Editing existing dialogue

[jemapa]

So, for a mod I'm working on, I'd like to make some small changes to a bit of existing NPC dialogue. I don't want to completely rewrite anything, just change a few sentences here and there.

 

I've been able to do this using WeiDU's STRING_SET command. Once I know the string reference of the line in question, I can do:

 

STRING_SET StrRef ~Dialogue goes here.~

 

That works, but WeiDU's documentation (http://weidu.org/WeiDU/README-WeiDU.html) is pretty clear that you should never use STRING_SET: " This command replaces each given string in the user's TLK file with the associated newValue. Do not use this command. If a traFile is given, that file is is read once before all of the replacements take place and its contents are forgotten after.Do not use this command."

 

I don't fully understand the issue, but if STRING_SET is bad, what should I be using instead?

 

For lines with voicing, I also want to edit the sound files. Here's what I'm trying right now:

 

- Extract the original sound to a WAV file using DLTCEP's "WAVC to WAV" functionality.

- Modify the WAV to my liking in Audacity.

- Convert the WAV back into a WAVC using DLTCEP's "WAV to WAVC" functionality.

- Place the new file in the override directory.

 

However, the result of this process is that the sound no longer plays at all in game. What am I missing / doing wrong?

 

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

[argent77]

WeiDU supports many actions specifically for modifying dialogue content. For example, there are various REPLACE_xxx commands which can be used to replace existing states, transitions, triggers or actions. Although you should take extra care not to change the meaning of the replaced content, or it may cause compatibility issues with other mods.

Regarding the WAV issue, all Infinity Engine games support regular WAV files so you don't have to convert them back into the proprietary WAVC format. If you're coding your mod for the Enhanced Editions you can also use files in Ogg Vorbis format. Simply rename the file extension from .ogg to .wav.

[jemapa]

Thanks for the reply! I'll look into the various REPLACE_ commands, surely one of them can do what I need.

 

I tried skipping the "convert back from WAV to WAVC" step (ie, just using the raw WAV), and it worked! Not totally sure what was wrong with the WAVC files, but I'll work with WAV for now, I guess.