Sound Effects

Every game needs sound effects to create the best possible player experience. Audio files are played during a variety of in-game situations and this is how they are set up in OpenMW. Some are user-definable, while a lot of them are hardcoded to specific names.

Supported Formats

OpenMW uses FFmpeg and thus supports many formats. For sound effects we suggest using 16-bit .wav files.

Sound File, Sound, Sound Gen

• Sound File record in OpenMW-CS is the audio file on the disk. When files are placed in data/sound and its subfolders, OpenMW-CS will list them in a table. Sound File records aren’t used directly in OpenMW-CS but must first be assigned to a Sound record.
• Sound is the record that can be assigned to other records in OpenMW-CS. It needs a Sound File assigned, has volume, min range, and max range properties.
• Sound Generator record is used for creature animation events (groan, get hit, die, footsteps). It takes the Sound record and defines what creature uses this effect and when.

Note

Newly created Sound records in OpenMW-CS have their Max Range value set to 255. This can cause the sound to not be audible in-game. To fix this, set the mentioned value to 0.

Hardcoded Effects

The following sound effects are hardcoded. They require a properly named Sound record and will then be used in their relevant in-game situations.

Ambient

Sound name	Situation used
ashstorm	During an ash storm
blight	During the red blight storm
blizzard	During a blizzard
rain	During rainy weather
rain heavy	During stormy weather
thunder0	Played randomly during stormy weather
thunder1	Played randomly during stormy weather
thunder2	Played randomly during stormy weather
thunder3	Played randomly during stormy weather
underwater	When the camera is under the water level
water layer	When the player is near the water level

Note

Names for these sounds can be changed in openmw.cfg but we strongly suggest they stay the same. Another issue is with ashstorm, blight, blizzard which have missing or erroneous fallback lines, unless they were imported from Morrowind. These will be fixed with the planned dehardcoding of weather types and using Lua.

Equiping items and weapons

Sound names in this category follow a pattern.

• Each name contains the type of object this sound applies to.
• Names ending with up are used when the item type is picked up, equiped, readied, or grabbed in the inventory.
• Names ending with down are used when the item type is dropped, unequiped, put away, or released in the inventory.

Sound name
item ammo up
item ammo down
item apparatus up
item apparatus down
item armor heavy up
item armor heavy down
item armor light up
item armor light down
item armor medium up
item armor medium down
item bodypart up
item bodypart down
item book up
item book down
item clothes up
item clothes down
item gold up
item gold down
item ingredient up
item ingredient down
item lockpick up
item lockpick down
item misc up
item misc down
item potion up
item potion down
item probe up
item probe down
item repair up
item repair down
item ring up
item ring down
item weapon blunt up
item weapon blunt down
item weapon bow up
item weapon bow down
item weapon crossbow up
item weapon crossbow down
item weapon longblade up
item weapon longblade down
item weapon shortblade up
item weapon shortblade down
item weapon spear up
item weapon spear down

Combat

Sound name	Situation used
bowpull	Start of a bow attack
bowshoot	A bow is released and fires an arrow
critical damage	Critial damage is dealt
crossbowpull	Start of a crossbow attack
crossbowshoot	A crossbow is released and fires a bolt
hand to hand hit	Hitting a valid target with fists
hand to hand hit 2	Hitting a valid target with fists
heavy armor hit	A character wearing heavy armour is hit
light armor hit	A character wearing light armor is hit
medium armor hit	A character wearing medium armor is hit
miss	An attack misses
weapon swish	Melee weapon attack. The sound is modulated based on attack strength.

UI

Sound name	Situation used
book close	A book or journal is closed
book open	A book or journal is opened
book page	Go to the previous page of a book or journal
book page2	Go to the next page of a book or journal
menu click	Mouse click on a button
scroll	book object of a scroll type is opened or closed

Movement

Movement sounds apply to the player and NPCs, together reffered to as characters. Each sound is played in a specific in-game situation and requires a textkey.

• When the sound name ends in left it plays when soundgen: left occurs.
• When the sound name ends in right it plays when soundgen: right occurs.
• Landing requires soundgen: land

Sound name	Situation used
defaultland	When a character lands on the ground
defaultlandwater	When a character lands in water
footbareleft	While walking, running, or sneaking on land and not wearing armour
footbareright	While walking, running, or sneaking on land and not wearing armour
footheavyleft	While walking, running, or sneaking on land and wearing heavy armour boots
footheavyright	While walking, running, or sneaking on land and wearing heavy armour boots
footlightleft	While walking, running, or sneaking on land and wearing light armour boots
footlightright	While walking, running, or sneaking on land and wearing light armour boots
footmedleft	While walking, running, or sneaking on land and wearing medium armour boots
footmedright	While walking, running, or sneaking on land and wearing medium armour boots
footwaterleft	While walking, running, or sneaking in shallow water
footwaterright	While walking, running, or sneaking in shallow water
swim left	When swimming
swim right	When swimming

Interactions

Sound name	Situation used
disarm trap	A trap is successfully disarmed
disarm trap fail	Attempt to disarm a trap is unsuccessful
enchant fail	Enchanting or recharging an item fails
enchant success	Enchanting or recharging an item is successful
lockedchest	Trying to open a locked chest
lockeddoor	Trying to open locked doors
open lock	Unlock attempt succeeds
open lock fail	Unlock attempt fails
potion fail	Brewing a potion fails
potion success	Brewing a potion succeeds
repair	Repair of an item is successful
repair fail	Repair attempt of an item fails
spellmake fail	Attempt at creating a new spell fails
spellmake success	Creating a new spell is successful

Misc

Sound name	Situation used
drink	The player consumes a potion
drown	Looping while the player is underwater and out of breath
health damage	When a character or creature takes damage
skillraise	When a skill is raised
swallow	The player consumes an ingredient
torch out	When the currently equipped torch is extinguished

User-defined Sound Effects

Lights

Objects of Light type can be assigned a sound record that will be played repeatedly.

Activators

Activators can play a sound effect through their assigned script. This method can be used to place unique, localized sound effects in the world.

Doors

Objects of Door type can be assigned two sounds. One is played when the door is used or opened. The other is played when the door is closed. Locked door sound is hardcoded and listed in a prior table.

Magic effects

Each Magic Effect has four slots where sounds are assigned.

• Casting Sound - when the spell with this magic effect is cast
• Hit Sound - when the spell hits a target
• Area Sound - when the spell hits an area target
• Bolt Sound - projectile from this magic effect

Regions

A Region has a Sounds table where it can be assigned any number of sounds. These are played while the player is in this region and are given a chance how often they will be heard.

NPCs speaking

NPCs can utter a Sound in specific in-game situations. These are assigned through Topic Infos and occur depending on the Topic in use.

• Alarm
• Attack
• Flee
• Hello
• Hit
• Idle
• Intruder
• Thief

Creatures

Creatures get sound effects through Sound Generator records. A Sound Generator is assigned a creature it will affect and set a type.

• Land
• Left Foot
• Moan
• Right Foot
• Roar
• Scream
• Swim Left
• Swim Right

Each type relates to a specific in-game event or an event defined in the creature’s animation textkey file.