Replace Republic Sound/Voices?

[n7blaze]

I want to change the Clone voices in BF2 to the BF1 Clone voices (Temuera Morrison) or maybe even custom change to the Dee Bradley Baker Clone voices from EA's Battlefront 2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqF9MLM7IbE).

I located the sound file, which I think is "rph.lvl" in "Star Wars Battlefront II\GameData\Data\_lvl_pc\sound", but I have no idea how to extract it and replace the audio files. It's hard to find info regarding sound modding in this game as everything I've found so far has only been about map editing/modding.

[LitFam]

Well I know its possible because the mass effect team did it, also I don't think you can use the SWB2 (2017) VO because of copyright.

[swgaming1015]

Well I know its possible because the mass effect team did it, also I don't think you can use the SWB2 (2017) VO because of copyright.

I'm not sure that EA would go after modders of a 13 year old game if they used a few lines of their dialogue. Are they going to go to the trouble of blocking the download of the map? Several Battlefront modders have already used copyrighted Clone Wars music in their mods and nothing seems to have happened.

[n7blaze]

Well I know its possible because the mass effect team did it, also I don't think you can use the SWB2 (2017) VO because of copyright.

Yes it is, but I already seen people use EA Battlefront 1 (2015) models converted for BF2 so I don't think anyone in the modding community, nor EA care.

Of course I'd generally would like the BF1 Temuera Morrison clone voices, the Dee Bradley Baker clone SWB2 voices would definitely be an awesome bonus.

Anyways, it is possible like you said. I'm just surprised no one has tried doing it since modding for this old game started back in the day.

[Led]

Yes it is, but I already seen people use EA Battlefront 1 (2015) models converted for BF2 so I don't think anyone in the modding community, nor EA care.

I can assure you, many in the modding community do care.  No mods with EA voices will be allowed to be posted here.

[n7blaze]

I can assure you, many in the modding community do care.  No mods with EA voices will be allowed to be posted here.

I see, well fair enough. Again, my intention was just to get the BF1 Clone voices. I don't really care, I just don't want to listen to the vanilla BF2 Clone voices anymore.

[Led]

What you do on you own PC is up to you.  It's just that we can't take the risk here.

[Giftheck]

I think when it comes to EA, and of course I don't make the rules here, I see it like this:

-Is it available elsewhere, even if it's not the same quality? If yes, then use that 'elsewhere' source.
-If it is not available elsehwere, do you really need it? If the answer is no, then don't use it.
-if you are skilled enough, can you make it? If the answer is yes, then make it instead of using it from EA's games. This is why I've been making replacements for every weapon I had used from EA's Battlefront in SWBF Legacy for Phase 2. Heck, some of those weapons I have made use nothing even from the official stills EA has posted (EA allows the use of screenshots for certain purposes) and I opted instead to track down pictures of the weapons those were built from and build my guns based on those pictures.
-If you cannot do any of the above, and the equivalent does not exist elsewhere, then can you get away with the bare minimum? One or two firing sounds for the T-21 might be okay but do you really need to have all of Boba Fett's lines from the new game?

TL;DR: if you can avoid using it, avoid using it and find an alternative. There's absolutely no reason for you to use voices from the new games. You are more than welcome to use the voices from either of Pandemic's SWBF or SWBF2, and there are other games you can use assets from thanks to Disney's EULA updates to them.

If you want to know what games have the EULA that allows the usage of assets, here is a list:

[spoiler]Pinball FX2 - Star Wars Pinball / all content variants
Lego Star Wars III - The Clone Wars
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II
Star Wars rebellion
Star Wars Battlefront II
Star Wars Empire at War - Gold Pack
Lego Starwars The Complete Saga
Star Wars Republic Commando
Star Wars Jedi Knight Jedi Academy
Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds Saga
Star Wars Dark Forces
Star Wars jedi Knight II - Jedi Outcast
Lego Starwars: The Force Awakens
Star Wars - Xwing Alliance
Star Wars Shadows of the Empire
Star Wars Tie Fighter Special Edition
Star Wars the Force Unleashed
Star Wars the Force Unleashed 2
Star Wars xwing vs Tie Fighter
Star Wars Rogue Squadron 3D
Star Wars Rebel Assault I + II
Star Wars Jedi Knight Mysteries of the Sith
Star Wars Starfighter
Star Wars xwing Special Edition
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II
[/spoiler]

That's a literal ton of assets we ARE allowed to use already, and that's not even counting the non-games that carry this same EULA, like the Star Wars website (which thus enables us to use material from the on-site games, including the Crawl Creator and Soundboards) and Disney's websites. So unless there's something in the EA games that you absolutely cannot get elsewhere or make, I'd avoid it entirely.

As for the ported stormtroopers, I ported those prior to any considerations on EA content being made on here, and I made it expressly clear that they were done for testing purposes only. What other people do with them is of course their business and I could ask Led to remove the post now, because it now clearly contravenes the rules, but it's out there now and removing the post here will obviously not stop people from using them. If it's not too presumptuous of me to say, with with me not being an admin or mod, it's not my intent to stop people using stuff, but it is my intent that this place should remain as hassle-free as possible, and keeping EA off our backs contributes to that.

[Led]

Well said, thanks Gistech 

[LitFam]

Anyways, it is possible like you said. I'm just surprised no one has tried doing it since modding for this old game started back in the day.

Ok first of all do you realise how much work you have to do to make custom VO sound I don't even want to list all the file types you have to make?! Second of all it's time consuming so most mod makers just use the stock sound. Third of all how do you know people didn't try to import custom VO since modding back in the day (very insulting)...

[n7blaze]

Ok first of all do you realise how much work you have to do to make custom VO sound I don't even want to list all the file types you have to make?! Second of all it's time consuming so most mod makers just use the stock sound. Third of all how do you know people didn't try to import custom VO since modding back in the day (very insulting)...

I know it is time consuming, but so is 3D modeling and such. Plus all you would need is use the already made BF1 clone voices and transfer them over to BF2. I would love to give it a try but I have no idea how to edit the lvl sound files and it seems no one does either. Besides, time consuming or not, if possible, people will still do it. I actually found it funny how someone actually made a custom Clone voicepack mod for Xcom 2 and other games, yet nothing for BF2.

As for why I know people didn't try to import custom VO since modding back in the day... well, I frankly don't. I'm only assuming that, as if you search for that kind of stuff, you won't find it anywhere. If someone did do it already, you'd at least see some acknowledgement on the subject.

[Led]

Well, people have done custom voice overs, but perhaps not exactly what you want.  Sound modding is not easy, but we have some tutorials on our site and you can also look at game toast. 

Happy modding 

here, you can start with this:

Approximate Tutorial Completion: 33%

I. Sound Modding Resources
II. Sound Munging
III. Building custom music and sound region streams
IV. Building custom voiceover streams
V. Building custom in game sound effects
VI. FAQ

I. Sound Modding Resources
Sound.lvl modding can be difficult in SWBF1, mostly because of the lack of documentation and resources available to modders. Fear not however, this tutorial is specifically designed to make sound munging as easy for you to understand as possible. I will try to cover as much ground as I can, however I am still learning more about sound modding, and will continue to add to this thread as I figure out more about it.

There are a few resources you will want to have to begin. First is the sound config assets included in BFBuilder. They contain most of the reqs, snd, stm, and other files you will need to learn how sound configuration files are structured. There is also a premunged soundconfig available on fred's website, but it's not very useful. Note that do to copyright issues, none of the stock WAV files are available in BFBuilder, although some modders have been able to extract or re-record them through other methods.

You will also need an audio editor to convert and reformat audio files. I use audacity which is freeware and can be downloaded here:
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/
Audacity may also require you to download lame_enc.dll in order to import mp3 files you can find this on google.

I think these are updated batch files for BF2 sound munging, not sure if they work in BF1 or not.
https://sites.google.com/site/swbf2modtoolsdocumentation/ZeroFiledump/soundmungefixes.zip

Psych0fred wrote five different sound text tutorials which I suggest you start reading after this. I will try to consolidate and explain the information contained in them for this tutorial.

Here are some links worth reading.
I am also working on three different sound.lvl builders currently. They will be available for download when the LVL Toolbox V5 is released. One will be for music and region soundstreams, another for voiceovers, and another for in game sound effects. I am about 25% finished with them atm.

II. Sound Munging

*Currently I can only get sound to munge on 32-bit PC. I am working on a solution for 64-bit sound munging and will post any updates here. See this thread for more info.

When you munge a sound LVL, it takes the configuration files and converts them to a different format, listed below. It also combines the WAV files with the STM (or ST4) to create the STR file. 

Code Select Expand

munged => source
lvl => req file names
bnk => sfx, ffx, and asfx files
config => snd, mus and tsr files
str => stm and st4 files

All of the above listed configuration source files are edited using notepad so I recommend setting file association to open them.

REQ/SND
All sound.lvls need at least one req and one SND file to define the sound properties. The REQ(s) basically specifies which files are going to be munged into the LVL (except the WAVs which the STM specifies). The SND is used for every type of sound: streams, VOs, and effects. SND files are by far the most advanced, complex sound files you will mod, and I recommend reading psych0fred's tutorials for more in-depth information about SND configuration, as most of the settings I do not fully understand yet.

FFX/SFX/ASFX
SFX and ASFX are used for in-game ODF sound effects, which are stored in a "bnk" file that can be called upon directly or munged into a sound LVL. FFX is used for sounds called by FX files stored in the common.lvl. Their structure is much like the STM files as their main purpose is to index WAV files (and assign ID tags to them if you choose to here).

MUS/TSR
The MUS file is used for in-game streaming music/ambience for the entire map, and you can specify different streams for each faction in the mission LUA if you want. TSR files are used for sound regions - as defined in zeroeditor by sound spheres - in specific worlds, and are streamed globally for all factions (example cantina bar music).

STM/ST4
STM files are used to index the majority of streams in game, ST4 is used rarely for defining quadruple channel output bus audio files. The STM file specifies which WAV files to munge (including their sub-directory pathing, which by default is 'streams' or 'effects'), and can also apply the ID tag to be called on via the LUA (the SND can also apply this using "segments", more on that later).

WAV
WAV files must also be formatted a certain way depending on what you are going to use them for. The sample rate is always 16bit no matter what, the other values are noted below:

Code Select Expand

VO Wav Format - 22khz, 16 bit, mono
Music Wav Format 44khz or 48khz, 16 bit, stereo
Sound Effects Wav Format - 44khz, 16 bit, mono

I have not tested compressed WAV files yet but I will soon. Also I have discovered if you call upon a WAV file not present in the streams or effects folder through the STM, the sound.lvl will not munge


III. Building custom music and sound region streams:
Under construction should have this section updated soon.

IV. Building custom voiceover streams:
Under construction
note: shell_interface.lua calls on the LVL then the STR.

V. Building custom in game sound effects:
Under construction

VI. FAQ

1. Can mp3s be used?
- Not directly, but you can easily convert mp3s or any other audio format to WAV files. If you can, try to use the highest quality mp3 you have, for example CBR320 or VBR0 instead of CBR128, or it will create an inflated bitrate that sounds inferior to lossless sound. FLAC works great because it is compressed lossless format. The sound munger applies some compression but I'm not sure how it affects the bitrate once munged.

2. How do I add a pre-compiled music sound.lvl to my mod map?
- You have to edit the mission LUA to call on it. There are 3 parts of code you must add. First is the ReadDataFile, then OpenAudioStream, and then the SetAmbientMusic, which calls on the ID tags of the wav files specified by either the SND or STR. If you don't know the names of the stream IDs you can look in the munged mission.lvl for the mod they are used in.

Example:

To be continued