[Tutorial] Changing sounds in your map

Coolz

L2: Junior Member
Sep 19, 2013
72
26
Have you ever wanted to change a sound file in tf2 to play something completely different? Lets say, have the announcer say "Nope" every time something happens, or maybe make the scout say "Need a dispenser" every time he tries to say something, or well, anything else? If so, this is the tutorial for you!

Allright, so to start off, lets look at my script:
tut1_by_coolredpanda10-d7zeo1k.png


As you can see I make use of the script mentionedthis post made by Aly, and thanks to Egan to telling me about said post.
So anyways, since I hear you guys need more tutorials, I'll show you exactly how to do it.

Step 1:
Open gcfscape, if it is not installed, download it here.

Step 2:
Once in gcfscape, navigate to your team fortress 2 folder and open the
tf2_misc_dir.vpk in tf.
tut2_by_coolredpanda10-d7zepag.png


Step 3:
Open scripts, and in the previous image the scripts I circled are the ones you want. These scripts will tell you what to put into your own script.

Now, if you don't want to edit the announcer/class lines like I do, you'll need to refer to a different script-- and since I don't have the time to do so, I will only cover changing the announcer.

Step 4:
So then, open up game_sounds_vo.vpk in the scripts and you shall be presented with lots of things to edit. Normally, you'd have to scroll down that whole file and just look for it yourself-- but just hit Control + F and you will be presented with the find text. Now type whatever you want in there, I typed announcer because I am changing her lines.
tut3_by_coolredpanda10-d7zeq70.png


Step 4.5:
Now this is optional, you don't really need to do this, but it makes things a whole lot easier. Open up another gcfscape and go to tf_sound_vo_english.vpk and navigate to vo. Once again, if you are not changing announcer/class lines, you will need to open tf_sound_misc_dir.vpk to do this step. Once in, proceed normally with the tutorial.
tut4_by_coolredpanda10-d7zeqj7.png


Step 5:
Allright, so keep looking for the line you want to edit-- and if your not certain what a line says and did step 4.5, do to the other gcfscape and look for the line mentioned in the script and play the line so you know what they say in that script. Once you find the file you want...
tut5_by_coolredpanda10-d7zersi.png

...then copy and paste the name of the sound file-in game (which is what I highlighted, that is the in-script name for the sound file I am going to edit)
into a new notepad.

Step 6:
If you want to make things a bit easier, copy and paste this into the notepad as well, just make sure you don't remove the before copied and pasted whatever you want to edit

"WHATEVER YOU COPIED AND PASTED GOES HERE"
{
"channel""CHAN_ITEM"
"volume""VOL_NORM"
"soundlevel""SNDLVL_NONE"
"pitch""PITCH_NORM"
"wave""DIRECTORY YOUR SOUND FILE IS IN, MUST BE IN tf\sounds TO WORK!"
}

replace those appropriately and you should be good to go in the script! But wait, what if you wanted to make the game play a random sound? Maybe you want the scout to say "Need a dispenser" or perfectly mimic the heavy saying Pootis?

All you need to do then is just copy and paste
"wave""whatever you put here"
and put it directly under the other one and change the sound directory to some other sound. If it was done correctly, when the game plays said sound file it will pick randomly between the two-- not to mention you can do that pretty infinitely, making it pick randomly between as many files as you'd like.
Just to ensure consistency here is what one of my randomized lines look like

"CaptureFlag.EnemyStolen"
{
"channel""CHAN_ITEM"
"volume""VOL_NORM"
"soundlevel""SNDLVL_NONE"
"pitch""PITCH_NORM"
"wave""vo/deviousfires/theyhaveflag.wav"
"wave""vo/deviousfires/recoveredtheflagsarcastic.wav"
"wave""vo/deviousfires/sad.wav"
}

So once your done with that editing, lets move on to the next step!

Step 7:
Save the file, except navigate to your tf2 maps directory and locate the .bsp you want the files to play when your playing that map, and change it to "whatevergamemodeyourmapis_mapname_level_sounds" Make sure you also save the file into the maps directory-- or it won't work. Once that is complete, open up said map and when the sound you edited is to play it will play your custom one instead, and the cool part? This sound edit will only apply to your map! it wont matter if they're playing 2fort and you edited literally every single ctf line, they wont hear it! They'll hear the normal lines, only when they play your map they will hear the edited ones.

And so that is the end of the tutorial! Repeat and put more and more edited sounds into the .txt file as you please, But seriously special thanks to Egan and Aly. If there is anything I might have missed while writing this tutorial, please write a comment about what I missed. Hopefully this guide helped you out a lot with whatever map your designing currently.