Metroid Dread ripping

[Unknowni123]

Hey guys. I got to work on getting the sounds from Metroid Dread. Had some trouble getting my prod.keys to work, but now I've got it and I've found all the sounds and streams from the .NCAs! They're even all named correctly! Unfortunately, the sounds are in a .bapd format I've never seen before, and vgmstream can't get them open. Looking at them in a hex editor, I can see the filenames for .wav files within. So tantalizingly close. Anyone else heard of this .bapd format, any ideas on how to crack it?

If someone with more knowledge of Switch extracting could help a brother out, that would be great.

EDIT: Included a sample .bapd file
  DreadSample bapd.zip (Size: 646 bytes / Downloads: 134)

UPDATE the .bapd files don't matter. Likely just directory things, since they were in a "system" folder. I've found some .bfgrp files. Now time to fight until I can figure these files out too.

[Joschka]

That should help a bit https://forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=24584

[Unknowni123]

Thanks man. I managed to get that far without the thread. Like 09williamsad says though, the filenames are completely useless. I wonder if there's a way to line up the filenames from the .bapd files (or somewhere else) with the corresponding .fwav files. That would streamline the process so much.
Unfortunately it also sounds too complicated for me to whip up a program - I'm pretty amateur with that. Maybe I oughta wait for someone else to make a tool for it (or I could do it manually, but that sounds like actual torture),

[Unknowni123]

(idk if I'm necro-ing by posting but whatever, the Sound Ripping Help board is slow anyways)

I have some updated research. In another xentax thread (here) a friend Ekey created an extractor for Metroid Dread called MD.Unpacker which works great for models and textures! There is even some data in those files that give filenames for sounds. But the program only works on .pkg files at the moment, meaning it can't help with the .bfgrp files where all the .bfwav sounds are actually stored.

Thus Dread may pose the same predicament as many other modern Metroid games (looking at you Prime 3 and Samus Returns) where the sound filenames and actual sound data are stored separately (oddly enough Other M didn't do that). Unless... I believe .bfsar files can potentially hold filenames, and there is some sort of connection between them and .bfgrp files, but I'm still working on if that matters at all in this scenario.

I found a .bfsar called "sm_sounddefinitions_packed.bfsar" which contains additional sounds, but still no filenames. It has a companion file with the exact same filename, but a .bmsstoc extension instead. Odd.

Or is it possible to break down a .bfgrp to a .brsar (instead of straight to a .bfwav like I've done) so we can see if the middle step has filenames? Maybe it's a fool's errand and I oughta just wait until someone smarter than me makes a program to pair up the sounds with the names from the .bapd or .pkg files, but idk.

Otherwise, I'm still trucking along. I have all the sounds ready to go, I just want those filenames! Would make organization and uploading so simple.

[Unknowni123]

(still not sure if this is necro-ing, but we got a breakthrough!)

Working with the Metroid Dread modding discord, user Bearborg and I were able to figure out a really wacky way to rip the sounds with their filenames intact.

We started with Citric Composer, which was able to read the filenames but unable to properly extract them (the bfsar was too new for its software, as far as i can tell). It's kind of a mess of a program (sorry Gota I still love you) and isn't getting any more updates, so we had to try altering it ourselves to make it compatible with Dread. The temporary solution we came up with was as follows:

- So the file IDs for the sound wave entries in the bfsar match up to the file IDs of the bfwsd files in the bfgrps, and every bfwsd in the bfgrp is immediately followed in the file list by a bfwar that contains the actual wave audio. Modifying Citric Composer to use all that data properly would take a lot of work, so instead Bearborg modified it to dump out all the wavs in a bfgrp while using the bfwsd IDs as filenames
- Then Bearborg modified it again to dump out all the filename ID mappings from the bfsar
- Then a script to batch rename all the files to their proper filenames

As far as we know, this gives us access to all of the ''used'' sound files within the bfsar. What this means is that there are still plenty of sounds within the bfsar that never get used in-game, which we have yet to properly document. Could be some unused enemies and stuff in there!

So that's the update. I'll be uploading the files we do have soon, and will likely update them with the unused files at a later date. Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk.

[torgal]

(still not sure if this is necro-ing, but we got a breakthrough!)

Working with the Metroid Dread modding discord, user Bearborg and I were able to figure out a really wacky way to rip the sounds with their filenames intact.

We started with Citric Composer, which was able to read the filenames but unable to properly extract them (the bfsar was too new for its software, as far as i can tell). It's kind of a mess of a program (sorry Gota I still love you) and isn't getting any more updates, so we had to try altering it ourselves to make it compatible with Dread. The temporary solution we came up with was as follows:

- So the file IDs for the sound wave entries in the bfsar match up to the file IDs of the bfwsd files in the bfgrps, and every bfwsd in the bfgrp is immediately followed in the file list by a bfwar that contains the actual wave audio. Modifying Citric Composer to use all that data properly would take a lot of work, so instead Bearborg modified it to dump out all the wavs in a bfgrp while using the bfwsd IDs as filenames
- Then Bearborg modified it again to dump out all the filename ID mappings from the bfsar
- Then a script to batch rename all the files to their proper filenames

As far as we know, this gives us access to all of the ''used'' sound files within the bfsar. What this means is that there are still plenty of sounds within the bfsar that never get used in-game, which we have yet to properly document. Could be some unused enemies and stuff in there!

So that's the update. I'll be uploading the files we do have soon, and will likely update them with the unused files at a later date. Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk.

I'm looking forward to your updates, man!  I'm also interested in Metroid Dread SFX, but I have no skills to dig deep enough to get them. I can use some skilflul made ripping tool, but that's it. I can't do Hex and similar shit. Because of that, I hope that you'll figure out how to properly rip these files. Keep up good work!  B)

[Unknowni123]

(again unsure if this is necro-ing lol, i don't use forums enough)

Thanks Torgal. I've got all the sounds properly named and uploaded thanks to Bearborg's technique, they just need to be approved now! Including the unused ones!

As for modding efforts, the discord is still working on a quick way to do that. Citric Composer works, but you have to replace every sound individually, so it's kinda rough lol. Not really the topic at hand, but worth noting!

EDIT (Apr. 2022) - The sounds are now approved and open for download!