by Kainc

Since I havent seen any guides how to change sounds for HOMMV TOE (and most like for previous versions), I’ll post mine here. Sounds are located in soundsfx.pak and they are named as, for example “337FA5B7-5235-4E23-9714-AD6E5769817E”. These files have no extension, but they can be opened / played at least with Audacity and Media Player Classic (both tested, but you might need certain audio codecs).

Let’s say you’d like to change Demonlord hero’s dwelling or mine capturing sound. I’ll teach this, beginning from the folder AnimSet because the correct line in that file basically leads to the right destination. If you already do know how this stuff works, you can advance to section 4.

• 1. Navigate to

data.pak (or mod.pak if used)/_(AnimSet)/Heroes and open DemonLord-arena.(AnimSet).xdb

• 2. Search for line <Kind>capture</Kind> and check the path under it. It should say:

<Anim href="/_(BasicSkelAnim)/Heroes/DemonLord/capture.(BasicSkelAnim).xdb#xpointer(/BasicSkelAnim)"/>

Ok, this is the path where you need to head next and open the file (capture.(BasicSkelAnim).xdb).

• 3. Find the <Sound href="/Sounds/_(Sound)/Heroes/DemonLord/Capture.xdb#xpointer(/Sound)"/> -line

and head for that location + open Capture.xdb

• 4. Inside Capture.xdb you see a line

<uid>337FA5B7-5235-4E23-9714-AD6E5769817E</uid>.

This is the name of the actual sound file played when Demonlord captures a specific… thing. Copy that “code” to somewhere you can find it later (notepad) and close the file.

• 5. In Heroes V ToE main folder/data you can see soundsfx.pak. I strongly advice you to extract the whole package somewhere (desktop), since I couldnt find the “337FA5B7-5235-4E23-9714-AD6E5769817E” file with RAR’s search.

• 6. Once extracted, use some search software (Windows search) and type, for example, the last part of the line; “AD6E5769817E”.

Search will be much faster if you can tic an option “find from specific location” and point it to the extracted sounds folder (the name of the first folder you see in your location should be bin). Once you’ve found the file, try to play it with WMP or Audacity.

• 7. Audacity gives the following info about the sound file:

Mono, 44100Hz, 32-bit float.

So use these settings if you add your own samples.

• 8. Once you’ve made your own fantastic(?) sound, save the file as *whatever*.wav and rename it 337FA5B7-5235-4E23-9714-AD6E5769817E (assuming it’s the Demonlord’s capture sound) WITHOUT .wav-extension.

• 9. Go back to *heroesVdefaultfolder*\data.

and open

soundsfx.pak\bin\Sounds

throw the file you created into that location, OR, STRONGLY RECOMMENDED: make a mod.pak if you know how to!

I’m not sure if you add completely new sounds by adding random filenames since I don’t know how that UID thing works. So this tutorial is only for REPLACING existing sounds.

And moral advice: don’t use copyrighted sounds