Overriding sounds in Portal

[AntiGMan]

Hi,
I'm trying to override the sounds in Portal (specifically, the GLaDOS voice-over) with some sounds of my own.

I've extracted the entire sound folder from portal english.gcf to steamapps\username\portal\portal, and replaced the relevant files. Portal still plays the old sounds.
I've also tried replacing the sounds with each other, thinking the problem may be with the actual sound file I was trying. That didn't work either - Portal still plays the sounds in the original order.

What am I missing?

Thanks.

 

[Link]

I think you need to rebuild the GFC file. Extracting gives you a copy, so replacing the copy won't effect the game.

 

[Vegeta897]

Actually, it should, Link. This is how you can download new CSS models and such.

And I know it should work with the sound because I've made sound mods myself with HL2.

There must be something you are doing wrong with the directory structure there, AntiGMan.

 

[AntiGMan]

I wish I knew what.
My steam user is antigman, so steamapps\username\portal translates to steamapps\antigman\portal , which is indeed where portal is located. This should correspond with the "root" folder in the GCF, where the sounds are in root\portal\sound . So in my folder, they should be in steamapps\antigman\portal\portal\sound, which is exactly where they are.

In comparison, I just extracted wecreatestuff's map pack, which also has a "sound" folder, and according to the readme should also be extracted entirely to steamapps\antigman\portal\portal . And the map pack works great (although I don't know whether or not they replaced any sounds).

Is it possible that the ability to override sounds is disabled in Portal?

 

[Vegeta897]

Could be, but I don't understand why.

You sure it's supposed to be 'sound' and not 'sounds'?

 

[AntiGMan]

Positive. That's the structure I see in GCFscape (and wecreatestuff's pack).

 

[Vegeta897]

And you're using the proper .wav format for the sound files?

16 bit 44.1khz even?

Edit: waaait a minute, are you sure it's portal/portal? Not portal/hl2? Go ahead and try that for me.

Edit 2: Bleh, that probably won't work, never mind.

 

[Barnz]

Make them read-only.

 

[AntiGMan]

Vegeta897: I've tried it with files from the gcf (as in replaced the first GLaDOS wav with the second one). It didn't work either.
Tried the hl2 folder thing too.

test: didn't work.

Guess that's what I get for trying to gut GLaDOS... ;(

 

[Combine_Advisor]

I think that u have to keep the name of the original files

 

[Ennui]

try just portal/ instead of portal/portal

 

[Vegeta897]

try just portal/ instead of portal/portal

That's not it. It wouldn't go right in the root portal directory.

Combine_Advisor: Really?

 

[AntiGMan]

Thanks, Ennui, but that didn't work.

 

[Tyron]

too bad i don't have an copy of portal,
- but you got the same filename + file extension.
- in the correct folder and mod directory.

maybe there are more than 1 copies of the sound, you could check that.

 

[Dodo]

are the sounds replaced with your sounds in the hammer editor?

-dodo

 

[AntiGMan]

Dodo: I'm not sure I understand what you meant. I guess replacing the sounds in the maps would work, but it's not like I could re-release the maps with different sounds - I think that would be copyright infringement...

AFAIK, source games should support overriding the sounds by just placing new ones in the appropriate folder - it's just that for some reason I can't get that to work with Portal.

 

[Vegeta897]

Dodo: I'm not sure I understand what you meant. I guess replacing the sounds in the maps would work, but it's not like I could re-release the maps with different sounds - I think that would be copyright infringement...

Nah, you're not selling them.

AFAIK, source games should support overriding the sounds by just placing new ones in the appropriate folder - it's just that for some reason I can't get that to work with Portal.

Try emailing valve? I'm sure they'd be glad to tell you why Portal is different for some reason.

 

[AntiGMan]

Thanks, posted at steampowered.com

 

[AntiGMan]

Solved.
Thanks!

 

[Tyron]

great now we all learned something new well how the team configured portal