Making GLaDOS speak

Using Preset Sounds

It's actually very easy to make GLaDOS talk, but which method to use may not be immediately obvious. You can play one of her lines using an ambient_generic, but this has an unfortunate downside. ambient_generic entities continue to play even when the game is paused (hence the "ambient" part of the entity name).

In Valve's maps, a logic_choreographed_scene is used instead. Here's how to make GLaDOS speak in your own maps with a logic_choreographed_scene entity:

• Step 1 - Create a small room outside of your regular play area. Cover the walls with the "nodraw" texture.
• Step 2 - Inside the room, create a generic_actor entity. Set the entity's model to models/props/metal_box.mdl or something similar. The model doesn't really matter, but Valve uses metal_box in their maps.
• Step 3 - Set the generic_ai entity's Name property to Aperture_AI (the name cannot be anything other than Aperture_AI, otherwise the scenes will not function)
• Step 4 - Create a logic_choreographed_scene in your play area and set the Scene property to whatever scene you want to play.

Note:If you are making a scene for cameras, you might want to try the following scenes out.

There are also many scenes that can be made for special use, including things like weighted storage cubes, and cameras.

Cameras

Note:As soon as you put an Aperture_AI, GlaDOS will automatically play one of the following scenes when a camera gets distached.

* scenes\general\generic_security_camera_destroyed-1.vcd
* scenes\general\generic_security_camera_destroyed-2.vcd
* scenes\general\generic_security_camera_destroyed-3.vcd
* scenes\general\generic_security_camera_destroyed-4.vcd
* scenes\general\generic_security_camera_destroyed-5.vcd

Storage Cubes

* general\ai_box_fried.vcd
* general\ai_box_lost.vcd

Now, just trigger the logic_choreographed_scene entity and listen to GLaDOS speak!

Custom Sounds

You can put in your own sounds for GLaDOS's voice if you like - just follow these steps:

As a note, you should know about making triggers, inputs and outputs already before trying this!

• Step 1 - Put your sound into the folder "~/portal/portal/sound/yourmapsname/" You will probably have to create the "sound" subfolder.
• Step 2 - Put an ambient_generic anywhere in your map - preferably near the trigger that will activate it.
• Step 3 - Open the "Sound Name" field in the ambient_generic's properties and browse for your sound name.
• Step 4 - Make a name for your ambient_generic and trigger it with a PlaySound from somewhere, and it should work.

Important Notes:
* Your audio file needs to be a .wav file, preferably 22050 Hz Sample Rate and Playback Rate.
* This will only work on your system!  You will need to use bspzip to add the files to your .bsp
if you want the sounds to be heard by recipients of your map.
* When you use bspzip to put a sound into a .bsp, make sure to use all lowercase letters on everything
and to use the .bsp internal sound folder of "/sound/yourmapsname/sound.wav"
* One more tip, if things don't work correctly, try to trigger the sound in-game, then look at the developer's
console and see what error it gave you - this can be a valuable troubleshooting tool!

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