Sounds of Skyrim

A quick update from me:

What does it do?

Sounds of Skyrim is an audio project split in three parts that, in the end, adds around 460+ sound effects to the game world. It affects almost every cell and region in the game. My main goal is to not have one environment that is soundless to enhance immersion. The sounds are affected by the time of day, weather and location. So when walking in the city streets during the day, you'll hear the echo of doors opening and closing, children playing and workers sawing things. While at night, cats fight for territory and dogs bark.

The three modules are Civilization, The Dungeons and The Wilds.

Civilization

Current Version: 1.01

Download: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/20193/? || http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=81064931

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8H_XmMYN-s

Civilization focuses on adding 223 new sound effects to cities, villages, farms and remote locations where civilization is present. In cities, you can hear the sound of a hammer being used by a villager repairing something, children playing, dogs barking or cats fighting. As you get closer to a tavern doorstep, the sounds of patron chatting from behind the door are played. When you get in, some patron may laugh out loud, yell or break something.

On farms or near them, you can hear the sounds of their animals, if they have any. Most of those sound effects can be heard inside buildings too, linking the interior cells with the exterior. If I take the farm example, you may hear the hen if you sit close to the window. If it’s raining, you’ll hear the rain hitting the windows; if there’s a snowstorm, you’ll hear the cold wind whistling by the windows.

Civilization Soundlist

Important: Upgrading Sounds of Skyrim - Civilization from version 1.0 to 1.01

If you had a save that used Civilization’s 1.0 version and that was cursed with bloat introduced by the mod, there are two ways to rescue your game from the bloat:

Using Skyrim Script Extender (Recommended):

- Download/Update Skyrim Script Extender from http://skse.silverlock.org/

- Uninstall Sounds of Skyrim – Civilization

- Open the console and type ClearInvalidRegistrations. You will see a message telling how many reports it found and removed. You must give it some time to work though, so play the game for a few minutes and make a new save.

- If everything has been done correctly, you should notice that your new save weighs less than your previous one. (Only if your previous save had bloat from version 1.0, that is)

- Install Sounds of Skyrim – Civilization as instructed in the readme. No more bloat!

Manually (Script editing involved):

- You will find instructions provided by community modder Arthmoor http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1423035-should-i-uninstall-sos-sounds-of-skyrim/?p=21961595. Note that you will need Notepad ++ and the knowledge of Papyrus to proceed. If you don’t, use Skyrim Script Extender instead.

Civilization Change Log

The Dungeons

Current Version: 1.22

Download: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/8601/? || http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=9106

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAmYNTJDCsk

The Dungeons includes 115+ sound effects to add life to the dungeons. The enemy type that inhabits a dungeon will make itself heard. At dungeons’ entrances, you also hear the exterior weather. If there’s a thunderstorm raging outside, you’ll hear the thunder rumbling in the fort or cave

There’s a standard sound set for each type of dungeon: Cave, Dwemer Ruins, Forts and Sewers. These sounds play in these dungeons regardless of who or what lives in it. To spice it up, dungeons inhabited by Falmer or the Undead have their own sound sets in addition to the standard ones. Undead dungeons have zombies and wraiths screaming or moaning. In Falmer dungeons, you’ll hear their occasional screams; a way of communicating with each other since they are nearly blind.

The Dungeons Soundlist

The Dungeons Change Log

The Wilds

Current Version: 1.12

Download: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/10886/? || http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=13231

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fFZVF5iL18

The Wilds focuses on adding sound effects in Skyrim's wilderness. With the 115 new sound effects, the purpose of The Wilds is to audibly enlarge Skyrim's fauna with the addition of various animals, birds and insects that play according to weather, time of day and region. In the forests, for example, you'll hear the sounds of foxes, deers and ravens. At night, you'll hear wolves howling from far away or common loons calling others. In The Reach, you might hear the occasional mountain goat or hawk.

In addition to animals, The Wilds also adds rain-impact sounds on tents and wooden structures, sounds of rustling bushes to simulate the movements of small mammals that scatter away as you approach and sounds of calm water waves hitting wood on tree logs or structures that are partially submerged in water.

The Wilds Soundlist

Recommended Audio/Visual Mods

Visual Mod: Realistic Lighting by Plutoman101

Download: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=7654
Why: Realistic Lighting greatly improves the game’s lighting in all areas, outside and inside. Dungeons are made darker and light sources are always needed to explore. With SoS – The Dungeons combined, it provides a dungeon delving experience that is more dangerous to your sanity while still being very enjoyable. With SoS – The Wilds, darker nights will make you listen more to your surroundings, allowing you to hear and distinct the new animal sounds around you.

Note: Make sure that the Sounds of Skyrim modules are loaded after Realistic Lighting in your load order to make them work together.

Visual Mod: Open Cities Skyrim by Arthmoor
Download: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/8058
Why: Open Cities Skyrim puts the walled cities in the same worldspace as the game world, meaning that there are no loading screens between the wilderness and the city itself. If you play with The Wilds and Civilization, the audio transition mixes perfectly with nature sounds slowly fading away while the busy city life starts playing as you enter the city and vice versa.

Audio Mod: Sounds of Nature by John129Pats
Download: http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/19333
Why: SoN replaces waterfall and fire sound effects with higher quality ones making them sound not only better, but also sound better in a more immersive way.

Credits

Sounds of Skyrim would never have been possible without the kind generosity of many authors on FreeSound.org. This website allows professionals and semi-professionals to upload sound samples under the Creative Commons Sampling Plus License, which allows users to download and use the sounds in their own projects as long as the author is credited for his work.

Since the list is very long, please refer to the SoundCredits file in the projects' readmes to view who the authors are, what sounds are credited and where to get them.

But, of course, this project received kind help and feedback from other people. Here they are:

Vendayn and Viltuska for the crash fix

Arthmoor for finding the solution to the infamous bloat bug introduced in Civilization.
Zanderat, Vinu, Shadowscales, Vermourn and Dark_Ansem for testing
The Community for suggesting additional sound effects and excellent ideas.
Duncan for his Atmospheric Sound Effects mod for Morrowind, which inspired me to do Sounds of Skyrim (Also credited in the SoundCredits file)

Bethesda Game Studios for the best open-world RPGs and Construction Set
Mark Lampert for his superb job as Bethesda's Sound Director.

Thank you for this, Cliffworms. I've heard so much about these mods over the last few months but was unable to find them, so I'm very excited. Lately I've been using the sounds plugin from Climates of Tamriel and have not been too impressed with it. So I'm especially eager to try these!

Thank you again for making your mods available for us late-comers.