Joined: 09 Jun 2012 Location: Lost in the corn fields
Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2016 11:34 pm Post subject:
Few questions for a school project involving modding
Subject description: Gotta mod TS for an ez A
Been like 4 years since I was active here, so I don't remember jack from modding. I'll probably never finish the mod stuff I was working on since I have a game I really want to make, may my ideas and progress rest in peace.
Anyways, for a project for a multimedia class, I thought it would be easiest to mod Tiberian Sun so unit selection/movement/attack quotes and weapon firing sounds are replaced with musical notes. Well, in this case, more everyday sounds since I'll be reproducing John Cage's 4'33 since it would be easy plus the teacher would like it more:
Unfortunately, I don't have too much time to work on it, so my questions will be more to give me an idea on how much I can do.
#1: How easy would it be to replace or disable weapon firing and unit quotes? Similar question, is it possible to disable the music so it can't play at all?
#2: Is it possible to outright disable the skirmish mode so you can't go into it? At the very least, is it possible to just make one map available in skirmish?
#3: Is it possible to disable the campaigns in the game and make a 1 map campaign the only selectable option? If not, is it fairly easy to implement a 1 map campaign so it is an option?
#4: Any special updates to Final Sun or similar over the past couple years that would make map creation and implementation easier? If not, that's fine, just curious mainly.
Thanks for your patience, it's been quite a long time. I'll probably have some followup questions later after a much needed nap. _________________ Don't let your memes be dreams. QUICK_EDIT
Posted: Thu Apr 14, 2016 2:45 am Post subject:
Re: Few questions for a school project involving modding
Insomniac wrote:
#1: How easy would it be to replace or disable weapon firing and unit quotes? Similar question, is it possible to disable the music so it can't play at all?
Disabling sounds is very easy: the game simply won't play any sounds that aren't found. So all you need to do is creating an empty sounds.mix file (and also sounds01.mix, if Firestorm is present) to disable to all sounds and unit voices. Do the same thing with scores.mix (and also scores01.mix if firestorm is present) to disable the music and to disable the EVA/CABAL speech (such as "New construction options", "Silos needed" and so on), do the same thing with speech01.mix and speech02.mix.
To replace sounds, you need to create your own .aud files by converting them from .wav files with XCC Mixer and then insert them into sounds.mix or sounds01.mix. You can either just use the same file names as the sounds you're trying to replace or alternatively use new file names, but then you'll also have to enter those new file names into sound.ini (or sound01.ini for Firestorm).
Insomniac wrote:
#2: Is it possible to outright disable the skirmish mode so you can't go into it? At the very least, is it possible to just make one map available in skirmish?
You can disable Skirmish by just editing newmenu.ini and if you want to instead only make a single map visible in Skirmish, edit missions.pkt.
Insomniac wrote:
#3: Is it possible to disable the campaigns in the game and make a 1 map campaign the only selectable option? If not, is it fairly easy to implement a 1 map campaign so it is an option?
To entirely disable campaigns you can edit newmenu.ini, just like with Skirmish and to only make a single map visible in the campaign selection menu, edit battle.ini instead (and battlefs.ini for firestorm).
Insomniac wrote:
#4: Any special updates to Final Sun or similar over the past couple years that would make map creation and implementation easier? If not, that's fine, just curious mainly.
small note: before converting the wav with XCC Mixer (right click save as aud) make sure the wav has the format 22050Hz,16Bit,Mono. Otherwise the aud in the wrong format will break the sound engine of the game and all sounds stop working when that aud is played. _________________ SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection: Nod buildings
small note: before converting the wav with XCC Mixer (right click save as aud) make sure the wav has the format 22050Hz,16Bit,Mono. Otherwise the aud in the wrong format will break the sound engine of the game and all sounds stop working when that aud is played.
The newer xcc mixer has this fixed somewhat so even 44khz wav input is downsampled to 22khz prior to AUDing, while 48khz however won't. QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 09 Jun 2012 Location: Lost in the corn fields
Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 8:51 pm Post subject:
Lin Kuei Ominae wrote:
small note: before converting the wav with XCC Mixer (right click save as aud) make sure the wav has the format 22050Hz,16Bit,Mono. Otherwise the aud in the wrong format will break the sound engine of the game and all sounds stop working when that aud is played.
I'm guessing the same thing applies to the music except Stereo instead of Mono? I have a few effects that are really long that would best be done as music instead of selection quotes.
Is there a length limit to the music?
Also how do I go about disabling the cutscenes for Firestorm? I can't find where those cutscenes are located. _________________ Don't let your memes be dreams. QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 09 Jun 2012 Location: Lost in the corn fields
Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 11:58 pm Post subject:
So I have a custom map in the files, and I edited battlefs.ini so that the campaign starts on my .map file, but it crashes after the opening cutscene during the loading screen. What else do I need to do in order to get this single player map to work? I'd check the Final Sun forums on this site but the forums don't want to load most of the time.
Also XCC Mixer (at least 1.47 which I have) apparently converts wav files that are mono or stereo, 44100 or 48000hz format, 32 bit rate into an aud file with mono, 22050hz, and 16 bit rate using the "Copy As AUD" option. I just need to know how I can go about essentially replacing the soundtrack with a custom 6-7 track soundtrack. I'm guessing I'd do something like put all the music files into a new mix file called scores02.mix, then edit an .ini file somewhere. _________________ Don't let your memes be dreams. QUICK_EDIT
I think the music can be long, but I haven't tested how long. You can put the music .aud files in expandXX.mix
(XX is 02 to 99) and edit theme.ini/theme01.ini to put the songs list.
Firestorm cutscenes are in fs*.vqa. It is in movies03.mix for old versions whereas in freeware version it is
in movies01.mix. You can put empty mix files for all movies01.mix, movies02.mix and movies03.mix. That
will remove all cutscenes.
You can edit battlefs.ini or you can just name your map as fsgdi01.map or fsnod01.map depending on
which is the playing side and place that map in game folder. You can look at the single player maps that
are already in the game and even modify one of them for your needs if not starting with a new map.
If you are going to play silence and tell others to listen to the environment, don't you think that some would
consider that as mocking them.
And why do you think a mod would be better than a simple audio mixer that can play multiple tracks? QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 09 Jun 2012 Location: Lost in the corn fields
Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2016 12:21 am Post subject:
E1 Elite wrote:
If you are going to play silence and tell others to listen to the environment, don't you think that some would
consider that as mocking them.
And why do you think a mod would be better than a simple audio mixer that can play multiple tracks?
Well John Cage's 4:33 is considered art and music because the music is from the audience, and the rather simple mod just makes it so someone can essentially make their own virtually.
My only other options for the project would involve heavily editing audio or a movie trailer, and I don't have the time to really do that. The teacher's likes what I've done so far, probably because the class is more of an art class than an IT class. Pretty easy assignment overall, so I won't complain.
At the moment pretty much everything works, but I'm having trouble getting the custom soundtrack to work. Right now I have everything commented out in the theme/themefs.ini and I tried adding "1=fanhumming" with my own sound while adding this at the bottom.
The file has the same name in the scores/scores01.mix, right now it just doesn't play the sound. Before it would crash when I tried doing all this with the theme.ini and scores.mix files. Not sure what I'm actually supposed to do to get a custom soundtrack to work in Tiberian Sun and/or Firestorm. _________________ Don't let your memes be dreams. QUICK_EDIT
Keep the name in all caps (1=FANHUMMING), otherwise your entry seems fine. Don't comment these in
theme.ini/theme01.ini - INTRO, SCORE, MAPS, IONSTORM / FSMAP, FSMENU
Hope you have put the music file in expand02.mix etc. Or you can repack the scores.mix/scores01.mix along
with your music. Within XCC mixer you can double click on the fanhumming.aud file and listen to it to confirm
nothing is wrong with the file.
Can you see and play the song when you ESC to Options -> Game Control -> Sounds?
In your SP map, you can try this:
[Basic]
Theme=FANHUMMING
I don't remember much as it has been over a decade for me to put custom songs into TS. Worst case would be
to initiate the music through a trigger. QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 09 Jun 2012 Location: Lost in the corn fields
Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2016 12:37 am Post subject:
I can't really test it in XCC Mixer because when I tried before, I realized that it's 7 minutes long and the only way to make it stop is to close XCC Mixer.
The whole expand02.mix stuff didn't work. I had that, then scores02.mix and theme02.ini both in there and in the main directory, neither worked. The closest I've gotten it to working is adding the info to theme01.ini, including "33=FANHUMMING", then putting the fanhumming.aud file in the blank scores01.mix I have in the main game directory. It would display the name and correct length (after tweaking the decimal value in theme.ini) but it just would not play the file. I've tried shortening it to <5 minutes after resampling it to a 22050hz wav file before converting and that didn't work either. I even tried saving it as elusive.aud and basically do what I've done with the sound effects and replace the original with mine, and that still didn't work.
I've tried everything I can think of, I hope someone knows how to get this shit to work. If not, then I think the teacher would be understanding. _________________ Don't let your memes be dreams. QUICK_EDIT
The closest I've gotten it to working is adding the info to theme01.ini, including "33=FANHUMMING", then putting the fanhumming.aud file in the blank scores01.mix I have in the main game directory.
That should have played. Check the music volume in TS Options.
Winamp plugin can play aud files too. Couldn't get a proper link, so attaching it.
Can use this plugin with XMPlay also - http://www.un4seen.com/xmplay.html
Or you could of course just use XCC Mixer anyway and simply restart it once you've confirmed that fanhumming.aud actually works.
Also, the game doesn't read theme02.ini. So even when you place fanhumming.aud in expand02.mix, you still need to add it to either theme.ini or theme01.ini. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 09 Jun 2012 Location: Lost in the corn fields
Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2016 9:12 am Post subject:
Got the new "music" to work now. Too tired to tell what did it, but whatever. I'll probably try to get everything added in tomorrow and double check to make sure it all works.
One more thing, how do I disable the button sounds? I have to have the volume turned up in order to hear the custom SFX and the button sounds are headache inducing at that volume. _________________ Don't let your memes be dreams. QUICK_EDIT
Which button sounds are you talking about? The sound from the options menu, the sound from the sidebar or the sound from the main menu?
The sound from the sidebar can be removed by either deleting the sound (clicky1.aud) from sounds.mix or by adding Volume=0.1 (maybe 0.0 even) under [CLICKY1] in sound.ini. For the sidebar sound you can do the same thing with scold8.aud/[SCOLD8]. And for the main menu you need to either delete choice1.aud from gmenu.mix or remove HighlightSound=CHOICE1.AUD from every single section in newmenu.ini. _________________ QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 09 Jun 2012 Location: Lost in the corn fields
Posted: Sun May 01, 2016 6:20 am Post subject:
Yeah it was the main menu stuff. Turning it off helps since I have to turn the volume way up to hear some of the sounds, and the main menu button sounds would blast my eardrums.
With that, the project is done, unless something magically breaks when I tweak something, I won't need any more help. Thanks for all the help fellows, I might see you around again. _________________ Don't let your memes be dreams. QUICK_EDIT
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