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SWIVELLER'S IMMERSIVE SOUNDS FOR MORROWIND V. 1 

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Index:

1. Description
2. Installation and Playing
3. Advantages and a few quirks
4. Credits

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     1. Description
    
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This mod aims to provide a rich and engaging sound experience which has little, if any, impact on game performance, even on lower-end machines. It does this by using the 'ambient sound function' built into Morrowind to play rich, high-quality audio files which were recorded in outdoor environments in Southern and Western Europe. In addition, the mod provides MP3 recordings of various animals which can be used instead of the game's music files. If combined, the ambient sound files and MP3's provide varied soundscapes whose realism is further enhanced by the unpredictable nature of the MP3 play order.  Expect to hear varying combinations of blackbirds, coots, donkeys, woodpeckers, rustling leaves, and a large variety of other natural sounds. 


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     2. Installation and Playing

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Install the contents of the compressed file into your Morrowind folder (usually C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Morrowind).
In order to hear the ambient sounds, you will need to do the following things:

- Convert the files in ..\Morrowind\Data Files\Sound\Swiv to Windows wav files;
- Create references to the sound file IDs in your Morrowind.ini file;
- Load the .esp file included with this download every time you run Morrowind.

Note that if you do NOT load the esp file, Morrowind will fail to recognise the sound files. The same is true if you do not convert the MP3s in the 'Sound' folder. If you wonder why I compressed the original wav files to MP3: the uncompressed version of this mod weighs in at over 150 megs, making for a very heavy download.
For optimal immersion, I recommend deleting any MP3 files in your ..\Morrowind\Data Files\Music folder other than those that came with this mod. If you do decide to delete the other MP3s, please make a backup of them first, so that you can always revert to the previous situation should you wish to do so.

Note that two thirds of the MP3 files which this mod adds to the Music folder are silent. The silent files were added in order to prevent the player from being confronted with a constant barrage of sound effects. 

In my experience, you will get the most realistic experience from my sound mod if there is a 20-30 percent difference between the Morrowind SoundFX volume, and the volume associated with music playback.


**Converting the MP3s in the Sound folder**

There are multiple ways in which you might convert these files. One way would be to use a Winamp plugin which allows you to write output to the hard disk. The free 'File Writer' plugin (available from Winamp.com) does the job well, allowing you to explicitly pick the 'Windows wav' format as the output type. 

Once you have converted the files, make sure that they have EXACTLY the same names as the MP3's which came with this download, excepting only the file extension. Thus you should end up with the following files: swiv_ashloop.wav, swiv_blightloop.wav, swiv_clearloop.wav, swiv_cloudyloop.wav, swiv_foggyloop.wav, swiv_overcastloop.wav, swiv_rainhvyloop.wav, swiv_rainyloop.wav, swiv_snowstormloop.wav. Needless to say, the files should be put in the Morrowind\Data Files\Sound\Swiv folder.

**Editing Morrowind.ini**

In order to edit the Morrowind.ini file, open it with a text editor (such as Notepad), and find the entries that read 'Ambient Loop Sound ID' and 'Rain Loop Sound ID'. Each of these entries is one of a set of instructions which tell Morrowind how it should treat a particular in-game weather type. Each set is preceded by a text between brackets, which describes the weather type to which the instructions apply. 

In order to use the ambient sound files in this mod, the entries should be changed as follows:

[Weather Clear]
...
Ambient Loop Sound ID=swiv_clear

[Weather Cloudy]
...
Ambient Loop Sound ID=swiv_cloudy

[Weather Foggy]
...
Ambient Loop Sound ID=swiv_foggy

[Weather Overcast]
...
Ambient Loop Sound ID=swiv_overcast

[Weather Rain]
...
Rain Loop Sound ID=swiv_rainy

[Weather Thunderstorm]
...
Rain Loop Sound ID=swiv_rainy
Ambient Loop Sound ID=swiv_heavyrain


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     3. Advantages and a few quirks

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Since no in-game sound emission points are required, this mod should run faster (in some cases, much faster) than similar mods like Morrowind Enhanced Sounds or Duncan's Atmospheric Sound Effects on the majority of machines, even though the wav files in themselves are very large. Obviously, though, there are also a few drawbacks to the approach I have taken. 

Firstly, since the loop sounds are associated with weather types, rather than with specific regions or cells, you will, from time to time, hear sounds which do not strictly befit the region that you are in - such as ducks and blackbirds in the Ashlands. If you also use the MP3's, discrepancies between sound and physical environment are even more likely to occur since  the order in which the MP3's are played is random. 

Secondly, since the Morrowind engine plays MP3 files in both interior and exterior cells, you are likely to hear birds sing & donkeys bray when you are inside buildings. If you keep the music volume low, this might indeed enhance the realism of your game, but preferences obviously differ. 


Finally, note that this mod is NOT lore-friendly. It goes together well with mods which put models of real-life birds in-game, such as Abbot's 'Where are all birds going'. If you do not like the idea of real-life animals making an appearance in Vvardenfell, however, you should not install this mod.


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     4. Credits

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While I cobbled this mod together, I did not create any of the sound files. All of them were released through the Freesound Project, under a Creative Commons license (see http://creativecommons.org). At the time of writing, the Freesound Homepage is located at http://freesound.iua.upf.edu. Full details can be found in the readme files which I put in the subfolders.
