Audio Settings For Dialogue Video Tutorial

Video Tutorial

There is a video tutorial made for correctly setting your .wav and .mp3 files to work with TES:CS, and how to link that to a character/dialogue route. The link is here. (Video by Tandem)

This tutorial is more to visually see the basic concepts instead of in written form. Since the creation of this tutorial, a far superior tutorial in text form has been created at Dialogue Tutorial.

For reference, the required settings for the mp3 file to be heard in game are:
Frequency: 44100 Hz
Bit Rate: 64 kbps cbr (constant bit rate)
Channels: mono

Audacity users: You must be using 1.3.12, which is currently in beta. When exporting, click the options button, and select constant bitrate, 64kbs, and joint stereo. Don't get the sample format confused with the bitrate.
Due to a few people requesting to see the result of the lip sync and dialogue process, here is a YouTube link to the in game result of the dialogue tutorial. link title

Video Tutorial Transcript

Load Oblivion.esm

Highlight NPC in the left side of Object Window

Right click in right section of Object Window and select New

Name your NPC with an ID
I suggest starting the ID with aaa so it will be at the start of each list.

Enter the in game Name of the NPC

Set the race
This is very important for the pathing of the voice file.

Click OK

Use the Character dropdown menu to select Quest
Quest IDs are where dialogue is stored.

Right click in the left section and select New

Enter the ID for this dialogue set
Once again, prepending it with a 1 will make it appear first in every list

Click on the Topics tab
Make sure your ID is selected in the very left window

Right click in the empty topic window and select Add Topic

Select GREETING
For the purposes of this tutorial, I selected Greeting. You can create your own topics which have faction / race sensitivities, but that is a tutorial in of itself.

Right click in the window below Topic Text GREETING and select new

Enter the response text that will appear in subtitled form in the game
Text is limited to 150 characters for good reason. In my result video on Youtube, there are several lines of dialogue which flow in a row. Creating this first Topic text and clicking OK will open up the Response Text area, where you will see the first "line" of the series. A topic response may have as many lines linked together as you wish before the player is given a new choice, or the script links to a new topic. It's good to have a lot of breaks in your speech, as with each new break comes an opportunity to set a new emotion value. Take note of the Emotion Type and Value. Value will be the magnitude of the emotion, and it takes careful tinkering to get subtle facial expressions to go along with your dialogue.

R-Click in conditions window and select new

Set the Condition Function to GetIsID

Click on Parameter and select the ObjectID as your NPC's ID
GetIsID will automatically set this topic behavior to your NPC. This condition function will also make sure that your unique NPC is the only one who has these lines of dialogue.

Double click on the line in the Info section
If you scroll right, you will see the Path of the file. It will currently state NONE as part of the path, which is the slot for the name of the mod. You will need to save your mod for a correct path name to appear. Note that the sex and race of your character is listed in the route.

Save your mod

Close TES:CS

Reopen and load your mod as the active file.

Enter Character ---> Quests ---> Topic

Double click the top and make note of the path.

Make the correct file route in Data/Sound/Voice
I have heard generating a lip file will automatically make the file route for you.

Open your recorded sound with a form of sound editing software
Read another tutorial on free software out there, as well as methods to clean up recorded sound to fit in the game

Save the file as a WAV
This is the file that you will use to generate a lip file, as well as what you will hear in TES:CS when previewing the dialogue by double clicking. This file will not work unless it is 16 bit, mono, 44,100 Hz

Save the file again as a MP3
This MUST be 64 KB, 44,100Hz, Mono, and constant bit rate.

Place both files in the route you made previously.
In my case, Data/Sound/Voice/1tutorial.esp/Nord/M/

Copy the Voice Filename from the "Edit Response" window

Paste this as the name of both the MP3 and Wav

Close the window and reopen it

Double click the file listing to hear a preview

Set emotion type and value

Click on "from WAV" at the bottom

Click Generate Lip File

Your dialogue now should work with both text, subtitles, emotion, and audio in game when you encounter your custom NPC. This is a mini tutorial, so to learn more about placing NPC's, check out some of the other great tutorials here.

Voice Morpher

I found this free Morpher[1] helpful for morphing voices. Use your recording program to record your voices and save. Open the files in Morpher, then set your recording program to record from WAVE not MIC. Play the sound in Morpher and re-record with your recorder.