How to add custom briefing voices to custom missions in Ghost Recon

This is basically written to help all those modders out there who want to be able to add new briefing voices - i.e. a person reading out the briefing - to their custom missions. I went through a lot of trouble trying to get this done so just follow this tutorial which I compiled as soon as I found out how to do this. It's not very complicated at all, so just follow and enjoy!

BEFORE YOU BEGIN! MAKE A BACKUP OF BRIEFINGS.XML. Remember the keyword is BACKUP

Set up your mod folder
Make sure that you have a new folder in <ghost recon directory>\Mods. Throughout this tutorial, the mod folder will be called MyMod.
In MyMod you must have another folder called 'Sound'. This then has a copy of briefings.xml from <ghost recon directory>\Mods\Origmiss\Sound and a folder inside it called Briefings. I suggest that you copy your whole Briefings folder across from the Origmiss folder.

Make your mission
Make your mission in IGOR. When finished, do the following:-
In IGOR, go Edit -> Map. This opens the map properties box. Under map name, make it in the following format, and this format ONLY - no exceptions:

x## <a name of your choice>

Save the mission. Now you are ready to make the sound file.

Record the briefing
I suggest that you use sound recorder in Start> Programs> Accessories > Entertainment> Sound recorder. Open one of the existing briefings that you copied into the MyMod\Sound\Briefings folder. Stop it and rewind to the beginning. Now record over it. When you have finished recording, press stop.

Now, immediately go to Edit>Delete After Current Position. This clears the rest of the sound out.

Now save the file as the following: x##_briefing.wav where x and ## are the SAME as what you used in IGOR when naming the map.

Delete the .wav file that you used as a template.

Insert the sound file into briefings.xml
Load up IGOR and go to the tools menu. Select "Sound Volume Editor".

On the new window that appears, click "Select Sound Folder…" and navigate to your MyMod\Sound\Briefings\ folder.

IGOR will automatically load up the briefings.xml file and search for different files in your Briefings folder from what exists in the xml file. "Errors" (which is actually your new file and the lack of any of the old sound files you deleted) will be shown up in different colours. Click reconcile, they should all turn green now. When they have, hit apply.

The briefings.xml that is output is in <ghost recon folder>\Mods\Origmiss\Sound. Copy it from there into your MyMod\Sound directory.

Now, restore your original briefings.xml (in the Origmiss folder) from the backup that you made at the beginning.

There you go. Now your mission will start and low and behold - there is your briefing.

GAK_Firestar~*
firestar@ghostrecon.net

Thanks to Jeff from RSE who helped me a lot!

© 2002 Charles Amick
http://matrix.ghostrecon.net