I've read through several sound and conversation creating specialities of the Source Engine and I'm a bit confused right now. What I want is some kind of advice on which way is the best for me to create custom voice lines with subtitles in Portal 2.
What I want:
- Implement custom music and english voice lines. Persons speaking are: GLADoS and a turret
- When implementing custom voices, be sure that they are loud enough or even silence the sorrounding sounds.
- Display English subtitles, if possible also German ones
- Submit the result to the workshop --> Only Pakrat, no Steam mod can be used
- If possible: Have a good control over the conversation. (e.g. I don't want 8 ambient_generics with 8 logic_relays for a conversation with 8 sentences)
- If possible: A vivid music background, which slighty changes from time to time, like most of the music in the Campaign.

I stumbled over Chickenmobiles Portal 2 Subtitles VDC article, read the soundscript and the general Closed Caption article and took a look at the scenes article. However, I am not quite able to figure out, what I should consider now as the best proceeding. Could please someone with experience of sound creation help me out? Thank you very much.

All these things you want are able to do, but they won't work with Pakrat.

Subtitles are under resources/closecaption_<language>.txt. Seems like they need Gamesound names of the sounds to work.
To control the conversation, you need VCDs (Choreographie).

I have experience with that and speak German (as you, I guess). Just contact me if there are any wishes.

Really sure that they won't work with pakrat? But closed captions are eventually .dat files and not .txt files, so they should work with pakrat. Sounds should also be pakable. And for the choreographed scenes, I don't need them as a must, I am willingly to hardcode stuff into Hammer, if there is no other option. Just wanted to know what I can achieve with pakrat, because I want to submit this to the workshop at all costs.

The file format doesn't say anything about if it will work in Pakrat. It's more the question when the game needs it.
The game loads textures with the map, so they will work in Pakrat. But particle effects for example must be loaded with the game itself, so Pakrat won't work here.
As for closecaptions (they are .txt files for me?) this is something you/we have to test first.

Skotty wrote:
The file format doesn't say anything about if it will work in Pakrat. It's more the question when the game needs it.
The game loads textures with the map, so they will work in Pakrat. But particle effects for example must be loaded with the game itself, so Pakrat won't work here.
As for closecaptions (they are .txt files for me?) this is something you/we have to test first.

I'm 95% sure that .txt files work as long as they do not replace the default files. (so same name)

As I said, it depends on when the game needs to load files. Files in maps are loaded when the map is loaded. But particle effects need to be loaded with the gamestart, for example.
You really have to test it out.

From experience, .dat files cannot be packed in the .bsp however you created your own custom one for your closed captions and so then it will not replace any other files which Valve might have.
Just pack your map and needed files into a zip and give people instructions on where to put it.

Also did you need better explaining on how to make your own custom scene table and scene order?

EDIT: By using already playing used scenes in the game it should automatically play the captions if you have captions enabled. Unless of course you are using custom sounds, then using scene files are out of the option, and you probably need to edit Glados.nut in order to work with raw sound files instead of scene files.

EDIT2: This sounds like something I can work on to see if I can get the same effects used by a scene files to work with raw sounds.

Okay, now I need someone to check, whether the subtitles and my custom model are working in the workshop. Can please somebody do this, preferable someone who speaks English, as he needn't download a different language pack?

Here is the map: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=75126398

You'll need these two datas: (unpack them to portal 2/portal2/resource)

They are both working.

Did you compile the captions into closecaption_tchinese.dat? For some reason that is included in the download but it is no different from the original valve file.

Only chosen the wrong file for the .zip folder. "tchinese" comes after "tAA_english"

Now that is strange that you can still see the captions, as the .dat is only in the packed BSP, not in the file you downloaded. But when I tested the captions on my PC, it couldn't display them without a .dat file.
I have now added the right file.

Brainstone wrote:
Only chosen the wrong file for the .zip folder. "tchinese" comes after "tAA_english"

Now that is strange that you can still see the captions, as the .dat is only in the packed BSP, not in the file you downloaded. But when I tested the captions on my PC, it couldn't display them without a .dat file.
I have now added the right file.

Does that mean in his case it read the .dat from the map file?

EDIT: Answer is YES you can pak it. I didn't install the .dat files, just the map, and it showed up.

Also about particles: There's a per-map particle.txt file setup you can use, so while the manifest is per-game-session those are per-map. I haven't tested if it works in Portal 2 but it works in Portal.

As far as I can remember from my own tests, particle effects need to be loaded with the game start (of course by using the per map manifest).

That may be informative, but I don't wan to use particles (I once wanted to include one songle particle system, but then decided not to).

What I would really like to know:
- Do .mp3s need a special form when packed into the bsp?
- How can I be sure that they will be loud enough?

Brainstone wrote:
What I would really like to know:
- Do .mp3s need a special form when packed into the bsp?
- How can I be sure that they will be loud enough?

MP3s don't need any special format.
To be sure if they are loud enough... well test it! If you use Play Everywhere they are as loud as in your media player.
If you use a radius you should use gamesounds/soundscripts to give them a more precise range. https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Soundscripts