Music Modding Progress! (I give up)

[Kvellen]

"Hurray, I figured out how to replace the music in Deadfire" is what I thought around this time last year when I managed to replace a piece of music and thought I had the solution to sound/music modding in Deadfire. However, upon further attempts to replace other tracks I soon came to a crushing realisation that; no, a version of Wwise from 2017 is not the answer. It is just that the file (3123410.wem) that plays on the main menu is maybe the only file that can be replaced (And using pretty much any versions of Wwise to convert it).

Why am I posting this now? Pretty much enough time has past that the sting has gone out of it, but all the same I don't think I wish to continue looking into music modding anymore. I still like the music (Yes even Encampment by night) that I am not in any hurry to replace it.

It's possible there are other files can be replaced or that the main menu hold the key to all of this. But I'd rather leave it to someone else to figure that out.

Should anyone be interested in diving into this topic, one avenue I've only looked into a little (skimmed some forums threads and youtube tutorials) is researching solutions modders for other games that use Wwise have come up with. The newer Resident Evil games use Wwise, and the modding community for those games have managed to replace sounds and music. There are mods (Familiar Music Replacement) on nexus for Witcher 3 that replace music. Perhaps there is somewhere in these modding communities lies something that can be applied to replacing music in Deadfire?

But most likely the only way to get real answers is to learn how to actually use Wwise itself. 

Edited February 4, 2023 by Kvellen

[MaxQuest]

Quote

But most likely the only way to get real answers is to learn how to actually use Wwise itself. 

I have also took a quick look into voice/music modding... But quickly nopped out of there.

It's just ugh...

[Kvellen]

I got into Deadfire modding by making Voice sets, so things like the chatter system at least make some kind of sense to me at this point. But yeah it is so weird to have it be inconsistent where some audio files can be replaced no problem, but then others when replaced just seem to become unrecognisable to the game.

Edited February 5, 2023 by Kvellen

[Manart]

Is it possible to post how you've done it to here? Is it just replacing a Wwise file?

[Kvellen]

Exactly that, I just took an audio file (Sentinel Stand from the Tyranny soundtrack in this case) converted it to .wav, imported it into Wwise to convert it to a .wem file, and then renamed it "3123410" so it replaced the main menu track.

Detailed steps:

Install Wwise from the Audiokinetic Launcher (you'll need a free Audiokinetic User Account).

Open Wwise and create a new project.

Go to "Project"->"Project Setting...", the select the "Source Settings" tab, and change "Default Conversion Settings" to "Vorbis Quality High" by selecting it from the options by clicking the "..."

Close the Project Settings window and save the changes (crtl+s).

Import the track you want to replace the main menu music with (this needs to be a .wav file) by going to "Project"->"Import Audio Files..." (shift + i). Click "Add Files...", then navigating to the audio file you'd like to import, select it and click "Open", and then click the "Import" button.

Now to convert the audio file to .wem go to "Project"->"Convert all Audio Files...". Make sure the box next to "Windows" is checked, then click the "Convert" button.

You should be able to find the converted file by going to "Project"->"File Manager..." (Shift + F1), right click the directory next to "Project Folder:" and select the "Open Containing Folder" option to open the directory in a File explorer window. In the File Explorer window open the ".cache" folder and then the "SFX" folder. You should see your converted file here.

Video instructions if you need it of the above steps:

Spoiler

 

Now rename the file to "3123410.wem".

You'll need to locate your Deadfire installation directory, this will be somewhere like:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Pillars of Eternity II Deadfire\PillarsOfEternityII_Data\"

From there navigate to: "\PillarsOfEternityII_Data\StreamingAssets\Audio\Windows"

Before placing the converted audio file here you should make a back up copy of the original "3123410.wem" file just in case you need to reverse the changes.

Once you have a backup of the original file move the convert file here, when you load into the main menu the audio file should now play instead of the main menu track.

I don't know if this audio file is used elsewhere in the game, and if so whether or not it will play.

[Noqn]

Agh I forgot to reply to this thread back when it was posted...

I actually had the exact same experience with replacing music, I successfully replaced the main menu theme with Eora redux (though couldn't get it to loop), but any attempts at replacing any other tracks (in my case Eothas' piano theme with a slightly louder version) got me absolutely nowhere.

My suspicion at the time was that you might also have to define the wwise states(?) to match Deadfire's stealth/conversation/normal states (which the main theme doesn't have configured iirc), but I had no motivation whatsoever to investigate that further.

 

On 2/4/2023 at 12:43 AM, Kvellen said:

I still like the music (Yes even Encampment by night) that I am not in any hurry to replace it.

encampment...

[Kvellen]

Yeah I don't believe the new track looped for me either. 

Funny thing is, I'm pretty sure I've since stumbled on a post somewhere from around 2018 where someone made the same discovery with the main menu music... 

8 hours ago, Noqn said:

My suspicion at the time was that you might also have to define the wwise states(?) to match Deadfire's stealth/conversation/normal states (which the main theme doesn't have configured iirc), but I had no motivation whatsoever to investigate that further.

That;d be my guess as well. A few attempts were made to set up the states listed in the Music.txt in a new Wwise project, but I always gave up whenever it came to reading through the Wwise documentation.

Likewise most video tutorials on the subject seem to either be from Audiokinetic marketing their product, or technical explanations that go over my head and might not even relate to the implementation of audio in Deadfire.

I've no doubt there is a method that will work for someone with the resilience to find it.

5 hours ago, Noqn said:

encampment...

It's very cosy imo

[Grape_You_In_The_Mouth]

Here's a guide that worked in the Pathfinder Kingmaker game:

I've been running across a few questions on how to modify sound files, so I decided to post a little tutorial here.

First of all, download and extract this file: http://www.filedropper.com/soundbankeditor_1

1. Now go to :\Steam\steamapps\common\Pathfinder Kingmaker\Kingmaker_Data\StreamingAssets\Audio\GeneratedSoundBanks\Windows and find the appropriate soundbank (.bnk extension) you want to replace sound files from, an example is:

   PC_Male_Pragmatic_GVR_ENG.bnk

   Which is conveniently and obviously the soundbank for all the Pragmatic voicelines of male characters.

   Other sound files may be a bit more arcane, however, and you'll need to do some Ctrl+F sleuthing in the SoundbanksInfo.xml (from the same folder) to figure out in which .bnk the sound files you want reside. For example:

   main.bnk

   is where mastodon footstep sounds reside (instead of the more intuitive CRE_Mastodon.bnk). You discover this by Ctrl+F "blackdragon" and vetting it for footstep foleys, because apparently mastodons use black dragon footsteps.

2. Now that you've found the .bnk file you want to modify, extract its audio data files (.wem extension) by using the python script you downloaded in the "Soundbank Editor" folder. (E.g. drag and drop PC_Male_Pragmatic_GVR_ENG.bnk on to soundbank.py)

3. Type "extract" into the CMD window that pops up. Now you'll have extracted all the .wem files (each an individual audio file) from the .bnk, and will have populated the folder with them.

4. Next, if you want to be able to play these .wem files and know what they sound like in-game, move all the .wem files you've just extracted into the "Divinity Sound Converter" folder. Run the Divinity Converter.exe and it will convert all the .wem files into .ogg files and place them into the NUMBERED folder.

5. You can actually play these .ogg files with VLC media player, so now you can finally listen to what each of these files sounds like and thence make your own recordings to replace them with. These recordings need to be in the .wav format. (Further information about these sounds can be found in the SoundbanksInfo.xml by searching for their ids.) Remember to rename the .wav files you create with the ids of the .wem files you're trying to replace them with. For example if you're trying to replace 1072716689.wem with your own sound file, name your sound file 1072716689.wav.

6. After you're done recording the sound files you want to replace the originals with, you'll need to to convert them to the .wem format. Download Wwise from https://www.audiokinetic.com/download/ and run the launcher. Create an account and log in. The functionality you need from Wwise is free.

7. Click on the Wwise tab in the launcher and install the latest version of Wwise. Run it when installation is complete.

8. Create a new project (name it Converter). Then, click on "Project" in the top left and in the dropdown select "Import Audio Files". Here, import all the .wav files that you have created.

9. Once you've imported all the pertinent files, go to "Project" again and select "Convert All Audio Files".

10. Go to C:\Users\user\Documents\WwiseProjects\Converter\.cache\Windows\SFX and you will find that all of your .wav files have been converted into .wem files. Take all of these files and bring them back into the "Sound Editor" folder from step 2. (Remember to clean up this folder first and delete everything but the soundbank.py to make things a bit easier.)

11. Make sure all your replacement .wem files are named exactly the same as the original .wem files they're supposed to replace. Then highlight these files and the original soundbank file you want to modify (e.g. 66996788.wem, 91059350.wem and PC_Male_Pragmatic_GVR_ENG.bnk) and drag them simultaneously on to the soundbank.py.

12. Type "replace" into the CMD window that pops up.

13. A modified .bnk file named "changed.bnk" will appear in the same folder. Rename it to whatever soundbank you were trying to replace (e.g. PC_Male_Pragmatic_GVR_ENG.bnk) and drop it into the generated soundbanks folder in step 1.

You're done. And as always, remember to make backups.

Edited July 8, 2023 by Grape_You_In_The_Mouth

[Noqn]

Those are similar to the instructions I used for No Narrator Updated, which works for voice files but not music files in deadfire