I. The mod

Currently available (in one BAIN-friendly package):

• Full - an integrated hub of AURA modules, including:
* Outdoor Ambient (environment sounds per region, time, and weather)* Populated Ambient (town sounds per culture and time)* Interior Ambient (atmospheric loops for guilds, taverns, temples, tombs and many more)

* Interior Weather (outdoor weather through doors and windows or through the roof)
* Service Voices (comments from service NPCs)
* Containers (containers open/close sound)
* UI (additional, immersive little sounds)
* PC (fatigue, health, sickness etc.)
* Miscellaneous (little stuff - water splashes, yurt/bearskin door sounds, variable rain and wind sounds etc.)

• Replacer - a replacer for some of the "worst offenders" amongst MW's original sounds. Aimed at providing a high quality alternative, without straying too far from vanilla experience. Remember to back up the originals.

II. Installation

This mod requires MWSE-Lua (and thus will not work in OpenMW). Install first and update - direct link. Alternatively, just use MGE XE and run the updater.

If you want to use the unsupported and obtrusive previous soundpack, you should download the latest full version anyway. No
1.x.x version will work with 2.x.x or 3.x.x etc.- you have been warned! You can obviously mix and match the sounds themselves, just observe the folder structure and remember to rename the files to be < 32 characters.

III. Compatibility

Technically compatible with existing sound mods. The result, however, is something you should determine for yourself. I've so far tested it with official BC sounds plugin and it plays along just fine. Replacer file will of course replace original sounds, but it's fully optional. Compatible with all recommended mods listed below.

While we're at it, for a fully immersive experience you can also check out my music mod: Better Music System Redone. Or just play with no music and all and soak up all those insects and silts in your ears.

Works best when used with Watch the Skies and Vapourmist.

IV. Usage

THE BEST AND RECOMMENDED WAY TO USE AURA IS TO GET RID OF EXPLORE AND BATTLE MUSIC FOLDERS AND USE MY TAVERN MUSIC OPTION.
This way, you can hear all the ambient sound without obstruction from epic music tracks, and in turn you'll hear proper music that's lore-compliant and natural in taverns - as you would in real life. Or don't use the tavern music module and just mute music.

If you want to add your own ambient sounds (remember to use looping tracks!), then all you need to do is copy over some .wavs. That's it, the mod will randomly select a track from the appropriate folder.

If you feel like editing region-to-climate assignments, open up Data Files/MWSE/mods/tew/AURA/Ambient/Outdoor/outdoorClimates.lua and edit the table there, according to the scheme. Same for adding regions - you need a region name (NOT the ID!) in square brackets followed by '=' and climate name.

Say you have a mod that adds a region named "Big Chungus Fields Region", which is a huge grassland. What you do is:
a) navigate do Data Files/MWSE/mods/tew/AURA/Ambient/Outdoor/outdoorClimates.lua
b) open the file with a text editor (no worries, Notepad is enough, but I recommend Sublime Text, Notepad++ or any IDE of your choice)
c) enter a new line somewhere in the table and insert the following line (every single character here is important!):

["Big Chungus Fields Region"] = "Grassy",

d) save the file. When your enter the Big Chungus Fields Region in-game, you will hear sounds from the "g" folder in Data Files/Sounds/tew/A/C.

As for my own sounds - do whatever you want with them, really. Mix, cut, stretch, reverse, mash - I don't care. I'd be glad to hear feedback, though, so feel free to comment! When it comes to the code, however, please PM me first. I'm on Discord, too.

V. Recommendations

• Watch the Skies
• Vapourmist
• CSO
• Better Music System Redone
• Spell Sounds Enhanced
• Its a Deal
• Great Service
• BC Sounds


VI. Credits
Hrn for his distance calculation function and confirming my fears of MW's sound engine from his unreleased Interior Weather mod.
Neoptolemeus for the Birds and Crickets.
Texafornian for Provincial Music, from which I borrowed some ideas for sound feed.
NullCascade, Merlord, Greatness7, OperatorJack and all of the MW modding community on Discord for information and advice, as well as MWSE development.
Brazil for lua. And Oropéndola samples.
Bethesda for an empty canvas for me to put acoustic paint on, and for BC sounds.

All of the sounds are rather profound remixes of attribution-free sounds from freesound.org and free BBC sound stash, together with some Bethesda originals.