Corrupted Sounds Solutions and Discussion

[scope2007]

Anyone been able to get this working 100% yet?

I had a go about 2 weeks ago - extracted my sounds which worked fine, followed the instructions - but during the repack of the sound.pack file I got errors - I was careful to ensure that all mods except the packfile I was trying to sound fix was the only one present in my data folder - but no matter what I tried it failed

Have we totally given up on trying to get the devs to revert their hardcoded sound system to the pre-FOTS one? (rhetorical really as there is no way we would be able to convince them to 'downgrade' for the sake of modders).

Anyways, I understand there is a sort of modders convention being thrown by CA... Perhaps they can give us the info we need so Crux can improve this tool?

[Kurisu Paifuaa]

Originally Posted by Kurisu Paifuaa
There do seem to be some arrangements that won't work.


Do you have any more detail on this?

Actually no, I retract that Symphony's output has worked in all pack types (patch, mod, movie) and I wasn't able to break it by re-ordering via the script or file naming. It also works fine when packed together with the related mod. I think the confusion that resulted under some circumstances with the previous version carried over. --- correction: the TRoM3 pack I made doesn't like movie type for itself or the db

Regarding unknown element names in the sound bank XMLs... what's a good way to go about deciphering those? I was guessing that some might be unique unit IDs and tracing search matches back to the events table to see if the category and wav files made sense for that type of unit. However, that assumption seems false as too many unit ID #s from the units table come up blank when searching the XML

From my NTW experience, you may have to modify the sound events csv (to point to the correct mp3), but also to edit the XML (so the events and units are linked to the correct event).

In XML:
"Unit_Selected" for "Unit01" or "Unit02"--> Use sound event "Unit_Selected_Infantry"

In CSV
Sound_event "Unit_Selected_Infantry" --> cycle through "Selection1.mp2", "Selection3.mp3"

If you don't add your new units in the XML, then sometimes they can be associated to a wrong sound events.
For example, in Masters of Europe, I forgot to explicitly add a british unit, and it was using the German voices (last events in the XML file, used by default in my case).

Thanks Steph. I've been studying the output files and reading the main thread in ETW workshop. I suppose it might be too early to try to make custom unit fixes with Shogun. There are far too many unknown element names and unknown events to make correct edits to the sound bank.

[Steph]

Shymphony has a little flaw, since it sometimes just says "unknown_event63".
It works, you cna find the event referenced in other files, but it's not always easy to follow.

For this, I used three solutions with NTW

1) In patch5.pack (I think), CA included the raw XML and csv files, AND the compiled file. The raw files are useless by themselves since you can edit them and it will have no effect (the modification are not compiled), but it was useful as a reference to compare with file unpacked by Symphony. So if by any chance you have uncompiled files somewhere in a Shogun patch, perhaps you can do the same.

2) You can open at the same time every file extracted by Symphony using notepad++, and use the research function on every opened file. It can help to se the interaction between the files.

3) For some events, I was not sure when they were triggered. So I created fake sound events in the csv, with associated mp3 saying "Test1", "Test2", "Test3"
And then, in the sound back, I connected the events (like "unit_selected") to this fake file. Then you play the game, and you can see exactly when a sound event is triggered.

[Kurisu Paifuaa]

Shymphony has a little flaw, since it sometimes just says "unknown_event63".
It works, you cna find the event referenced in other files, but it's not always easy to follow.

For this, I used three solutions with NTW

1) In patch5.pack (I think), CA included the raw XML and csv files, AND the compiled file. The raw files are useless by themselves since you can edit them and it will have no effect (the modification are not compiled), but it was useful as a reference to compare with file unpacked by Symphony. So if by any chance you have uncompiled files somewhere in a Shogun patch, perhaps you can do the same.

2) You can open at the same time every file extracted by Symphony using notepad++, and use the research function on every opened file. It can help to se the interaction between the files.

3) For some events, I was not sure when they were triggered. So I created fake sound events in the csv, with associated mp3 saying "Test1", "Test2", "Test3"
And then, in the sound back, I connected the events (like "unit_selected") to this fake file. Then you play the game, and you can see exactly when a sound event is triggered.

The event names aren't a big problem, but rather the unknown element names associated with each event in the sound bank. Here's a sample block:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

<sound_bank>
<sound_bank_event sound_event_name="unnamed_event_63">
</sound_bank_event>
<sound_bank_event sound_event_name="unnamed_event_10068">
<unknown1>0</unknown1>
<unknown2>2</unknown2>
<unknown2>3</unknown2>
<unknown3>0</unknown3>
<unknown4>5</unknown4>
<unknown4>7</unknown4>
</sound_bank_event>
<sound_bank_event sound_event_name="unnamed_event_10069">
<unknown1>0</unknown1>
<unknown2>2</unknown2>
<unknown2>3</unknown2>
<unknown3>1</unknown3>
<unknown4>5</unknown4>
<unknown4>7</unknown4>
</sound_bank_event>

...etc


</sound_bank>

Most of the banks are similar. You can't presently tell what units or other parameters are associated with each event. I was guessing at what the enclosed integer values might represent by searching across all xml files, looking for common matches to known values from the units table (e.g. unique ID). It's not going well Perhaps I have the wrong idea about what those values represent. The raw data would be great, but... no such luck.

[crux3D]

If Darth Have 100% soundfix for his game, when we others get "normal" sound-fix to game, who not use darthmode?

Nothing is stopping you from using Symphony yourself (or the just released automated version Sinfonia Semplice).

Now if I want to edit some stats in unit tables (not add new entries and units) will this affect the sounds? Should I generate a new sounds.pack whenever I mod unit tables?

You should only need to reprocess the sound packs if you add an entry, remove an entry or reorder entries in the units table or if you change the pack type.

Alright then, would these rather snazzy user.script commands I just help.

Oooh. Neat. Those will certainly help for testing. Thanks.

Actually no, I retract that Symphony's output has worked in all pack types (patch, mod, movie) and I wasn't able to break it by re-ordering via the script or file naming. It also works fine when packed together with the related mod. I think the confusion that resulted under some circumstances with the previous version carried over. --- correction: the TRoM3 pack I made doesn't like movie type for itself or the db

TROM uses multiple units_tables files, which was a known issue. I'm suprised it worked when you changed it to a mod pack. Regardless, I will soon be uploading a new version of Symphony which should work for TROM as movie or mod type.

Regarding unknown element names in the sound bank XMLs... what's a good way to go about deciphering those? I was guessing that some might be unique unit IDs and tracing search matches back to the events table to see if the category and wav files made sense for that type of unit. However, that assumption seems false as too many unit ID #s from the units table come up blank when searching the XML

You have the basic premise right, but the numbers in the sound banks are either indexes into arbitrary static lists (like rain=0, snow=1, dust=2, none=3 from the Empire and Napoleon precipitation types), or hashed indices into tables, which you stand little chance of deciphering without the hash function.

Thanks Steph. I've been studying the output files and reading the main thread in ETW workshop. I suppose it might be too early to try to make custom unit fixes with Shogun. There are far too many unknown element names and unknown events to make correct edits to the sound bank.

Now that I've got Sinfonia Semplice out the door, my next target is to decipher as much of the remaining unknowns as possible.

[Kurisu Paifuaa]

@crux3D

Grazie

[Noif de Bodemloze]

Thanks a lot! This programme is really awesome and fix issues sounds!

[Kurisu Paifuaa]

I've had success using the new version to generate a corrected pack for TROM3

The key to a working pack in this case was merging the multiple tables and also being sure that the beginning of the table corresponded exactly to the vanilla units table (i.e. I copied Yarkis' changes to vanilla units directly into a fresh copy of the units table from patch21 and then appended all custom units). Seems to be working perfectly. A previous attempt with a merged table, but without using the vanilla table as a template, was unsuccessful. I would have suspected that including missing units (e.g. test, cinematic and multiplayer) might make a difference, but Darth's pack doesn't have those either (though the order is otherwise unchanged). So the ordering of the table, at least, may be significant when generating fixed sounds for some mods.

There is still a lingering issue with two custom ships having wrong projectile sounds, but I suspect that has to do with them having weapons which do not exist on any vanilla class. Those are rocket and mortar kobaya, which get rifle and mangonel sounds, respectively.

[Radious]

I am lately extremely busy at my work and i dont have much time to do anything with Shogun right now, i noticed that this program is finally fixing the sound bug, congratulations. If anyone would be willing to look on my mods and adapt the fixes it would save a lot time to me and would be greatly appreciated.

[Akaie]

The current fix would need to be generated on the user's end, since multiple unit packs can throw off the fix.

[Steph]

I hope you are still there Crux3D. I have an issue with the <unit_voice> specifier. Can we add our own? Or are we stuck with the default like "infantry_generic"?

[Torio]

The July 4 patch broke Sinfonia Semplice. It quits when it cannot find a patch 21 dependency it needs: patch_fots5.pack. I do not have FoTS and I am not sure why Semplice needs it now when everything was fine before patch. Anyway, i posted in the Semplice thread but no answer yet. Anyone have an idea for a workaround?

I am novice and my mod changes only the Unit table, Unit Stats Land and Unit Exclusive Factions Permissions tables. I use the date from the latest patch 21.

[Kurisu Paifuaa]

Hmm... they did update patch21 rather than issue a new pack. Did you try the original Symphony command line tool?

[Torio]

Thx Kurisu. I unzipped symphony.exe to my root shogun directory and dbl clicked. A dos box flashed on my screen and nothing happens after.

edit: I read further where others experienced the same, but the extract/pack instructions are just beyond me.

[Seyal]

Thx Kurisu. I unzipped symphony.exe to my root shogun directory and dbl clicked. A dos box flashed on my screen and nothing happens after.

edit: I read further where others experienced the same, but the extract/pack instructions are just beyond me.

Have you tried his automated version? (look a couple posts up)

[Kurisu Paifuaa]

Thx Kurisu. I unzipped symphony.exe to my root shogun directory and dbl clicked. A dos box flashed on my screen and nothing happens after.

edit: I read further where others experienced the same, but the extract/pack instructions are just beyond me.

Looking at an old copy of patch21.pack, it does not have patch_fots5.pack in the header as a dependent. The new one issued July 4th does. CA updated both packs on July 4th rather than issuing subsequent patches.

Symphony gives the same error as SS without patch_fots5 present, so don't bother with that. Have to wait for crux3D to check in.

A temporary workaround might be to create a dummy patch_fots5.pack using packfilemanager, There's nothing relevant to SS in the fots named patches anyway. Substituting the attached file, I received no errors when running the tool. Give it a whirl...

You likely want to delete or rename that prior to running the game. It's empty

[Torio]

Kurisu, thank you very much! The dummy works as you say and my game loaded fine. Cheers!

+1

[AtheistDane]

Damn, wrong thread.. sry..

[Radious]

Looking at an old copy of patch21.pack, it does not have patch_fots5.pack in the header as a dependent. The new one issued July 4th does. CA updated both packs on July 4th rather than issuing subsequent patches.

Symphony gives the same error as SS without patch_fots5 present, so don't bother with that. Have to wait for crux3D to check in.

A temporary workaround might be to create a dummy patch_fots5.pack using packfilemanager, There's nothing relevant to SS in the fots named patches anyway. Substituting the attached file, I received no errors when running the tool. Give it a whirl...

You likely want to delete or rename that prior to running the game. It's empty

Does this workaround works with SS aswell?

I mean place this fake patch.pack, run tool, then remove fake pack and all will be ok?

[Kurisu Paifuaa]

Does this workaround works with SS aswell?

I mean place this fake patch.pack, run tool, then remove fake pack and all will be ok?

I think that's how I tested it actually, so yes.