The DanceOla is a fully operational, fully animated, customizable jukebox modeled after the classic Rock-Ola jukeboxes of the 1950s and 60s. It comes in two versions, a single play, button activated model that let's you select your favorite tracks any time you like, and an auto-play version that cycles through it's 23 tracks, four songs at a time with each play. Ideally I would have preferred one model that allowed for queuing playback of multiple single selections, you know, like a real jukebox, but that's a scripting rat's nest far above my pay grade. Also, I had considered fashioning the playback after a radio station, but that was going to take longer than I wanted since I've not ventured into radio station modding and I wasn't sure how to pull that off while allowing for the animations to play with each song change. My approach to scripting is a lot like my approach to algebra in jr. high, learn a few basics and make it fit what I'm trying to do. If my mods were cars they'd look a lot more like Studebakers than BMWs. If any modders with greater scripting abilities would like to help streamline these land yachts, I'd welcome your assistance.

As previously mentioned, the DanceOla is easily customizable for those of you who'd like to add your own music. Songs and their corresponding buttons/menu tags can all be customized, it's just a matter of how much detail you're interested in. The quick and easy method is to just replace the sound file. Follow the file path Fallout 4\Data\Sound\FX. Depending on how you installed the mod, there may already be a ChuckYufarleySound folder in that location. If not, just create a new folder and name it ChuckYufarleySound. There are 23 song files named CY_Jukebox_Song001 - CY_Jukebox_Song023. If you had to create the ChuckYufarleySound folder, you won't see these files, but that doesn't matter. All you need to do is rename your custom .WAV file starting with CY_Jukebox_Song, and ending in a number from 001-023. Then just drop that file into the ChuckYufarleySound folder. Simple. The file numbers correspond to the buttons and menu tags on the jukebox, as they are laid out from left to right. Replace file CY_Jukebox_Song007, and your custom track will be playable with the 7th button from the left. So on and so forth. All the songs used in the mod are vanilla tracks, I just made copies and renamed them so that anyone wanting to use custom tracks wouldn't have to over-write vanilla files or dig deep into the sound descriptors to do so.

The next step would be to rename the buttons. I don't know how many ways there are to do this. I know of two. Apparently F4SE has/had a "SetName" command, but it no longer works...or so I gathered. The first method that I know of is by using a mod called Rename Anything, that by all accounts allows you to rename anything...hence the name. I wasn't able to test this method though as it seems the mod has not been fully updated since the last game update from Bethesda. The mod has been updated quite frequently, so I don't think it's a matter of the author no longer supporting it, and it's status could be related to the defunct F4SE command, I do not know. Only time will tell if it will be back up or not. The second option is to open the mod in the CK and give each activator a new name. There are 23 activators with Editor IDs that go from Yufarley_JukeboxButton_001 to Yufarley_JukeboxButton_023. Just match the numbers at the end of these IDs to the number of your new track (Yufarley_JukeboxButton_004 = CY_Jukebox_Song004, Yufarley_JukeboxButton_010 = CY_Jukebox_Song010, etc) all you need to do is click the activator you want to change, and in the Name box, replace the text with the name of your new song. Click OK to close the activator dialog, and save the plugin. Your button's name should now match the name of your custom track.

The third step, and this is really only necessary if your as much of an OCD case as I am, you can change the text on the menu tags that correspond to the buttons you just renamed. I know, you can barely read them without resorting to using TFC, but if you're in this for the ultra detail, I have provided an outlet for you to scratch that itch. Under Miscellaneous files on the download page, you will find a file named Custom Menu Template. If you want to change the menu tags, download this file. What this contains is a Photoshop .PSD file with the main texture image for the menu tags, and all the names as individual, editable text layers. The layers are named and the list from top to bottom with the text images as you go from left to right, top to bottom. If you're reasonably experienced in Photoshop, you won't have any problem changing these. Just select the layer you want to edit in the layer panel, make sure you have the text tool selected, highlight the text in the image, and change it to whatever you want. Hell you could just delete all the text layers if you want, that's up to you. Once you've finished editing the text layers, right click on the bottom (background) layer and select "Flatten Image". Save As a .DDS image without changing the name. In your Fallout 4\Date\Textures folder, create a new folder and name it ChuckYufarleyTextures. Inside that folder create another new folder and name it Phonograph. (Yeah, this project started out as just a turntable, but I switched to a jukebox when I couldn't get it to work the way I wanted it to) Drop your new CY_MenuTags_d.DDS file in the Phonograph folder and you're done.

As for the cycled playback of the auto-play versions, All I did was create stages that play (in order) songs 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-16, 17-20, and 21-23 each time you activate the jukebox. No fancy random function, because I didn't want to delve into learning that bit. Plus, my experience with any random anything is that it's always far from random. This way you won't hear the same songs over and over. I was originally going to have a go at playing the entire list from top to bottom, but breaking it up means you don't have to start from the top every time. 4 and once in a while 3 songs is just about the right amount of time to spend doing whatever else you got going on without having to go back and chunk more caps in every 3 minutes.

Both versions of the jukebox come in clean as well as dirty varieties and can be found in the workshop menu under Decor/Misc. The jukebox does require 8 power and must be wired. The power connect point is in the back near the bottom and does not protrude ridiculously far out. The jukebox also gives a small happiness boost to your settlement. There might be instances when if you disconnect power during playback the song will continue playing and/or animations might de-sync. One sure fire solution is to scrap the jukebox and build another one, but generally such incidents righted themselves by going into workshop mode and repositioning the jukebox. Doing that allows all the interdependent activators to respawn and usually fixes the problem.

I tested several different Sound Output Models looking for just the right sound. I didn't want to be able to hear the thing from across the settlement, nor did I want it to sound like a tin can, after all I did put "Stereo" right on the front of the thing. I think I got it just about right.

As you might have seen in the video, I have also built in dance idle markers that enable only while music is playing...mostly. Dancers might start a tad early sometimes and finish a bit late, but then they might just be passionate m**********n' dancers. For the life of me I can't figure out how to loop or stack these idles so that NPCs will dance the entire song, but they will resume right away about 30% of the time, and sometimes move to another spot and start again. It does look kind of funny when they quit in the middle of a song and walk away, like they're thinking "M**********rs ain't gonna watch me dance, then I ain't dancin'!" I started out only placing two markers but then had the bright idea to see if I could place two more close enough so that it looks like those NPCs are dancing together. I only had 3 NPCs available while I was testing it, but I damn near shit myself when I turned around and saw Sturges and Jun getting all deep into each other. As soon as I tried to record they quit.

I'm rolling the dice again with custom glass materials. I tried using the same vanilla material I used in one of the YuVend updates, but the normal map gave it some really awful looking blurred spots, so I just switched it out for the shared/flat normal and that got rid of the blurs. I really hope I don't have the pink glass bs happen again.


On that note, I hope you enjoy the new jukebox. Happy New Year!