingles texture is in several big texture replacers, so I'm going to credit them!
And if there is a problem? Or someone knows who to credit

Message me~!

I spent a week or two? Getting to this point till typing this now~

*
I'm sleep deprived so ignore my ranting and check those Credits!
Oh and if you want to edit these, sure! Just make sure to give credit/contact the authors to give thanks!

*****************************************************************

4. extendedCredits

*****************************************************************

Qarl for his excellent works, and in particular I used/edited and included these textures from Visual Pack XT :

Tx_imp_half_01
Tx_imp_full_01
Tx_imp_wall_01
Tx_imp_wall_02
Tx_imp_wall_03
Tx_imp_walltop_01

Jarrod for his great replacers and other works~! And in particular I used/edited and included from Jarrod's Imperial Replacer :
Tx_imp_floor_02 which I used as Tx_imp_floor_01

And to the unknown author of the great shingles texture! It must be one of these people :O

Credits go to:
TO ALL THE GREAT ARTISTS OF THE COMMUNITY, FOR ALL THEIR MAGNIFICENT
WORK, MAKING THE WORLD OF MORROWIND A UNIQUE PLACE TO BE.

ESPECIALLY THE ONES THAT THIS PACKAGE IS BASED UPON THEIR WORK:
HeadlessWonder
Khalazaa
Qarl
Zuldazug
Raptre
Lord Gabryael
Ayse
Hendalf
Michael 'HelioS' Bennett

And finally, for the absolutely wonderful Tx_cobblestone_01 texture from Roads to Heaven v. 1.0 by Max a.k.a. ~NOOBDY~ and possibly

Thanx William Smith & Mayang Murni Adnin for some of the
photographic material used in this mod.

An artist at the free repository at Turbosquid.com/WWW seems to have taken/created the original texture! Thanks Max!

Other new textures are edited from Qarl's Oblivion Texture mod~!

Earth_Wyrm for his seemless textures tutorial, his Swampy Swamp textures as an inspiration :O,
and his comment on Mipmaps! [I had forgotten all about those :O]

Burgomaster for his thread Retextured Architecture of Morrowind http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=576143
Which you can read and see how it all started :O

Cris for his enthuasium for the Imperial textures :O and MW in general

!

Kateri for happily posting

oh and I guess even Raveren

yahoo!

DesertRat for his unique imperial replacer! And his comments~!

I could go on all day, but you didn't download this for the readme file did you? :O

And here's the download links :
http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Mods.Detail&id=5044
or
http://www.4shared.com/file/84647655/c1cebccf/RAMW-Imperialv10.html

Enjoy~!

» Fri May 27, 2011 8:22 pm

Thank you for posting these again.

Are the sounds from freesound.org?

Best,

Swiveller

» Fri May 27, 2011 10:27 pm

RAMW - Imperial has always been my favourite Imperial castle replacer, though I've been using Connary's lately. Maybe I'll get this one again.

» Sat May 28, 2011 1:01 am

I think the XES4Morrowind v0.3 archive has the most innovative way of presenting install instructions that I've sen so far. They are *really* hard to miss.

» Sat May 28, 2011 3:33 am

I went ahead and made a youtube video comparing the vanilla/original sounds to the XES mods sounds... so now you can decide if it's worth it or not

Here's the video in stereo HD sound : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMEUOCKddXs&fmt=22
Here's the video in stereo sound : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMEUOCKddXs&fmt=18

I need to check one thing I hope I didn't mess up on though... All of the sounds I used are in stereo, which sounds great, although I should check to make sure there is no side effects... [they play fine in game I know, but I haven't checked to see if it affects sound positioning for all the sounds]

@Mr. Swiveller - Not sure... I got a bunch of these sounds from a friend a long time ago.
@povuholo - I'm honored you like it

I wonder if there is a way to improve them? Does Connary's imperial textures use any special techniques like bump mapping or something? I wanted to check that~

@Psyringe - lol you like that?

I figured since it was an unusual install procedure I tried to figure out how I could make it clear to follow...
Hopefully it got the point across

» Fri May 27, 2011 9:12 pm

Most of the sounds are great. I'm questioning the Waterfall sounds, the rock sounds, and the thunder sounds. Those are the few that I wasn't sure about. The thunder didn't sound as frightening as the original. The waterfall (specifically the large waterfall) just didn't sound right to me for some reason. I'm not sure what it was about the new rock sounds, but something wasn't right with them. I think the sounded very similar to each other (I think there were 8 rock sounds). So for improvements, I think those are the ones you should work on. The rest sounded great to me. Well, they all sounded great, but the ones I mentioned are the ones I think could sound great-er.

:goodjob:

» Fri May 27, 2011 10:07 pm

The only sound that bothers me is the first thunder sound... thndr_cls3. That sound just doesn't capture the same feeling as the mind-jolting original lol But, I don't know when I'll be able to get new sounds, and what I posted was what I had to work with...

As for the other thunder sounds, I really like them. I wear quality headphones when playing MW and you can really hear the realism as the thunder rolls across the scene. Make sure you noted the lengths of the original sounds and the new sounds though... Example : Original thndr_far is 2 seconds long. New thndr_far is 13 seconds... I don't play the whole sounds in the video since it would make it much longer. They sound very, very real compared to the thunder we get around here so I don't think I want to change the other thunder sounds. But that thndr_far ... hmmm I'll keep an ear out for a replacement

As for the rocks? They do sound different but I am pretty happy with it. When you're walking around mountainous regions it catches your attention, unlike the original sounds which I really never heard before in all my travels...

And really? Waterfall is not good? Hmm... I like it though

I wonder if others feel the same way?
thanks for the feedback Spiffyman! Not sure if I'll change any of the others but, you've brought it to my attention. I'll look them over again in game

» Fri May 27, 2011 9:25 pm

I checked out the video again. I agree, it was really only thndr_cls3 that I had an issue with. The others were good. I might point out that you have thunder in 2 parts of the video. Also, I liked the swamp sounds even though they were about 28x longer than the originals

I take back the waterfall sound issue. I wasn't fond of the MW version, yours is an improvement. Water Wave2 is much more calming than the original, which I thought was nice. You also pointed out something that I didn't realize. I don't remember even hearing the rock sounds in game. So if yours are more noticeable, then they are automatically better. Good job! Almost forgot to mention that I found several sound much better than the originals: Fire, flies, rain, and the swamp sounds.

I have a question though. For the sounds downloads: one is called part 1 and the other part 2. Thus I assume I need them both. So after I downloaded them, I can use part 1 successfully, but part 2 won't unzip because it says I need a password? Any clue what that's about?

Do I have to leave these as .wav files for them to work? Can I compress them into other file types (so that they are not so big. Particularly the 30mb swamp sounds)?

» Fri May 27, 2011 6:37 pm

Hey Spiffyman! Yeah, you need both part 1 and 2 to extract the files. When you extracted the files from part 1... it let you extract everything right?
If you try to open it up from part 2 I think it won't work correctly. But, as long as you were able to extract everything fine when running part 1 it should be everything.

I'm not sure about converting them... you might be able to change them into mp3s, I think Morrowind supports those. But, you might have to delete the original wav sounds before you can hear the mp3 version in game...

I'm glad you like it though ...! I could do a mp3 version of this if that actually works. I just didn't want to lose any quality... lol

» Fri May 27, 2011 9:31 pm

@X-Calibar
Decided to try these out and wanted to report some issues.

All the files in XES4MWv03part2 appear to be exactly the same as those in part1. Every file you list in the readme gets extracted from part1, so why then would we need part2? :huh:

If it matters, XES4MWv03part2 file ...Sounds\FX\envrn\undrwatr.exe gives an error on extract - file broken.

Thanks for making these available! B)

» Sat May 28, 2011 5:35 am

Just a bump for these two, and a note that I was able to extract undrwatr.exe without error.

Some cool sounds and textures here, thank you!