Chrono Compendium
Kajar Laboratories - Fan Works and Submissions => Chrono Cross Modification => Topic started by: dan_death on June 28, 2008, 04:11:23 am
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I'm in desperate need of doing something...Anybody need some voice acting or something like that done? I'm bored...as hell...and still some more long days of summer left.
And since I'm have writer's block, it is tough to continue making my album which I've been at it for a year...well I guess that's because it's all me and I don't let my band add or take away from my songs. It's a solo project.
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You wouldn't be interested in researching the technical aspects of music composition for Squaresoft Playstation games by any chance, would you?
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Hmm...If I knew what to look up. Already tried "music composition Squaresoft"...
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Lolz, I'm not quite sure what to look up either quite yet. For some insight as to how music data in a Playstation videogame is (probably) arranged, I guess I'd point you to some documentation on the Portable Sound Format (PSF) developed by Neil Cortlett.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Sound_Format
There's a link to his site at the bottom of that wiki. Game music data isn't contained in PSF format originally, but I suspec that the storage of sounds and instruments on the game CD may be analogous to how the PSF format does it. In other words, instruments are stored as individual sound samples and then called up by a "sequence" file that tells the game engine what order to play the instruments in.
I haven't looked in-depth at Playstation music at all, and won't get there for some time. It may be even harder to work with than the model data Luminaire, MDenham, and I have been sifting through with the help of the qhimm professors for all I know. If you manage to find some documentation on Playstation music formats and decide it's not your cup of tea, don't worry about it. However, I know that you're a composer who has interest in videogames, and these matters may pique your curiosity.
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Any programs you suggest to look in depth of an ISO? Because it may be even harder to look it up on the internet. Even though I'm not really knowledgeable at this, I'd still like to try.
So...let me get this straight, are you looking for the format of what the music is in? Or how they are stored/played? Because the music/sound format is .xa
I think you're right about them being in individual sound samples, I used PSound on Valkyrie Profile and that seems to be the case, for now. Now I'm trying Chrono Cross. But I really don't know what I'm doing :lol:
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One of my long-term goals is to assess the possibility of porting music from other PSX games into Chrono Cross, and also the possibility of entirely new fan compositions for the Darkness Beyond Time project. First thing to do is actually identify whereabouts instrument data for music is stored on a Chrono Cross disc.
If you'd be interested in actually rummaging through the music/instrument/sound data and getting a feel for it, I'd recommend making a dump of your first Chrono Cross CD if you have it on hand, according to the instructions in this wiki. (http://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Chrono_Cross_File_Structure.html#How_do_I_rip_proper_game_images_from_the_Chrono_Cross_discs.3F) You'll want a 2048 byte/sector format ISO. I recommend the free version of ISOBuster. Oh, do you have 600+ megs of free space on your hard drive?
I'd then download PSound (http://www.zophar.net/utilities/download/PSound133.zip) and run your freshly-extracted ISO through it and play through some of the sounds, just to get a feeling for how the separate instruments and sounds are stored separately. Unfortunately PSound can't export sounds in their native format (it can only export to WAV if I remember correctly). However, it will still be extremely useful for identifying where sound data is located in the folders produced by the Yazoo dump utility modified by Ramsus back in 2007.
So an additional thing to do is to download this dumping utility (http://www.chronocompendium.com/Forums/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=4770.0;attach=3106) and use it on your Chrono Cross CD1 ISO. Then you can scan the MISC folder for music data, because I highly suspect the music instruments and sequencing data are stored there. When we find which dumped files the music instruments are stored in, it will be easier to find the sequencing data I hope.
EDIT: Oh, shoot, dumping with the dump.exe I link to above will require another 600MB of free space on your hard drive. If that's doable, consider yourself on the forefront of Chrono Cross sound exploration! I'm glad to see that you're already experienced with PSound -- you probably know more about the program than I do at this point.
EDIT: Also, you may wish to research any Playstation music/sound findings jotted down on the Qhimm forums. (http://forums.qhimm.com/) Some good search terms would be simply "music" and also "AKAO," which is an ASCII tag placed on sound and instrument data in Final Fantasy games as well as Chrono Cross.
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I don't have an authentic copy of Chrono Cross, but I'm aiming to buy one...I mean its only around $12. So, there might be some problems.
And if I don't have enough space on my hard drives, I'll delete some crap to make some. But what's weird is, last night, something, somehow ate up 2 gigs on my second hard drive, and I wasn't downloading anything.
I'll get on it though.
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Oooh, I forgot -- the dumping utility I linked to above works only on a .BIN format game image, so whenever you acquire Chrono Cross, you'd want to rip to a 2352 byte/sector format and then follow the instructions in the readme that I include with the Yazoo dumper zip.
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Yeah, just read that.
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This should be moved to the 'Labs and renamed...anyways, I think I may have found some problems.
I have used PSound, converted a huge chunk, then I placed them all into the correct sequence. Now, I don't really know how PS games really work with them. Since they are originally stereo I'd have a hard time finding the other track/tracks, so if I were to make it sound correctly, I would have to mix about 5000 wav files in their correct place....
Here's what I got:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/me8vg8
It's most Time's Scar. And the speed isn't right either, that's the way it was in PSound, so I sped it up as closest as I can get it to the original.
Sounds sort of bad, don't know how to fix the "lagging" sound yet.
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Wowza, nice job putting that together! Did you have to glue together a bunch of instrument samples to get that running, or was it all in one piece already? I was under the impression that Time's Scar was streaming audio because it didn't seem to be on the Chrono Cross PSF collection.
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They were all separate, I had to put them together. And they were all about like 1 second files, and I'm glad I found a joining program . But I didn't have to put a bunch of instrument samples together, because most of the instruments were mixed into each file.
Different instruments, one file. That's how it is, so far.
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In that case, it would appear that Time's Scar is stored as bits of sound data interleaved into the .STR opening movie at 1-second intervals. Fascinating! I wonder if even the .STR music has some kind of sequencing data associated with it to give the bits of music tempo and so forth.
The rest of the music in CC should be stored as separate instruments, and the instrument samples are linked together by sequencing data of some sort. If we can identify the exact dumped files (known as .OUTs) that contain the instruments, the discovery may lead to the sequencing data files as well. If SNES sound engine knowledge is particularly applicable (which I think it is), it would be a real coup to catch JCE3000GT's or Vehek's attention in this thread.
V_Translanka or Radical_Dreamer, if either of you come across this thread feel free to move it to Kajar, as I lack the permissions to do so at this point. dan_death, you should be able to re-title this thread "Chrono Cross Music and Sound Investigation" or something similar by editing your original post.
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Well, almost done converting ALL the sound PSound could find, and going to find out what they sound like, I could have just played them in PSound, but it doesn't play them smoothly, so I'll have to join all of them together.
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I expect that there will be a ton of duplicates that you could do away with if there's a suitable duplicate-file-eraser-thingy available for free somewhere. If the sound effects played on the field (in dungeons & towns and so forth) are stored like the model data, there will be sound effects stored in each of the game's "rooms," and lots will be duplicates. The game image was built in this way to save the game engine time in finding files on the CD.
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Yeah, I think there are some duplicates. Or maybe, a lot.
EDIT: Yep, the instruments are separate. A separate file for different instruments and tones. Plus some more sound effects.
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Ok, there are a lot media files in the MISC folder, but it gives me an "End Now" error when I'm trying to scan it with PSound. I didn't find any instrument clips in the Rooms folder, there is the majority of the sound effects there, but I'm pretty sure they're in the MISC folder...
Well, I think I found where Time's Scar is at, in the V folder, but there's a lot of sounds that I can't make out.
Sounds and such are in these folders
Rooms-The majority of the sound effects
BF-More sound effects
V-A lot of stuff I can't make out
Misc-There are some media files, but can't listen to, do to the "End Now" error.
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Fascinating, thanks for exploring! The battlefield sound effects must be stored within the battle scripts then. V is for "Video," so that makes sense why you found Time's Scar in there. I'll have to take a look at this PSound error and see what's up. JCE3000GT was able to collect an entire instrument sample pack for Chrono Cross, so maybe it's something about the way the MISC folder is set up. I know I had problems running PSicture on the entire MISC folder as well, but it worked okay when I isolated the files I suspected were battle models and weapons.
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Haha, yes I was right. I scanned only a few files in MISC folder, and I came up with some instruments. Then I copied most of the bigger files, and put them in a separate folder, and scanned it, and the MISC folder does in fact, have instruments in it.
But I wounder why I haven't found Radical Dreamers yet in the V file...or maybe it's because I didn't go through it all the way.
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There are a lot of instrument files...
Isolate the bigger files in the MISC folder, then you'll see.
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Awesome, thanks for zeroing in on where the music files are! This is a significant coup for Chrono Cross exploration. If you get a chance, could you list some of the files (in terms of OUT #) in the MISC folder that contain the instrument samples?
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Awesome, thanks for zeroing in on where the music files are! This is a significant coup for Chrono Cross exploration. If you get a chance, could you list some of the files (in terms of OUT #) in the MISC folder that contain the instrument samples?
Eh...there's a lot, so I'm just going to take screen shots, if that's ok with you. And how about I list most of the files instead of some? :D
(http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m299/dan_death101/cc1.png)
(http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m299/dan_death101/cc2.png)
(http://i107.photobucket.com/albums/m299/dan_death101/cc3-1.png)
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BEAUTIFUL
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Killed two birds with one stone, did we, eh?
Thanks, dan_death!
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Heh, where's the second bird? :lol:
Eh, it was nothing, FaustWolf is the one that suggest to me, to do it. So if I wouldn't, eventually he would have.
Anyways, yeah, I'm sure there are still some more files that contain the instrument samples, but those ones contain a lot, takes a while to listen through them all...
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Killed two birds with one stone because you discovered some information that you were looking for, likewise those working on CC:DBT gained some insight, too!
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Oh, well then, you are welcome. But I would have never have found anything if it weren't for PSound...and FaustWolf suggesting me to do it.
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You saved me a fair bit of work right there dan. Are you able to tell if there's some logical order to the way the instruments are stored? It's probably difficult to determine what song any particular instrument sample pertains to, and many songs probably share instruments.
I guess we could take this as far as an in-depth investigation of a typical instrument sample's hexadecimal code, but I'm not sure that in and of itself would further your goals as a composer dan. For now, would you mind looking up info on the .VAG and .VAB sound formats? I'm not sure these were actually used in Cross, but I've seen the terms referenced in relation to Playstation music before.
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Sure, I'll look those up. I don't know, there might be a particular way they're stored, don't know yet. What I do know is for most of the instruments, there are different notes played file after file.
EDIT: Not too much on .vab http://www.fmjsoft.com/fmt/vab.htm and I came up with some....interesting things when I typed just .vag into google...here's some info on that http://www.fmjsoft.com/fmt/vag.htm
I'll add more once I find out more.
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Well, somehow I fixed the problem of PSound getting an "End Now" error. And I found 2000+ more instrument samples! I know there could be a lot of duplicates...and some of them are sounds but the majority are instruments.
I will come up with a list of the .out files that contain the instrument samples, in the next few days.
Well, that was faster then I expected, since it's lengthy, I put an attached txt file. And as the description says in it, I will be updating it until I've listed most of all the instrument/sound files, and what folder they're in. Later on I might even list if it's an instrument or sound effect.
[attachment deleted by admin]
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^-- Just so you know, every game nowadays usually has seperate sound files for instruments. It even stays true for PSP and PS2. Well...sometimes that is.
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Awesome dan, thanks for doing this! If you're able to document which are instruments and which are sound effects (by file range is fine, you don't have to go file-by-file necessarily), that would be extremely helpful. If you find any instrument samples that aren't included in JCE3000GT's instrument pack, we can update that.
I'll take a look at the .vab and .vag format info and see if it might provide some insight here.
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Awesome dan, thanks for doing this! If you're able to document which are instruments and which are sound effects (by file range is fine, you don't have to go file-by-file necessarily), that would be extremely helpful. If you find any instrument samples that aren't included in JCE3000GT's instrument pack, we can update that.
I'll take a look at the .vab and .vag format info and see if it might provide some insight here.
Might want to be careful looking up .vag.....just to let you know.
Anyways, yeah, that's what I was thinking on doing, but I'll separate them when I have the energy to.
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Ok, again that didn't take as long as I expected so I have separated the sound effects from the instruments. And there are a lot of sound effects, most of them are duplicates though.
[attachment deleted by admin]
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dan, your findings are a huge coup for the Chrono Community. You see, you've now confirmed a theory I've had that sounds for techs are stored alongside the visual tech data! OUT #4960, for example, is the first of three files that house everything needed for Orlha's Sisterhoods tech.
Plus, now we know where to generally look for music data. I won't get to it for quite awhile, but if someone wants to throw some of these .OUTs into a free hex editor and do some preliminary exploration of the instrument format, that would be superb.
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I'm glad I could help, and spend some of my free time, that I have enough of.
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If you can figure out the sequencer data, volume, tempo, Pitch, of each note and make a to -> MIDI converter, I can test it out with cubase.
also there is a great freeware sampler VSTi, where one could assign presets using the sample data to apply to any of the exported midis. I did it with sonic CD samples. This could be a way to distribute the ripped files as sources rather than mp3s or wavs.
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Interesting. Yeah, if there's some utility that can arrange sound samples, we could have entire new fan compositions and convert them into a format usable by the game engine.
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this is unrelated to my previous post, but I remembered pxtone, by the guy who made cave story
http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA022293/pxtone/index.html
it is a free sequencer and you can import samples
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Heh, didn't know megagames had PSX utilities: http://www.megagames.com/psx/psx_utils.shtml
There might be some useful things there that's not on Zophar's Domain.
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If you can figure out the sequencer data, volume, tempo, Pitch, of each note and make a to -> MIDI converter, I can test it out with cubase.
also there is a great freeware sampler VSTi, where one could assign presets using the sample data to apply to any of the exported midis. I did it with sonic CD samples. This could be a way to distribute the ripped files as sources rather than mp3s or wavs.
Amazing, I'm not the first one to think of this... It would be excellent if we could somehow make a PSX>Midi Midi>PSX conversion.
There are a few mixes I'd like to see in DBT...
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:shock:
Am I supposed to be doing all that?
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Haha, only if you REALLY want to. We still need to document the sound / instrument sample format first, and under normal circumstances the documenter would be me, but I won't get around to it for awhile.
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The samples should be in APCM format. That's what the SPU took.
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Wooow, so does the SPU actually force the use of APCM in every game? And does that stand for Adaptive Pulse Code Modulation?
For my own reference and anyone else who's interested, a short wikipedia primer on Pulse Code Modulation. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse-code_modulation) Also, the Bible that halkun wrote (http://www.zophar.net/tech/files/psx.pdf) has a wealth of knowledge on the SPU that Chrono Cross needs to interact with.
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Wooow, so does the SPU actually force the use of APCM in every game? And does that stand for Adaptive Pulse Code Modulation?
For my own reference and anyone else who's interested, a short wikipedia primer on Pulse Code Modulation. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse-code_modulation) Also, the Bible that halkun wrote (http://www.zophar.net/tech/files/psx.pdf) has a wealth of knowledge on the SPU that Chrono Cross needs to interact with.
So wait, is I'm understanding the PCM article, does that mean we only need to run an MP3 through with the right sample timer to encode it into a CC compatable format?
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I have absolutely no understanding of music data as yet, so we'll have to wait for halkun's answer on that. I still haven't found documentation on Adaptive PCM yet, so I'm not sure how it relates to PCM exactly. Other than that it's "adaptive." :D
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Wooow, so does the SPU actually force the use of APCM in every game? And does that stand for Adaptive Pulse Code Modulation?
For my own reference and anyone else who's interested, a short wikipedia primer on Pulse Code Modulation. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse-code_modulation) Also, the Bible that halkun wrote (http://www.zophar.net/tech/files/psx.pdf) has a wealth of knowledge on the SPU that Chrono Cross needs to interact with.
So wait, is I'm understanding the PCM article, does that mean we only need to run an MP3 through with the right sample timer to encode it into a CC compatable format?
:D If only it were that simple.
First off, you'd have better luck with an uncompressed .WAV file - MP3s need to be decoded as their samples are in a format that bears little or no resemblance to PCM samples (not really problematic for current-gen systems, slightly problematic on a PS2, and probably "stand-alone program only" for the PSX).
The problem then becomes that an uncompressed .WAV file is, well, rather large...
To be honest, if we don't want to go through the hassle of trying to port the game's engine completely over to PS2 (which, while it'd allow higher-polycount models as well, would require hacking not just CC, but also [preferably] at least one of the PS2 FF games) we'd be better off finding a way to do Redbook audio (which practically guarantees that we're looking at a 3-disc minimum unless there's a fair amount less to the overall game).
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Well...hmm... I guess I go with my original stand of "hiring"(blackmailing) a midi artist into writing all the MP3 tracks we've found and want ported... (though writing it in a program specific to APCM formatted samples...)
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Well...hmm... I guess I go with my original stand of "hiring"(blackmailing) a midi artist into writing all the MP3 tracks we've found and want ported... (though writing it in a program specific to APCM formatted samples...)
I'd be extremely surprised if the CC engine doesn't have an unused (or nearly so) function in it to play Redbook tracks, though. (Isn't the ending theme over the credit roll for the "good" ending in CC vocal? That'd be much easier to do as a normal Redbook track than in this sample format.)
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Well...hmm... I guess I go with my original stand of "hiring"(blackmailing) a midi artist into writing all the MP3 tracks we've found and want ported... (though writing it in a program specific to APCM formatted samples...)
I'd be extremely surprised if the CC engine doesn't have an unused (or nearly so) function in it to play Redbook tracks, though. (Isn't the ending theme over the credit roll for the "good" ending in CC vocal? That'd be much easier to do as a normal Redbook track than in this sample format.)
We'll need to look into that, but I know nothing of redbook, do you know of a simple explanation for it? I'm not up on many audio media formats.
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Well...hmm... I guess I go with my original stand of "hiring"(blackmailing) a midi artist into writing all the MP3 tracks we've found and want ported... (though writing it in a program specific to APCM formatted samples...)
I'd be extremely surprised if the CC engine doesn't have an unused (or nearly so) function in it to play Redbook tracks, though. (Isn't the ending theme over the credit roll for the "good" ending in CC vocal? That'd be much easier to do as a normal Redbook track than in this sample format.)
We'll need to look into that, but I know nothing of redbook, do you know of a simple explanation for it? I'm not up on many audio media formats.
It's pretty simple - it's a standard CD audio track! There's a lot of error-correction data to it (hell, there's a lot of error-correction data to a CD in general - if you were storing solely data on a CD, with none of the error-correction stuff, you'd be able to store 2.2GB on it!) as far as the media itself is concerned, but basically it's just "burn it as a regular CD audio track after all the data gets put on".
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So theoretically we could:
A burn the music as an audio disc and cut it back out via an ISO+ hexeditor.
B Write the music with anything that enables export to .CDA.
C Wait for you to give me a better idea of what we need instead of blindly guessing.
Lol amirite?
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So theoretically we could:
A burn the music as an audio disc and cut it back out via an ISO+ hexeditor.
B Write the music with anything that enables export to .CDA.
C Wait for you to give me a better idea of what we need instead of blindly guessing.
Lol amirite?
Number B (ha!) would be correct - burn the disc(s) with however much data + several audio tracks.
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I can't do the close file inspections you do since I don't have a copy of Chrono Cross, but I want to share something. It looks like sequence data may also be tagged with "AKAO".
I looked a bit at PSFs I changed to compress2 level 0 with PSFLab.
I copied and pasted part of an AKAO block from a PSF of Grasslands of Time over an AKAO block of Drowning Valley in a Chrono Cross image. I also copied and pasted something which follows the block I copied in the PSF and also in my memory dumps, but is elsewhere in the Chrono Cross image. I managed to get a glitchy version of Grasslands of Time. (Warning: Has beeping noises)
I haven't had any success with my other tests.
[attachment deleted by admin]
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Fascinating! Vehek, are PSFs literally the original data ripped from a game image? I could never figure out whether each individual PSF file contains samples and sequences, or if it's something different from the original data due to post-processing or something. Though since you found AKAO blocks within the Chrono Cross PSFs, that might point to the PSFs actually being composed solely of ripped data.
In any case, the next step might be for me to grab an AKAO block from a Chrono Cross PSF and see if it's in the original game image.
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I think PSFs are likely to have some compression, which is why I had to use PSFLab to reduce the compression. (At least, that's what I think I did.)
For some reason, 0x800 and onward of the AKAO blocks I've looked at (counting the first A in AKAO as 0) is different in the Chrono Cross image I have than in the PSFs and memory dumps I have.
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Vehek, is the Chrono Cross image you have on hand capable of being dumped with MDenham's modified dumper? I think it works both with ISOs and BINs now. Since you know so much about SNES music data, you'd probably be able to zip through PSX sound formats pretty quickly. I welcome you to have at the Chrono Cross sound data if you've got the time and interest, since I won't be able to look at it in any depth for quite some time.
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Vehek, is the Chrono Cross image you have on hand capable of being dumped with MDenham's modified dumper? I think it works both with ISOs and BINs now. Since you know so much about SNES music data, you'd probably be able to zip through PSX sound formats pretty quickly. I welcome you to have at the Chrono Cross sound data if you've got the time and interest, since I won't be able to look at it in any depth for quite some time.
You assume that they're related. It's dangerous to assume these things... Never assume anything will be easy, then when something is easy, its a very nice surprise XD.
But I know nothing about media formats so maybe it will be easy...
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For what it's worth, I think the list of instruments there is partly wrong - it looks like every even file from 2274-2408 is an instrument, and every odd file from 2273-2407 is a sequence.
That said, this bears much more of a resemblance in terms of functionality to .MOD tracking than MIDI composing, for those of you who have been around since the bad old days of dialup and the Amiga. :D
Things that seem to be the case with the sequences: (note: early/late references are to 2273.out)
FE 00 - Command terminator. Not to be confused with:
FE xx 00 - Unknown, but probably relates to a channel number. How many audio channels does the PSX support in hardware - does 24 sound right (the xx I'm seeing here hasn't exceeded 16 [=22 decimal])?
FD 02 - Unknown. Appears frequently early on as the two bytes immediately preceding FE 00; appears mid-"string" later on.
FC 02 - Similar to FD 02. Also similarly unknown.
8x, 9x - Unknown; seems to be single-byte commands. I've seen 88, 89, 93, 94, 98, and 99. Not all 8x commands are single-byte. Specifically, 85 and 8C seem to be two bytes.
More updates as I wade through the sequences.
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Wow, thanks M!
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Wow, thanks M!
You know, it's amazing what a Double Gulp of Coke w/vanilla flavor added will do.
(Insomnia, numbness of fingers at random, an insatiable urge to listen to Meat Loaf repeatedly...)
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Sooo...I'm guess you guys' are taking over. Because I lost you around, after page 3
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I didn't see it brought up in this thread, but the SPU of the PSX is extremely similar to the DSP of the SNES. The difference is that instead of 9 byte samples blocks (1 header byte + 8 bytes of 4-bit samples), there are 16 byte sample blocks (2 header bytes + 14 bytes of 4-bit samples). So yeah, it's still ADPCM (same as APCM, as you guys have been calling it :/ ). Other differences are that it contains more filters in the header, and the SPU has more effects than the DSP, and there's a 512K of RAM for samples instead of 64K. Writing an encoder for this format would allow you to make your own "instruments"
I'm hesitant to say that the music formats of the SNES and the PSX squaresoft formats are similar, but I do suppose it's possible. But saying that 85 and 8C are two byte commands would sort of erase all notions of that. Looking at a disassembly of the sound engine would be helpful.
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Hi M
how to replace the music? i want to replace with "chrono symphonic version"