Adding Sounds to your Game¶
Note
This guide is specifically for setting up simple one-shot sounds. If you want to play music instead, start reading here.
Preparation¶
To use sounds in-game, you first have to add them to a soundbank that's loded when they are supposed to play, i.e. the entity they are associated with is currently loaded. There are a few soundbanks that are always loaded: init, cs_main, cs_smain, and vcmain (1).
- See the entry on soundbanks for more information.
However, init shouldn't hold any sounds, cs_main is huge and takes patience to work with, cs_smain is meant for music and vcmain is meant for dialog; so it's generally better to create your own custom soundbank.
Whichever way you choose, you need to decide on two things: the sound type, and the ID, which together form the event name. While the sound type is just a way to categorize sounds, some places like FXR sounds or dialog lines only allow specific types (s and v in these cases, but depends on the game).
Tip
As usual, it is best to compare with vanilla things that in spirit already do what you want.
Modifying the Soundbank¶
The easiest ways to setup your new sounds is by using the simple sounds tool (or batch sound builder if you have many sounds). Don't forget to save and repack your soundbank once you're done!
Place your modified soundbank in your mod's Game/sd/ folder. If you have created an entirely new soundbank, see the in-game setup section to get it loaded by the game.
Playing your Sounds¶
How to play your sounds very much depends on your game and use case, but to give you a general idea:
| Where | Software | How |
|---|---|---|
| Animations | DSAS | Add a TAE 129 Wwise_PlaySound_BySlot event. |
| FXR | fxr-playground | Add a node with a NodeSound or EmissionSound action. |
| SpEffects | Smithbox | Use an SpEffectVfxParam and set its initSeId, midstSeId or finishSeId (always type s) |
| HKS | (text editor) | Not possible use FXR or SpEffects instead. |
| Events | Darkscript3 | Use the PlaySE instruction. |
| Dialog & Menus | ESDStudio | Via FXR, use CreateAssetfollowingSFX |
