[TSL]Lightsaber swings - removing pitch shifting

[Flashblade]

Hello there,

 

wow its been ages since I was last here. Nevermind, to the matter at hand. Yesterday I put one of the movies in and really concentrated on the lightsaber swing sounds and I noticed that the swings actually sound fairly consistent when it comes to tone pitch. It only deviates with really fast swings. In TSL (and maybe KotOR too) the tone pitch is pretty much all over the place from a very high swing tone to a very low, compared to what you hear in the movies they sound quite erratic. The "problem" I think is that random pitch shifting is applied to the swing sounds in the game, so that it sounds more varied. But as I said it ends up as being to much variation in tone. I have been looking through a few logical 2das (I think everything that contained sound in the name) to see whether pitch variotions are controlled from there but I had no real luck, for all I know this might be hardcoded. But I still wanted to ask whether anybody might have an idea how to switch pitch shifting off or lessen its effect.

 

Thx in advance.

[Darth InSidious]

I think the sound effects are all pre-recorded .wav files. IIRC, Shem replaced them for his Ultimate Sound Mod. I don't know if the pitch is still affected or not, though.

[Snard]

well, I know it's not hardcoded because of the Ultimate Sound Mod(or something like that).It might be located somewhere in here in kotor tool:BIF's:.2da:2DArray:there are nine sound related .2da files there. Check there then let me know.

[Flashblade]

I am afraid the ultimate sound mod doesn't prove anything. I myself use modded saber swings as well and the pitch shifting gets applied to the sounds. As far as I can see the ultimate sound mod doesn't contain any modded file that would prevent pitch shifting. Sabers are not the only sounds that get shifted. It happens to ranged weapons as well though it is not as extreme as it is with the saber sounds. Sword and unarmed combat gets no pitch shifting applied. But really you can check what I said easily for yourself. Play a characteristic swing outside of the game than go into the game start saber combat and listen for that specific sound. You will be surprised to hear it with a much higher pitch or a lower pitch as well. No much easier just do saber flourishes and you will notice that the twirl sound is ever changing although there are only two twirl sound files.

 

I already looked through all of the nine 2das, I think. I could not find anything that would control this well that is not true. I came across pitch var in one of those files but I changed it from 0.1 to 0 and that had no effect whatsoever. But as far as I understood it had nothing to do with combat sounds anyway.

 

Ideas?

[ChAiNz.2da]

The only 2 that come to mind are weaponsounds.2da and swingsounds.2da.

Both have entries that point to pre-determined sounds (.wav) however there are multiple field entries.

 

Could probably record your own and enter the entries and see what that might do?

[Snard]

Try those two files that ChAiNz.2da said, along with weapondischarge.2da

[VarsityPuppet]

Or you can always use Audacity to change the pitch.

[Snard]

Or you can always use Audacity to change the pitch.

 

But the question still remains: Why do you need to go through all that trouble just to change the lightsaber pitch?

[VarsityPuppet]

But the question still remains: Why do you need to go through all that trouble just to change the lightsaber pitch?

 

Because it's the most straightforward way to edit sound and I doubt 2da files are going to help. Given that this person is nitpicky enough about saber sounds, I think that they'd be willing to go through the 'trouble' of changing the pitch of each file.

[Flashblade]

Because it's the most straightforward way to edit sound and I doubt 2da files are going to help. Given that this person is nitpicky enough about saber sounds, I think that they'd be willing to go through the 'trouble' of changing the pitch of each file.

 

You may call me Flashblade .

 

You don't really understand me. Of course I could shift the pitch with an audio editing program myself, but that doesn't accomplish anything. TSL shifts weapon sounds on the fly while you play the game. Thats definitely meant to create the illusion that there are more sounds than there really are. Unfortunately for sabers this shifting is so extreme that they sound as I already said erratic compared to what you would hear in the movie.

 

@Chainz already tried those 2das. weaponsounds 2da has a collumn that is named pitchoffset. It contains no values and changing it to 0 accomplished nothing. As I said this might be hardcoded and there might be no solution but to accept tsls erratic saber swing sounds.

[harIII]

What Flashblade is saying is that depending on the timed positions of the lightsaber he wants to hear a particular sound making the lightsaber a more realistic fight and the generic and constant sound of hum.

 

Anyways I would think this is hardcoded. UNLESS you can find a 2da file with a list of animations and if you do you need to hope there is a column for sound effects. If not your best bet I think would be to somehow redo the animation and record the sound effect you want in it. I'm not sure if that's possible...

[VarsityPuppet]

TSL shifts weapon sounds on the fly while you play the game.

 

Oh, I see what you mean. What a strange concept. I wonder if it does this for other weapons too?

[Flashblade]

It does this for all available weapons. Listen for blaster sounds for example, you will notice that one shot maybe a little higher or lower pitched then the last shot. For other weapons it is way more subtle though. It only really goes overboard with saber swings and twirls.

 

@harIII I don't think it is as complicated as you describe. I do think though that this is controlled somewhere in the executable and therefore sadly beyond reach.

 

I never really noticed it before all those years I have been playing KotOR. It only came to my attention now and the nasty thing is now that I know this is so it will always be bothering me. Just like the signal in the Nar Shadda docks is bothering the bith.

[harark1]

Offtopic:

 

Just like the signal in the Nar Shadda docks is bothering the bith.

 

I never did find where that signal came from and who killed the bith, is that cut content or did I just miss it?

 

OnTopic:

 

I don't really see what you are talking about with the saber swings. In my game they don't seem to change pitch erraticly, but maybe I'm just tone-deaf.

[Dark_Ansem]

yeah, me too. it's a subtle difference. but made any progress?