Recreating POE1 story companions in deadfire?

[brokensave]

Has anyone done this with their voices? The portraits are easy, and all the voices are right there. I feel there had to have been a lot of people wanting this at some point....but game is older now and not alot of discusion I can find on this. I've found straight swaps for the default voice options in POE1....can implment them super easy (sinister, smooth, stoic) but none for the companions.

Does anyone know if anything like this exists? I'd really like to remake Zahua and Durance with their voices.

[Kvellen]

I released a mod a while ago that's a proof of concept with a recreation of Durance's full voice set.

Otherwise, at least as far as I'm aware, there are only a few voice mods for Deadfire. There isn't a lot of interest in the topic unfortunately 

[Boeroer]

I missed that (or I have forgotten) - but this is actually very cool. 

[brokensave]

19 hours ago, Kvellen said:

I released a mod a while ago that's a proof of concept with a recreation of Durance's full voice set.

Otherwise, at least as far as I'm aware, there are only a few voice mods for Deadfire. There isn't a lot of interest in the topic unfortunately 

Wow, this is even better than I expected. Thank you so much for this, it's awsome.

 

Sad theres not much interest, would love to have some more POE 1 characters brought back like this.

[brokensave]

Btw, is it hard to implement custom voices? Cause like I said...they are all just there. If I could just add them in manualy and make them show up in chracater creation....that'd be perfect. 

[Kvellen]

Yeah. Having created a few custom voices the process for implementing them is pretty laborious. Even at the most basic level the file management and conversion into the .wem audio format gets pretty mind numbing.

But if you are not put off by it, I wrote a guide on a basic implementation of a custom voice using the Deadfire "kind" voice type as a basis.
Now a days I'd recommend Apotheosis for setting up the gamedata over filling out the template though.

The results won't be something like Durance voice in the Custom Sidekick Example mod though. Since that is a large step up in complexity involving defining a new voice type through a new .chatterbundle entry.

Edited February 25 by Kvellen

[brokensave]

Thank you, that seems quite an effort but you explained it througholy so I think I can attempt it and see how it goes.

 

[brokensave]

nvm

Edited February 28 by brokensave
as

[brokensave]

I managed to get it working in game with Zahua's voice for 1 clip, thank you, the guide was great. Now I just got do it for all the files.... hahha

[brokensave]

I managed to finish it, works better than I thought. I don't know how to turn it into a mod but I could share the files?

 

Now that I've done that....is there any way to expand on it? Like, implementing extra voices for him (tonnes left out, no room), conversations etc? Or is that a step too far?

Edited February 28 by brokensave

[Kvellen]

On 2/28/2025 at 3:45 PM, brokensave said:

I managed to finish it, works better than I thought. I don't know how to turn it into a mod but I could share the files?

You can look at one of the voices here for an idea of how to package it up as a mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/366

On 2/28/2025 at 3:45 PM, brokensave said:

Now that I've done that....is there any way to expand on it? Like, implementing extra voices for him (tonnes left out, no room), conversations etc? Or is that a step too far?

Expanding the voice to allow for additional files and logic is possible through the creation of a new version of the .chatterbundle file. As I did with Durance.
But this can get very technical and there isn't any documentation for that sort of modding. To the point I understand enough to do it myself, but not enough to really say with any certainty why or how it works. As it is I'm not really in a position to give a step by step for the process at the moment. Sorry 

My honest opinion as far as recreating a PoE1 companion's conversations, is that it would be an unnecessary amount of work. Really it would be much more feasible for someone to code something that'd handle the conversion between games, than doing it all by hand.

Even then I really don't think the different writing styles make directly porting PoE1's verbose prose to Deadfire's tiny dialogue box a good combination.

The voices and portraits already bring enough of the character across.

[brokensave]

Quote

You can look at one of the voices here for an idea of how to package it up as a mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/366

 I tried to finish it up but I completely gave up after trying forever to just make the name Zahua instead of test in game.....that part broke me.

I'm kind of done after that, hahha. But I'll upload the folder via mediafire at least for others to use, if anyone wants to fix it up past that and turn it into a mod to use on nexus or something... they are more than welcome.

It's not absolutely perfect, as some voice options I didn't know what to put in....nothing for "can't do". And I was confused as to whether critial hit or miss where supposed to be offensive or defensive....they have sounds though, just maybe I could have choosen better. It's pretty good overall....just not perfect.

 

 

Quote

Expanding the voice to allow for additional files and logic is possible through the creation of a new version of the .chatterbundle file. As I did with Durance.
But this can get very technical and there isn't any documentation for that sort of modding. To the point I understand enough to do it myself, but not enough to really say with any certainty why or how it works. As it is I'm not really in a position to give a step by step for the process at the moment. Sorry 

Yeah....I'd like to do it, just so he feels a little more part of the party like he did in v1....

 

More than anything, just the small banter he had with like durance and eder , like " did durance always have bird legs?" paraphrasing..... it's just little things like that I'd love to add. But I think I probably am past my capability point for this sort of thing, hahha. So if it's that hard I guess I'll leave it there.

Edited Tuesday at 08:43 AM by brokensave

[Kvellen]

23 hours ago, brokensave said:

 I tried to finish it up but I completely gave up after trying forever to just make the name Zahua instead of test in game.....that part broke me.

I'm kind of done after that, hahha. But I'll upload the folder via mediafire at least for others to use, if anyone wants to fix it up past that and turn it into a mod to use on nexus or something... they are more than welcome.

Yeah strings can be a real pain to do manually. I just use the Apotheosis modtool to handle that now.

I'd say that's a fair reaction to have, and exactly where I am at after implementing that small portion of Durance. I mean, I wasn't actually planning to release it, and when I started working on getting it ready to release I briefly considered just pushing myself to put all of his conversation into the game. But the logistics of recreating everything, testing all of it, and the likely possibility of then releasing it only to be told that something wasn't working under very specific circumstances. It was all too much to do to myself!

23 hours ago, brokensave said:

It's not absolutely perfect, as some voice options I didn't know what to put in....nothing for "can't do".

It's entirely possible Zahua doesn't have lines for some contexts, in which case don't worry about it. Some things in the Deadfire voices are unique to that game, and of those there are a couple as well that are unique to the Player/Adventurer voices ("can_do" for example) and vice versa.

23 hours ago, brokensave said:

I was confused as to whether critial hit or miss where supposed to be offensive or defensive....they have sounds though, just maybe I could have choosen better. It's pretty good overall....just not perfect.

It's the character trying to attack and Critical Hitting their target or whiffing by a wide margin.
In DnD terms if you are Zuhua, you roll a d20 to attack and...

• You've just rolled a "20"! You are very pleased with your immaculate execution of the form!
• You've just rolled a "1"... You are most disappointed with how sloppy your technique was...

If you're unclear about any of the other events, I'm happy to help!

23 hours ago, brokensave said:

Yeah....I'd like to do it, just so he feels a little more part of the party like he did in v1....

More than anything, just the small banter he had with like durance and eder , like " did durance always have bird legs?" paraphrasing..... it's just little things like that I'd love to add. But I think I probably am past my capability point for this sort of thing, hahha. So if it's that hard I guess I'll leave it there.

Ah shoot, I really missed out on a lot of banter between those 2 when I replaced Edér with Zahua on my playthrough of White March. Honestly Zahua was such a great addition to the game! His story and dialogue is ranks really among the best. Having him in my party in first game actually convinced me I needed roll a monk Watcher when progressing onto Deadfire. Monks in this setting are just so cool!

Anyway getting back on topic.
That was only my opinion. If you want to give adding conversations to Deadfire a go, I would point you to the "conversation" tab in Apotheosis as the way to do it. It's pretty much the closest you can get to writing and implementing dialogue in the same way designers of the game did when making it. Which is pretty daunting, but once you get a handle on how it all works it's probably my favourite thing in the editor to just mess around with!

Edited Tuesday at 04:02 PM by Kvellen

[brokensave]

For whatever reason, I couldn't get apotheosis to finish set up. It just hangs forever after it says its going to store files or something. And yeah Zahua is the best, such a great character, thats why I'm going through all this effort.

Well, thanks for all your help. If I can get apotheosis going I'll see what can be done and how much effort. Possibly fix up the Zahua thing and turn into a mod if feasible, if not I'll just upload the files here soon.

[brokensave]

Here's Zahua's Voice for anyone that wants it. https://www.mediafire.com/file/iwvcvb357esxbbv/Zahua+POE+Voice.rar/file