Fallout 3: Waysted Radio Tutorial

Introduction

In this tutorial we will be making a music only Radio Station, but it should be quite easy recording some dialog instead of music if you wish to be your own DJ. This is effectively your own personal in game MP3 player. To make it, we will be making a mod called Waysted Radio.

TIP: Remember to save your mod at regular intervals as Waysted_Radio.esp in case the game crashes. Keep the name since the dialog needs this to be exist, that means you must save the mod at least once before you can record any new dialog if you choose to do so, I am assuming you do not but added some tips just in case you do. If you save to save the mod before recording dialog it will not save your dialog at all. If you rename the mod later, be sure to change the Fallout 3\Data\sound\Voice\Waysted_Radio.esp folder to match the name of your new esp. That trick worked for Oblivion, it should work for Fallout 3.

Step 1: Choosing and converting your music to use with the radio

First choose 10 mp3s and rename them to WaystedRadio001.mp3 through to WaystedRadio010.mp3. Next using any Audio editing program (Audacity might do the trick, I use Goldwave) that supports mp3s and waves, load the mp3s and save them with the same name but as 16bit 44100hz 352kbps PCM Wave files. How you do this depends on the software you use and is beyond the scope of this tutorial.

Now we are going to fix the mp3 breakup problem and the song getting played twice problem.

Take all 10 of the WaystedRadio001 mp3s, and make them completely silent but keep the song length because the game seems to read in the mp3s properties to get the play time for the wave file. If there is any audio there, it causes play back issues, so we remove the audio by even reducing the volume to zeroand resaving the mp3. I found in my tests that the game would usually play waves twice if there was no mp3 and if there was an mp3, the sound would often break up. But with a silent mp3, the worse you get is the occasional silent song playing as the game switches to the mp3 but it switches back to the wave after the silent song ends, or so it seems.

You should now have 2 files for every song. 10 mp3s and 10 waves. The audio figures below are what I used in mine, the game seems to be very flexible so you can try different audio settings and see which you prefer.

WaystedRadio001.mp3 (44100hz 96kbps Mono)
WaystedRadio001.wav (Mine are Wave PCM 16bit 44100hz 1411kbps stereo and sound great)

Now go to your Fallout 3\Data folder and make a new folder called "sounds", next go in to sounds and make another new folder called "songs", and go in to songs and make another folder called "radio", finally go in to radio and make a folder called waystedradio.

Now move all your mp3s and waves in to that folder.

eg

\Fallout 3\Data\sound\songs\radio\waystedradio

If you wish to change the songs on your radio station later, you just repeat this step and add different songs.

Step 2: Adding the music to Geck

Load up the Fallout 3 editor called Geck and scroll down to the Miscellaneous menu in the Object Window, find sound and select it. Select any sound in the right hand window with a single click and press M. The window will jump to MUS entries. Scroll down a bit to see all the MUS sounds. Find one of the MUSLicensed sounds and double click, change the ID to WaystedRadioSong001 and okay it and select yes to the "create new form" question.

Find your new WaystedRadioSong001 in the sounds window and select it for editing. Leave everything alone but change the static attenuation (in game volume) to about 4.50. Do not worry about the volume in the editor, it rarely matches the volume in the game. The further to the right you move that slider the quieter the music in the game.

Under the ID is a box where you can select your song, below the box is play and stop, click on the box above "Play and stop" and select your first mp3 called WaystedRadio001.mp3. Now okay the WaystedRadioSong001 window and reopen it again to make sure the settings are accepted.

TIP: Time to get technical, even though you selected an mp3, if you press play now, it plays the wave file not the mp3 file. In game the wave also takes priority since mp3s require CPU time to decompress where as waves do not. This can cause the music to break up during the game, so waves are more CPU friendly and better for radio mods than mp3s. The game will still use mp3s but the in game effects may not be good as you may think. So stick to waves, you can use pcm 16bit waves, probably others and increase the quality to meet your needs. Experiment with the audio quality once you have a working mod and know it works with my settings first.

Now you have 1 song added to the sounds list, you must repeat this for all the other 9 songs, so add them in the same way.

Step 3: Setting up a Talking Activator

In Gecko find the Actors menu in the Object Window, scroll down until you find Talking Activator menu and select it. Select the RadioGalaxynews activator in the right hand window and double click, change the ID to RadioWaystedMusic and change the name to "Waysted Radio", the name is what appears in the Radio Tab in the game. Okay it and select yes to the "create new form" question to make your own new Radio activator.

Warning: Selecting NO to the "create new form" question always edits the original.

Now go to the cell view window, we are going to add our terminal to the same location 3Dogs terminals are kept. Choose the worldspace called Wasteland and scroll down to find the WashingtonMonumentExterior under the EditorID list. When you find it, click on it and look at the window on the right. See the RadioGalaxyNewsRef01 listed, click on it to make the window focus on that object.

TIP: quests run everywhere but object scripts only run if the player is in the same cell as the object that has been scripted. Meaning Jukeboxes can be scripted instead of made in to quests to save CPU time.

Now go back to Talking Activator menu and find our RadioWaystedMusic terminal and drag it in to the window next to 3dogs terminals. When your done, double click on your new terminal to edit it. Select the Radio Data Tab and select Broadcast Range type and set it to everywhere.

TIP: As you might imagine, if you do not want your radio broad cast everywhere, you can put your terminal where you want it to be heard and change the range here. This is probably how you would make a JukeBox work if it was not a scripted object, you just use a Jukebox instead of a terminal and select a current cell only as the range.

Step 4: Making a quest for our radio station.

Go to Actor Data in the Object window of Geck and select Quest. Scroll down to the Rs in the right hand window by selecting one item on the right and pressing R. Right Click and select new, then in Questname box of the Quest Data Tab in the Quest window that appears enter Waysted Radio and for the ID enter RadioWaysted. It should now appear listed with the other Radio quests. Set the priority to 50 and tick "start game enabled" and allow repeat conversation topics.

In the Quest Conditions of the Quest Data tab, right click and select new and set up the condition in the the following way (Sometimes these condition boxes do not appear until you close the quest window and reopen it).

Condition function needs to be GetIsID

Comparison must be == and the value must = 1.0000 (or 1 to you and me)

Run on should be Subject

And Function Parameters should be set to your Talker ID Activator that you set up in Step 3 (Mine is set to RadioWaystedMusic above).

Step 5: Adding Topics to your Radio Station

Now select the Radio tab on the quest window. In the left hand Top-Level Only list, right click and select add topic. Add the topics RadioGoodbye and RadioHello.

Select RadioGoodBye and right click under topic text and select new, then enter "Waysted Radio" as the text and okay it.

Select RadioHello and right click under topic text and select new, then enter "Waysted Radio" as the text and okay it.

Next select new and make these new topics and under Top Level.

To do that you must click on the list containing RadioGoodbye and RadioHello and right click and select new. Then select new in the "Select Topic" window that appears and enter these topic names as the new name of the topic and select it, then okay the "Select Topic" window to add the newly created topic to the list under RadioGoodbye and RadioHello. Do this for all topics listed below (thank you to Michael for drawing my attention to this part, it was badly explained).

WaystedRadioSong1
WaystedRadioSong2
WaystedRadioSong3
WaystedRadioSong4
WaystedRadioSong5
WaystedRadioSong6
WaystedRadioSong7
WaystedRadioSong8
WaystedRadioSong9
WaystedRadioSong10

Now select one of the the WaystedRadioSong topics and right click in the window under Topic Text and select new, in the response text just cut and paste this simple message in to all 10...

<Waysted Radio plays in the background>

It can be anything, its not seen in the game but something needs to be written there for the next part to work.

In the same Edit Response window where you entered the text above, look down until you see the Sound File box, click on the box, press W so it jumps to your WaystedRadioSongs and select the first one. Then okay it. Then select the Run Immediately tick box. Do the same for the rest, selecting song 2 for WaystedRadioSong2, song 3 for WaystedRadioSong3 etc until all 10 are added.

TIP: just above the Sound File Box is the place you record your own Dialog if you want dialog to play instead of a song. Remember though, you must first have set a speaker on the quest window or this will not work.

Step 6: Making sure the tracks switch correctly

I have simplified this next part and removed the need to use vars or scripts to make it easier for noobies to make this mod.

Now under speaker there are 4 boxes, Add Topics, Link To, Link From and Next Speaker. Select RadioGoodBye and in Link from, right click and add topic WaystedRadioSong10. Also set the Next Speaker to Target.

Now select RadioHello, go to Link to this time, right click and select addtop and add WaystedRadioSong1. Also set the Next Speaker to Target.

I trust you understand the need to right click the mouse and select addtop to add things to those windows now, good because after this point I will assume you remembered to do that.

Select WaystedRadioSong1 next and set it like this.

Link to = WaystedRadioSong2

Link from = RadioHello

Next Speaker = Target

Select WaystedRadioSong2 next and set it like this.

Link to = WaystedRadioSong3

Link from = WaystedRadioSong1

Next Speaker = Target

 

Select WaystedRadioSong3 next and set it like this.

Link to = WaystedRadioSong4

Link from = WaystedRadioSong2

Next Speaker = Target

 

Select WaystedRadioSong4 next and set it like this.

Link to = WaystedRadioSong5

Link from = WaystedRadioSong3

Next Speaker = Target

 

Select WaystedRadioSong5 next and set it like this.

Link to = WaystedRadioSong6

Link from = WaystedRadioSong4

Next Speaker = Target

 

Select WaystedRadioSong6 next and set it like this.

Link to = WaystedRadioSong7

Link from = WaystedRadioSong5

Next Speaker = Target

 

Select WaystedRadioSong7 next and set it like this.

Link to = WaystedRadioSong8

Link from = WaystedRadioSong6

Next Speaker = Target

 

Select WaystedRadioSong8 next and set it like this.

Link to = WaystedRadioSong9

Link from = WaystedRadioSong7

Next Speaker = Target

 

Select WaystedRadioSon9 next and set it like this.

Link to = WaystedRadioSong10

Link from = WaystedRadioSong8

Next Speaker = Target

 

Select WaystedRadioSong10 next and set it like this.

Link to = RadioGoodBye

Link from = WaystedRadioSong9

Next Speaker = Target

TIP: Leave the mp3s and the Waves in the Fallout 3\Data\sound\songs\radio\waystedradio folder along side the waves because I found if you remove one set of them, the game plays every song twice. Which may be why Beth have a wave and an mp3 in their folders too. The game works by playing the wave first, but if you do anything it switches to the mp3. You can tell the mp3 is playing because it breaks up a bit during the game where as the wave does not. Once the song ends, the next wave will play and things will work again.

TIP: The Speaker box I just set to AbrahamWashington so the game knows where to put the dialog audio files (not the music files) if you recard any dialog for this, but you may be best going to Actors, selecting NPC and adding your own speaker to that, then selecting yours from the Quest Speaker box instead of AbrahamWashington. That would be the cleanest most compatible way to do this.

Final Words

Some notes to help you clean up.

I found it best to make high quality waves for music and low quality mp3s and the game seems to work fine if the waves are playing but breaks up when it switches to mp3s should you do anything with the radio. So leave both in your Fallout 3\Data\sound\songs\radio\waystedradio folder.

Any voice work you did will appear in Fallout 3\Data\sound\Voice\Waysted_Radio.esp folder and of course your mod will be in Fallout 3\Data\ and probably called Waysted_Radio.esp unless you changed it.

Also remember you cannot upload mods containing copyrighted music so if you want to upload your mod, go online and use free music found around the net. If your a member of a band and want your music heard in game, you could use this tutorial to make your own Radio station for your fans to enjoy and upload it under your own name.

If your a rock/metal band send me a link, I'd love to hear it.