Dota 2 Reborn Sound Modding / Custom Announcers

Have an idea for a funny hero sound change or announcer pack? Ever tried to mod Dota 2 and realize there is absolutely ZERO commonly available/up to date information on how to do it? No? Well this information is here for any other unfortunate sap who wants to go down the rabbit hole like I did.

Note and Disclaimer

Disclaimer:
While some of the steps I am going to outline below may allow you to essentially "steal" paid announcer packs, this guide will not show you how to do this nor does it endorse it. This guide's purpose is serving as notes for myself and others who want to make a custom announcer pack.

Note:
This is probably not the easiest way to do it and bigger brained individuals probably have a better way, but this is what I've had work for me . Please let me know if what I'm doing is asinine and point me to the path of how the mega minds mod this game.

Now on to the guide proper...

Tools of the trade

Required Programs:

• dota2mod's VPK Creator[dota2modss.blogspot.com] - You need this to actually create the .vpk files your mod will need to be packed in.
  
  
• VRF / Source 2 Resource Viewer[vrf.steamdb.info] - Actually not 100% required but, unless you want to write out the .vsndevts files by by hand rather than editing an existing one, you'll darn well want it.
  
  
• Basic knowledge of how to create a .bat file[www.google.com] - If you've never made one, google it.

Optional Programs:

• Notepad++ (or any text editor of your choice)[notepad-plus-plus.org] - Using the regular windows notepad can physically damage your eyes, protect yourself.
  
  
• Audacity[www.audacityteam.org] - One of the best freeware programs out there, but not needed if you already have the sound files you're using ready to go.

Getting started

1. Run VRF.exe and navigate to you "Dota 2 beta/game/dota" directory and open "pak01_dir.vpk".
   
2. Once pak01_dir.vpk is open in the VRF open "soundevents/voscripts" the select the script you want to edit.
   
   
3. For this guide I will be editing "game_sounds_vo_announcer_killing_spree.vsndevts_c" as I am modifying the default mega kills announcer.
   
   
4. Right click and select the option "Decompile and Export".
   
5. Now open it up in your choice of a text editor and take a look.
   
6. Notice anything familiar? Each of the lines are listed and from here it's as simple as changing the .vsnd file listed to what you want. Just make sure the file path matches that of your mod.
   
   
7. You can even list the sound files multiple times to have the sound event picked out of a list when it plays.
   
   
8. Heres my Rick Hunter Mega Kills Announcer for example:
   
9. "Volume" and "Pitch" modify exactly what you'd expect with a name like that.

But now you or may not be asking? How do I make a .vsnd file?

Converting files to a Valve file format

As how they are now .mp3, .wav, and even that .vsndevts you exported earlier will not work when packed up as a .vpk file. Why? Well if you noticed in VRF the files are have a "_c" at the end as they've been compressed.

So how do we get our files in this format? Well one method is downloading the Dota 2 Workshop Tools and creating a new addon. When you launch your addon with the tools, all files in it's "content" directory will be converted.

But what if we could skip the middleman?

1. First go to your "Steam\steamapps\common\dota 2 beta\content\dota_addon" directory and create a new folder there. I named mine "covertpls".
   
2. Then create a new .bat file with the following:
   
3. Make sure if your Dota 2 beta Directory is located somewhere different you change the file path.
   
   
4. I'd like to thank this[www.dropbox.com] dropbox I found off a reddit post showing this method of converting files.
   
   
5. When you're ready to convert put everything in your custom folder and run your .bat file. If all goes to plan you should see something like this:
   
6. You should then have a folder in your "Steam\steamapps\common\dota 2 beta\GAME\dota_addon" directory with all compressed files, ready to be packed.
   
7. If you messed up the syntax in one of your .vsndevts files, you'll get an error like this:
   and it will fail to compile. If the file you are using is an unsupported format (not a vsndevts, vsnd, etc) the compiler will fail to detect it at all.

Packing everything up

1. The VPK Creator is incredibly easy to use. All you need to do is extract it to somewhere and place all your files in the "pak01_dir" folder.
   
   
2. IMPORTANT: make sure the file you are modding is in the exact place that the original is in. For my killing spree announcer example, notice how I nest "game_sounds_vo_announcer_killing_spree.vsndevts_c" in the same files I found it in VRF.
   
3. Once you are ready, run "Create vpk-archive from pak01_dir folder.bat".
   
   
4. This should pack everything into a .vpk file. Do not rename the file.
   
   
5. You can open your compiled .vpk in VRF to make sure your file structure is correct as well.
   

Using your mod

1. This is the easiest part, just go to "dota 2 beta\game\mods" and drop your folder in there.
   
2. Then head on over to "dota 2 beta\game\dota" like earlier and find and edit "gameinfo.gi".
   
   
3. You then want to add the following three lines to the file (changing "mods" if you placed your "pak01_dir" in a different folder).
   
4. I'd like to thank those at dota2mods[dota2modss.blogspot.com] for this information.
   
   NOTE: Keep a spare of "gameinfo.gi" as when Dota 2 updates, the file gets overwriten, meaning this step would have to be done again for the mod to work.
   
   EDIT 28-OCT-2023: Just had to fix my old mods as it appears the format and/or contents of the "gameinfo.gi" file has changed in the last 3 years, go figure. If this happens to you, simply editing the new version of "gameinfo.gi" that is downloaded by Steam in the same manner outlined by this guide is enough to get your announcer mods working again.
   
   
5. What you just did, in essence, was to tell Dota 2 to override your base game's "pak01_dir" with the one that you put in your mods folder. This is so the game runs your "game_sounds_vo_announcer_killing_spree.vsndevts_c" and uses the custom sounds you put in.
   
   
6. Finally load up the game and test it, in this guide I modified the base game killing spree announcer, so lets take a look:[drive.google.com]

My Mods and examples

In case you're interested:

• Here[drive.google.com] is my uncompressed ".vsndevts" file for my Rick Hunter Mega Kills Announcer.
  
  
• Here[drive.google.com] is the download for my Rick Hunter Mega Kills Announcer
  
  
• Here[drive.google.com] is the download for my Rome: Total War Mega Kills Announcer

Thanks for reading, and hope this helps anyone in their modding endeavors.

[QualQuek]

Tried but when i'm compiling that doesn't convert the mp3 sound to vsnd_c file so impossible to use it...

[♡ "Horny Horny No Mi." ♡]

imma try it.

[die]

oooo, nice job on this! really cool

[ae turboTelka360]

lol nice!