Birds Wind & Bugs

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NefariousTortoise
Posts: 19
Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2021 8:45 am

Birds Wind & Bugs

Post by NefariousTortoise »

This is a project to replace all of Daggerfall's music files with environmental sound effects. The music in Daggerfall is insanely repetitive, you will probably listen to the same track 30 times in just one in-game day. By installing this you can listen to your own music or just play without music if you want and still have game audio. I highly recommend Spotify Soundtracks by Macadaynu.

I'm calling this Birds Wind & Bugs because the audio system in Daggerfall is primitive and the same music files play for every region in the game from the forests of High Rock to the Alik'r Desert, so I had to find sound clips which had a good balance of birds, wind & bugs to sound acceptable for every region. Overall I think it sounds good, though suspension of disbelief is still necessary. It's Daggerfall after all.

The sound files were sourced mostly from Pixabay and other free audio clip sites. They are of varying quality, some are stereo and some are mono, but overall I am quite pleased with the effect. I edited every file in Audacity to loop seamlessly and be roughly the same sound level. I tried to find recordings which were not too annoying or repetitive, as the repetition of vanilla audio is what drove me to start this project in the first place.

Currently every playlist in the game has been replaced except for the rain, snow, and dungeon playlists. Expect the sound of students at work in the Mages Guild, the murmur of monks and priests in temples, the jubilation of patrons in taverns, and the chatter of the king's court in castles. The exteriors of dungeons use the same music playlist as night, so both feature simply soft winds. I imagine even the birds have been frightened away by the evil that lurks there. Nighttime thankfully does have a looping sound effect which is overlayed on top of the wind sound.

Please tell me what you think. I have to finish the rest of the playlists before putting it on the nexus.

Link:
https://easyupload.io/y3sivv

Edit 16/10/2022
The finished mod can now be found here https://www.nexusmods.com/daggerfallunity/mods/395
Last edited by NefariousTortoise on Sun Oct 16, 2022 5:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Sappho20
Posts: 67
Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2022 8:54 am

Re: Birds Wind & Bugs

Post by Sappho20 »

Hi,
Thanks for sharing your mod! I like the Daggerfall music, but I find that the ambient sounds are far too quiet. I've tried your mod and I really enjoyed the majority of it. The sound in the taverns, temples and mages guild are really good and the daytime sound effects are also much more immersive. I especially like the fact you can change the volume of the ambient sounds as it is music! it really helps to be able to get the ambient sound at a good level. Also, as the original Daggerfall sound effects play over the music it further makes the ambient sound more unique.
There is 1 file called 'AmbientCrickets' which is only 2 seconds long and thus too repetitive with a noticeable gap between plays and the tracks 'song_10' and 'song_geerie' are quite quiet. I replaced them with some spooky Halloween ambient sounds to really up the creepy night/graveyard feel. In certain situations, I like a bit of music for atmosphere and tension.
All in all, it's a great idea and works very well. I am going to continue to use it for a while (or perhaps forever) and see how the game feels longer term.

NefariousTortoise
Posts: 19
Joined: Sun Sep 12, 2021 8:45 am

Re: Birds Wind & Bugs

Post by NefariousTortoise »

Sappho20 wrote: Sat Oct 08, 2022 9:37 pm Hi,
Thanks for sharing your mod! I like the Daggerfall music, but I find that the ambient sounds are far too quiet. I've tried your mod and I really enjoyed the majority of it. The sound in the taverns, temples and mages guild are really good and the daytime sound effects are also much more immersive. I especially like the fact you can change the volume of the ambient sounds as it is music! it really helps to be able to get the ambient sound at a good level. Also, as the original Daggerfall sound effects play over the music it further makes the ambient sound more unique.
There is 1 file called 'AmbientCrickets' which is only 2 seconds long and thus too repetitive with a noticeable gap between plays and the tracks 'song_10' and 'song_geerie' are quite quiet. I replaced them with some spooky Halloween ambient sounds to really up the creepy night/graveyard feel. In certain situations, I like a bit of music for atmosphere and tension.
All in all, it's a great idea and works very well. I am going to continue to use it for a while (or perhaps forever) and see how the game feels longer term.
Thanks for your feedback, glad you like the mod. I have now replaced the AmbientCrickets.wav with another recording about 30 seconds long so it's not as repetitive. As for the night/dungeon exterior tracks you mention, I could not get all of them to play during testing as the selection seems random. I left them all the same audio level with the expectation the game chooses one of them to play randomly at night and in dungeon exteriors.

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