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Lehsyrus
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Audio Modding Help
« on: October 06, 2012, 09:56 »
Hey guys, how are you all doing? First of all, I want to thank Gildor for all of his projects.

Alright, down to business. I am trying to mod Alliance of Valiant Arms. I've been trying to figure this damn game out for about two months now, and I'm finally coming to you guys for help. I've tried just about everything I can think of to get the audio files for this game, and to find a way to alter them and repack the .upk packages. There was one modder I met briefly that managed to make a few skins for the game and repack the .upk packages and get them to work fine, but he wouldn't even hint towards how he managed to do so.

I've been working on the audio files as I have many people requesting on a forum that I moderate for audio mods for the game. They just want different background music and better sounds for the weapons. My problem is, I can't figure out what to do next.

This is what I have so far:

The .upk package for the standard background music is located in "\AeriaGames\AVA\avaGame\Content\Music", and the name of the .upk package is "Music.upk".

After using the .upk extractor, the next files that appear are:
  • Ava_Shop_New.SoundCue
  • avaBGM_GameRoom.SoundCue
  • avaBGM_uiCue.SoundCue
  • avaBMG_metal.SoundNodeWave
  • avaBMG_metalCue.SoundCue
  • avaBMG_os.SoundNodeWave
  • avaBMG_osCue.SoundCue
  • CB_Ver_UI.SoundNodeWave
  • ExportTable.txt
  • ImportTable.txt
  • Kill_all_BGM.SoundNodeWave
  • NameTable.txt
  • Shop_New.SoundNodeWave

When I attempt to use the "-export -sounds" commands for uModel, it says it found "4 files" but "0 extracted", and then says the file/package was not found.


Honestly guys, I'm at a loss. I have no clue what to do next, and I REALLY want to figure this out. I'm not asking for a step-by-step "how-to" on this, but if anyone could even give me a hint as to what to do next, it would be extremely appreciated. I can't even find out what type of audio is in the SoundNodeWave, I've tried the oggextractor and it failed. I've tried using UDK to at least open the SoundCue files and it wouldn't open them. So please, any help whatsoever would be greatly appreciated.

P.S. If anyone who is in-depth with this kind of modding and whatnot who is willing to teach me even more about this, I'd love for you to add me on Skype. Send me a PM if you're willing to tutor me, I am a quick learner and I really would like to do this for my community that I moderate. Thanks a lot guys, and thanks again Gildor, I love your site and the tools you've provided us!
« Last Edit: September 02, 2014, 15:54 by Gildor » Logged
Gildor
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Re: Alliance of Valiant Arms (Audio Modding Help)
« Reply #1 on: October 06, 2012, 11:03 »
I think people who modding files are doing nearly next steps:

1. decompress package using "unreal package decompressor" located on this site; now all sounds and textures will be placed in package "as is", without garbage on data (it's not always true though)
2. find all textures and sounds which you want to replace; helpful commands are
   umodel -export -dds -sounds <package_name>
   umodel -list <package_name>
   Export will produce .dds and .ogg files which are exactly the same as their footprint in decompressed package obtained on the previous phase. -list could help you to to locate these objects too, because it lists object position and size in decompressed package (be warned: objects has some metadata before texture/sound itself)
3. produce modified dds/ogg file of the same format and size
4. replace old resources with new in decompressed package at positions obtained on step 2
5. place modified decompressed package into the game

Notes:
  • it would be wise to check decompressed package from phase 1 in the game before everything, because it's possible that game has some protection against file modifications and all other steps wouldn't be useful.
  • textures has mipmaps, so replacing them will require updating all mipmap levels
  • some games uses .tfc files (higher mip levels are stored there) and it would be very hard to replace such textures
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ccman32
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Re: Alliance of Valiant Arms (Audio Modding Help)
« Reply #2 on: December 26, 2012, 00:03 »
Quote from: gildor on October 06, 2012, 11:03
I think people who modding files are doing nearly next steps:

1. decompress package using "unreal package decompressor" located on this site; now all sounds and textures will be placed in package "as is", without garbage on data (it's not always true though)
2. find all textures and sounds which you want to replace; helpful commands are
   umodel -export -dds -sounds <package_name>
   umodel -list <package_name>
   Export will produce .dds and .ogg files which are exactly the same as their footprint in decompressed package obtained on the previous phase. -list could help you to to locate these objects too, because it lists object position and size in decompressed package (be warned: objects has some metadata before texture/sound itself)
3. produce modified dds/ogg file of the same format and size
4. replace old resources with new in decompressed package at positions obtained on step 2
5. place modified decompressed package into the game

Notes:
  • it would be wise to check decompressed package from phase 1 in the game before everything, because it's possible that game has some protection against file modifications and all other steps wouldn't be useful.
  • textures has mipmaps, so replacing them will require updating all mipmap levels
  • some games uses .tfc files (higher mip levels are stored there) and it would be very hard to replace such textures
1.I tried the decompressor and i get the following error:
Code:
ERROR: Serialized FString is not null-terminated
FString<< <- Name:1 <- ReadNameTable <- UnPackage::UnPackage:C:\Users\<name removed>\Desktop\Folders\AVA\uModel\Wp_smg_AK74U.upk, ver=451/53, game=8000 <- Main
What can i do now?
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Gildor
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Re: Alliance of Valiant Arms (Audio Modding Help)
« Reply #3 on: December 26, 2012, 08:23 »
Re-download the decompressor, it was built without AVA support.
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ccman32
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Re: Alliance of Valiant Arms (Audio Modding Help)
« Reply #4 on: December 26, 2012, 20:40 »
Quote from: gildor on December 26, 2012, 08:23
Re-download the decompressor, it was built without AVA support.
Ok, i redownloaded and don't get errors anymore. It creates a new folder but when i go into it i find the exact same upk with the same file size. Does that mean it is already uncompressed? Just to clear out some things: My target is to create texture mods for ava weapons with changing the textures inside the upk. I don't have any problems with extracting the textures out of the upk and watch/edit them outside of the upk too but it doesn't seem to be possible to create a new upk out of the modified files or replace them inside the upk. I already tried to swap 2 textures inside the upk with a hex editor by changing the names of both textures to the name of each other but i did not see any difference with the modified upk. The decompressor doesn't change anything of the upk too. I don't know that much about upk files and how they are made exactly but i already worked a little bit with the UDK which cannot open AVA upk files too. So what can i do to reach my target?
« Last Edit: December 26, 2012, 21:39 by ccman32 » Logged
Gildor
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Re: Alliance of Valiant Arms (Audio Modding Help)
« Reply #5 on: December 27, 2012, 10:10 »
Quote from: ccman32 on December 26, 2012, 20:40
Ok, i redownloaded and don't get errors anymore. It creates a new folder but when i go into it i find the exact same upk with the same file size. Does that mean it is already uncompressed?
Exactly.
Quote
... So what can i do to reach my target?
I'm not doing that by myself (otherwise I'd write a tool to replace texts/sounds/textures in any game Grin)
So I can only suggest what to do, and I provided instructions in the 2nd post of this thread.
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ccman32
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Re: Alliance of Valiant Arms (Audio Modding Help)
« Reply #6 on: December 28, 2012, 16:51 »
Quote from: gildor on December 27, 2012, 10:10
Quote from: ccman32 on December 26, 2012, 20:40
Ok, i redownloaded and don't get errors anymore. It creates a new folder but when i go into it i find the exact same upk with the same file size. Does that mean it is already uncompressed?
Exactly.
Quote
... So what can i do to reach my target?
I'm not doing that by myself (otherwise I'd write a tool to replace texts/sounds/textures in any game Grin)
So I can only suggest what to do, and I provided instructions in the 2nd post of this thread.
I don't understand step 4 of that. How shall i replace them in the uncompressed upk?
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mrblitz
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Re: Alliance of Valiant Arms (Audio Modding Help)
« Reply #7 on: January 18, 2013, 06:00 »
Quote from: ccman32 on December 26, 2012, 20:40
I don't understand step 4 of that. How shall i replace them in the uncompressed upk?

I have the same question too. Can you provide me some hint of how to replace data blocks with the positions listed by umodel?

I have seen some people editing and releasing modified upk of the game with success. The modified upk came out okay and the game engine accept it. But they told me in order for that to work they need to do RSA algorithm for every single upk they modified and that take a lot of time even for those who are used to it.

However the game doesn't crash or show error with decompressed upk, so this maybe an easier method of modifying upk.
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