The VG Resource

So I've previously been on this site and looked at a thread here: https://www.vg-resource.com/thread-30775.html

It appears as if someone else has previously tried ripping files from this game. So I thought this would be a good place to get some information on ripping, but I ran into quite a bit more trouble along the way:

1. The audio files cannot be opened because they appear to be in another type of package file. The files from the audio1.dll/.000 and audio2.dll/.000 extract into folders, each of which contains exactly one file titled ".AUDIOPKG". Upon doing some searching of the file extension, I didn't find anything under .audiopkg, but I DID find some interesting results regarding the .pkg extension, which appears to be another package file on its own, and simply renaming these files to "audio.pkg" doesn't help anything.

2. The image files seem to be under the same case, all stored in folders with exactly one item called ".XBMP". This appears to be some sort of Xbox related media file, which is odd considering the .pkg extension from before seems to correspond to PlayStation.

3. What I assume are the 3d maps and models are all stored as .NPCGEOM, .GEOM, or other such file extensions. Again, I can't find any sort of programs to open these.

I also have access to a ROM of the Gamecube version of this game, but I don't currently have the ROM on my PC so I can't test this on those files, although I assume it would be largely the same.

(07-07-2018, 01:35 PM)KryxedOff Wrote: [ -> ]So I've previously been on this site and looked at a thread here: https://www.vg-resource.com/thread-30775.html

....

Bump. That's me! Hopefully somebody figures this out.

Attached the quick bms.txt files from the ps23dformat that is no longer available encase it's useful to anybody. The Hobbit details has some instructions. Look online for quick bms tutorials.


Model files

Though the npc script was not working for me. Blender would import nothing so I think it needs an edit.


Watto game extractor can open the .000 files. (You have to select a export directory from the programs's menus
http://www.watto.org/game_extractor.html


But the extracted files shot no file extensions so I don't know if it's working or what to do with them.

You should be able to unpack with hobbit.bms as well from what I remember.

Terrain via Captures/Animated Models:

3DVia Printscreen can take undistributed captures of the game. But the models are not in a t pose. (Current animation ingame). The maps can be stitched together in programs such as 3Ds Max with 3-Point-Align script to match the same vertex geometry to the same vertex geometry to another capture. But it would be time consuming. And you need  a tool that could remove the duplicate polygons of the geometry well. (None of them to seam to work).

Also requires a 3dsMaxConvertXML plugin if using 3ds max (2015)
https://www.4shared.com/zip/GXWLJ9Mbce/K...XML20.html


Sound:

Another post from another user:
https://zenhax.com/viewtopic.php?t=3212 

"- The game uses Miles Sound System. (mss32.dll can be found in the game's directory and MSS is referenced on the box.)
- Importing the raw data into Audacity using the VOX ADPCM codec results in something resembling­­
the in-game audio, if you turn down the volume and ignore the massive amount of noise.­"

Yet another post:
[/url][url=https://forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.php?t=10063]https://forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.php?t=10063

"My results about the content of the files:

Bytes from 0 to 3F are information about author, date, etc.
From A0 to A3 is the number of audio files are in the file. (There is also a value after this, which is the same).
From the block EC there are the name of an audio file in uppercase. They are divided by 0x00.

AND I AM NOT LOOKING FOR THE SOUNDTRACKS. EVERYBODY CAN FIND IT ON THE NET!
I am looking for the another audio content.

Could anybody find a solution for this problem?"



A user on Youtube managed to get sound files but won't reply to a person's comment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcrfEb7SYR4

" I ripped and extracted all 52 in-game Nintendo GameCube music files to uncompressed WAV format 16bit, 44,1kHz."

"How did you manage to extract it?  When I did quickbms, it just gave me unusuable and broken mp3s."

The free audio program Audacity has a import > Raw function but the audio is distorted so it's hard to know which import setting is right or if the files are corrupt with the known unpackage methods.


General Info


Save files for PC:

http://sierrachest.com/index.php?a=games...&fld=bonus


Trainer that can somehow unlock beta content if you do the right things (no tutorial available)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgOTD7Pizv4

(Never tried these files so be careful of potential viruses or false alarms from antirvirus software)
https://www.gamecopyworld.com/games/pc_t....2%20CHEAT


Demo version of the game and Patch v.1.3
https://www.gamepressure.com/download.asp?ID=6700

(The patch fixes crashes that I was experiencing when trying to run the game on windows 10. But can't remember where I downloaded it from so make sure to scan any file you download.)

(10-22-2019, 07:04 PM)Kappa1233 Wrote: [ -> ]A user on Youtube managed to get sound files but won't reply to a person's comment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcrfEb7SYR4

"I ripped and extracted all 52 in-game Nintendo GameCube music files to uncompressed WAV format 16bit, 44,1kHz."

If you just want the soundtrack from the GameCube version it's actually pretty simple.

1) Extract "audio.000" and "audio.dfs" from the image file.

2) Extract all sound files from "audio.000" using Watto's Game Extractor.

3) Add the .mp3 extension at the end of the files and you're good to go.

Sadly they're quite compressed to save space on the smaller GameCube disc. I've tried doing the same for the PS2 and PC versions, which have higher quality audio files, but the resulting files seem to be in an unknown audio format. Opening them with MediaInfo didn't help either. Maybe they're still compressed?

(03-20-2020, 02:16 AM)SOLLAZZATORE Wrote: [ -> ]

(10-22-2019, 07:04 PM)Kappa1233 Wrote: [ -> ]A user on Youtube managed to get sound files but won't reply to a person's comment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcrfEb7SYR4

"I ripped and extracted all 52 in-game Nintendo GameCube music files to uncompressed WAV format 16bit, 44,1kHz."

If you just want the soundtrack from the GameCube version it's actually pretty simple.

1) Extract "audio.000" and "audio.dfs" from the image file.

2) Extract all sound files from "audio.000" using Watto's Game Extractor.

3) Add the .mp3 extension at the end of the files and you're good to go.

Sadly they're quite compressed to save space on the smaller GameCube disc. I've tried doing the same for the PS2 and PC versions, which have higher quality audio files, but the resulting files seem to be in an unknown audio format. Opening them with MediaInfo didn't help either. Maybe they're still compressed?

Hello, I'm new here and I've made an account just to reply to this thread, even if it is very dead. Anyway, I've done the process you've listed here with a gamecube ISO, and most music files work, but a lot of SFX files seem, like the ones you find in the PC version. I theorize that they aren't actually supposed to be .mp3 files, but a different format, and probably an archive of some sort, containing separate audio files and that ALL the audio files on PC are the same way.

For example, SFX_GOBLINS is one file, and is the only file referring to goblins, but it's probably an archive or some way of combining/indexing all the goblin sound effects.

So if we can find the right format or way to look at the contents of it then we can probably use that same method to mess with the PC version's audio files

Only problem is, you've all probably given up by now and probably won't even read this, and I personally wouldn't even know where to start. I hope someone out there knows more about this topic and can help us out.

EDIT: Ha, that's what I thought, you were right, it is still compressed. I opened SFX_GOBLINS with notepad and as expected, it's mostly a garbled mess, but I see some metadata and the names of every single goblin sound effect listed in some order. Here's a part of the first line with some interesting info:
v1.5            Gamecube        mschaefgen      07/11/03 23:11

EDIT 2: I have no clue where to go from here, but I've tweeted at the man credited for audio direction, Marc Schaefgen in hopes of him responding with some kind of technical advice, though I bet that sort of thing is out of his line of work

EDIT 3: I feel stupid, I've just realized the game uses the Miles Sound System, so I bet if I can get a copy of the SDK I can probably find a way to get all these sounds in their best form. I've emailed RAD studios to see if I can get my hands on an evaluation copy, but I doubt I'll have much luck with that

EDIT 4: Now I feel even dumber, because I've found a way to get the miles audio tools and tried opening them through that as mp3 and it still doesn't work, AND audio files that do work appear very similar format wise in notepad to ones that don't, so I really have no clue what could causing the issue.

EDIT 5: So I've used MP3val to repair the mp3 files from the gamecube version, and now the distorted and buggy ones are completely normal. However, again, most of the sound effects still get an unknown format error, and after trying the same on the pc version's audio files, the same thing still occurs.

(04-02-2021, 08:52 PM)jimmyJFK Wrote: [ -> ]Hello, I'm new here and I've made an account just to reply to this thread, even if it is very dead.

Hi, thanks for the reply! Sadly I don't have anything particulalry new to add.

From what I've found, the music files are in the audiopkg format, which contains metadata at the beginning and then the music itself. This format was also used in the game "Area 51" by the same studio.

The Hobbit on GameCube and the "Area 51" game, encode music in the MP3 format. Looking at the files with an Hex Editor you can see that all tracks start with the bytes FF FB, which is the MP3 file signature. MP3val strips out the metadata at the beginning, making the audiopkg a standard mp3.

However the music data inside the audiopkg files from the PC and PlayStation 2 are definetely not MP3. They are probably related to the ADPCM/VOX format, because if you import them as Raw Data in Audacity using this format, you get something that resembles the game audio (although extremely distorted).

The only pattern that I could find looking at the music files with an Hex Editor, was that the Playstation 2 files have all bytes on column 01 set at value 02. However this pattern is absent on the PC files.

By the way, did you get a reply from Marc Schaefgen?

Bumping this thread to say that I released the Area 51 source code on Github which contains the source for the tool that was used to create AUDIOPKG files in The Hobbit: https://github.com/ProjectDreamland/area...ndPackager

Among other things I’m porting all the CLI tooling to C#, I completed DFS already https://github.com/ProjectDreamland/dfs-tool/ and AUDIOPKG is next