This is a brief overview on how to get speech audio into Dawn of War for your NIS and Intel events.
...a working NIS. There is no point in recording audio, then changing the script later!
Make sure you've tested what you have without speech, as it takes so long to record, convert and sort out in general. The timings can be achived by following these steps:
The timings done by the game on UCS strings with no related sound can be partly relied on – but not for any gaps or emphisis in speech, or if simply a person speeks faster or slower then what the game predicts!
Reusing noiseless FDA files is a good idea for time saving, and so you don't go mad listening to the same audio five dozen times!
Making sure speech doesn't affect how a NIS works (making sure an actor finishes speeking before you change camera or do another action for instance) means you can ignore then, although it is good to see the timings more accurate.
Using any kind of voice actors – even yourself – having a script to read out on screen or more preferably on paper is the best idea for getting things correct the first time.
When you create a script, if you are not at the recordings (considering the day and age of the internet!) add as much noteworthy points on how things should sound – or be as present as possible at the recordings – listening over the internet to the microphone for instance.
This step or idea is meant to prevent units speaking in a NIS and then having a totally different voice when a player uses the unit!
Remember to make custom voice sets for the units (there can be very few lines for them to say if you wish – around 10 or 15 are the maximums for heroes) that are having custom voice overs.
Doing this in the script above is the best way. Although you do not need to have UCS entries, remember to list somewhere what they are incase you forget and need them at a later date!
This is not something I (Finaldeth) know too much about, but making sure a recording has a constant sound level throughout (use the original game file's for appropriate sound levels), and are cut correctly is a must. There are a variety of WAV or other filetype processing programs, and can be done on any operating system.
Only a decent microphone will get nearly as good as Relics – not your average gaming microphone.
If you are using post processing (for example, the Eldar voices in the game), then remember to be consistant throughout the campaign or scenario.
Of course, search the internet or read books on how to best record audio into a computer. You can do it with most sound cards at a decent quality, if you find a microphone, although neither usually tell you how to do this or even come with the software to do it!
Notes on recording:
Converting your WAV or AIFF files to FDA isn't too difficult. See the steps outlined in the Audio Editor? section for the most information on this.
Locations of the files for the NIS's in your mod are stored in this file structure:
– Picture of file structure
Here, we have numbers 40000 and 41000 as our NIS sounds.
Making the speech work correctly is one of the most cinematic part of Dawn of War (demonstrated well in the campaign), and is a good tool if you can find good voice actors.
Any final notes will be added here if thought of later, add your own if you have any!