I recall reading somewhere a while back that someone had started working on a sort of 'voice library' resource that included vanilla voice files that had been 'chopped up' into words and phrases for reuse in original dialogue but I can't seem to find it anywhere. I might just be looking in the wrong place, so if someone knows what I'm talking about, please point me in the right direction.

In any case, since I've had to start creating these files for my own mod (finally got a working lip + mp3 in-game!) I was wondering if anyone would be interested in these files as a resource, or if it's even permissible to release them. I'm not really sure what the copyright restrictions are on releasing files like this, but I was planning on releasing them with my mod in any case so I'm hoping it's ok.

Wrong thread (how did I manage that?) Ignore.

Kind of a grey area. Many mods release with voice files taken from the game - but in principle Bethesda could ask for seize and desist, no?

And as for the resource. I would think people would pull the voices they need from the original anyway. Rather if you built a database where one could search where to find the words in the original bsa; search specifics like race, gender too.

As chopping up the words wont solve anything really, since one has to find the words that has the same characteristics to fit together; then work with each word (eq, stretch, tune, fade, add sibilance or take it away, sound fx and what not), then work with the sentence as a whole. With a little work it would sound seamless

But I'd love to see a database that lists all the words in the BSA with a search function to beat, if you can do that in less than a year without going insane in the process that is :hehe:

Cheers!

I would surely be very interested in files with the original voices that was teared up in phrases and lipsynced. I'm not sure if it would be OK to release this as a package with thousands of files - most likely not - but I can't imagine that Bethesda minds if we use some chopped up or merged files in our mods.

In fact, I have been surprised that this technique has been used so little in Oblivion mods. I guess it's the amount of work that is discouraging.

Chopping up in words surely won't solve anything, but chopping up in sentences and phrases surely woould be helpful.



There already 'exists' a database that lists all the words in the BSA. It's called the Construction Set. ;). Go to Edit->Find Text. type in the word or phrase you are looking for, and you will get a nice list of in which topics you can find it.

I agree, the CS works very well for searching dialogue text. I don't think Beth would have a problem with releasing modified voice files, since in essence they're no different from retexes or modified meshes; my uncertainty results from the fact that voice actors are involved as well. Certainly lots of modders release mods with voice files, but I'm not sure a voice pack would fly as well. :shrug:

The other concern, of course, is over the size. Each voice file would have to be released in 11 different voices with 11 corresponding lip files. I was thinking of a sort of database where you could just dl the specific files you needed. By 'words' I meant one-word phrases, like 'Thanks', 'Yes', 'No', etc., but most of those already exist in the bsa. Getting the words in different fragments to 'merge' and sound good might be harder than I thought at first having experimented with it a bit yesterday.

There was something called ODDC (can't find its thread here) that had a word database linked to the sound files and a simple editor to cut/paste them together. Didn't help me with "Peppermint Schnapps" but it was good for the mundane stuff. I think alot of the mods that cloned dialog used that as a start point.

I got ODDC (Oblivion Dynamic Dialog Creation) here: http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=19546.

Shouldn't you multiply with any availiable language version also?

Thanks for the link, Auryga. I think that might have been what I was looking for. (I must have searched every word but dialogue. :facepalm: Really need to start getting more sleep....) I'll check it out and see if it's any help.

And no, I'm not multiplying it by every available language. I have a feeling I'd be pretty bad at editing German, Spanish or Japanese voice files. Though it occurs to me that if you matched the English voice files with foreign language lip files you could make a 'badly dubbed Oblivion' mod. :lmao:

I used ODDC for my first mod, haven't done any 'voice work' since then, but I remember it is a very well done tool, was exactly what I needed then. For my mini quest I only needed one answer not availiable in the vanilla dialogs. Could cut this missing one out of a vanilla dialog with ODDC. Just some minutes work, most of which was loading the game data .

After fiddling around with it a bit it seems like just the thing I was looking for. Much easier than doing it all in Audacity. Creating the lip files is still a pain, but you can't have everything, and this has simplified the entire process for me, so thanks again for the link!