Fully Unique NPC Voices

[anonymouselbow]

Are there any mods that voice over all NPCs so they are all unique?

[smr1957]

There are some that may do one or two NPCs to a limited extent (usually just adding new dialogue, but not revoicing all dialogue), but none that do all NPCs, or, even, any that do all dialogue for even one NPC.  The amount of work and effort that would be necessary to do so is extremely prohibitive.

[anonymouselbow]

@smr1957, so it's more a question of work effort and not actually prohibited by the game itself correct by either code or copyright?  Hearing so many NPCs voiced by the same person breaks immersion is why I'm wondering.

[smr1957]

1 hour ago, anonymouselbow said:

@smr1957, so it's more a question of work effort and not actually prohibited by the game itself correct by either code or copyright?  Hearing so many NPCs voiced by the same person breaks immersion is why I'm wondering.

Well, there are copyright limitations - as there are with all mods made for games; Bethesda allows people to mod the game files but would frown upon the use of its product for something other than modding the game, of course - but that is not what you are asking, anyway.  But, I think you seriously underestimate the work involved - or the cost (especially if you were to want to release a quality product) - there is equipment that is needed, there are voice actors that must be found, not to mention going through the game files before even starting and ensuring that you have located all the necessary records and files.  So, yeah it can be done - but, even if you had people willing to work for free and to donate their time and the use of the equipment, it would still be a major project - there is a reason that major game studios such as Bethesda reuse the same actors for voicing lines - usually because it is time consuming and quality voice actors all need to be paid - and the minimum payment is industry scale.  So, while someone may revoice one NPC, or create a voiced character or mod - to revoice ALL NPCs (there are literally over a thousand) would be an incredivly massive undertaking - more massive than the original voicing of the game by Bethesda itself (and, considering that more than likely you would need to pay the people involved, much more expensive, as well).

[ghastley]

There are code limitations too. Much of the dialog is determined by checks on the voice being used, so all that code would have to be replaced. 

[DayDreamer]

On 12/15/2022 at 8:24 AM, ghastley said:

There are code limitations too. Much of the dialog is determined by checks on the voice being used, so all that code would have to be replaced. 

Even more complicated than that....

Checks in the dialogue data are usually for specific NPCs or for specific factions.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Factions

Then, the game engine looks for specificly named voice files, and plays those.

For example, an Innkeeper will offer a room. The game engine looks at the NPC record, sees the JobInnkeeperFaction and JobRentRoomFaction, determines that the NPC voice type is MaleEvenToned, then plays the voice line recorded for MaleEvenToned. Not all lines are recorded for every voice type (they only record them for vanilla NPCs and there is a function in the CreationKit to list the voice types per line), so using any unusual combination will yield silence.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Category:Skyrim-VoiceTypes

On 12/14/2022 at 12:56 PM, anonymouselbow said:

Hearing so many NPCs voiced by the same person breaks immersion

To circumvent that, you'd have to make a new voice type per NPC, and record each of the faction and quest dialogue Info lines for each new voice type. There are 41105 of these Info lines in the vanilla game.

[anonymouselbow]

Thanks for insights.