Higher Quality Music mod

[Sustain]

Just a heads up for anyone not digging the low bitrate music in this release, Dog has posted a mod with reencoded high quality music over at the Falcom Discord (Ys-8 Channels) i'm not sure if i am allowed to link the files directly, so just go there for now.

Edit: Nexus Link to the Mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/ysviii/mods/1

[Samination]

引用自 Sasuga Ainz-sama：

I tried the higher quality music, and I have to say that I do not like it because the looping isn't done well.

I don't remember the music looping properly on the PS4 anyways :P

[Danny]

引用自 Samination：

引用自 Sasuga Ainz-sama：

I tried the higher quality music, and I have to say that I do not like it because the looping isn't done well.

I don't remember the music looping properly on the PS4 anyways :P

The music that came with the game loops seamlessly. The ones in the mod package has a very noticeable cutoff when it begins to loop.

[YueJin]

The music in the base game is so quiet I wouldn't notice if it did anything better anyway :p

[Aemony]

引用自 Sasuga Ainz-sama：

引用自 Samination：

I don't remember the music looping properly on the PS4 anyways :P

The music that came with the game loops seamlessly. The ones in the mod package has a very noticeable cutoff when it begins to loop.

It's probably because the mod package seems to be a straight conversation from the OST album. Game-specific tracks are usually designed for endless looping of the tracks, while OST albums are designed around hearing the tracks individually.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn if there's more differences than merely those loop cutoffs. Sometimes OST tracks are structured a bit differently as well, with shorter intervalls between various highlights of the track, while game-specific tracks are the opposite, as they're designed to be played over a longer period of time.

[Danny]

引用自 Aemony：

引用自 Sasuga Ainz-sama：

The music that came with the game loops seamlessly. The ones in the mod package has a very noticeable cutoff when it begins to loop.

It's probably because the mod package seems to be a straight conversation from the OST album. Game-specific tracks are usually designed for endless looping of the tracks, while OST albums are designed around hearing the tracks individually.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn if there's more differences than merely those loop cutoffs. Sometimes OST tracks are structured a bit differently as well, with shorter intervalls between various highlights of the track, while game-specific tracks are the opposite, as they're designed to be played over a longer period of time.

Yes, this. A lot of people think modding the music in a game is an arbitrary task, but it's really not.

[Kaldaien]

引用自 Tetsuo：

Just a heads up for anyone not digging the low bitrate music in this release, Dog has posted a mod with reencoded high quality music over at the Falcom Discord (Ys-8 Channels) i'm not sure if i am allowed to link the files directly, so just go there for now.

Edit: Nexus Link to the Mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/ysviii/mods/1

I'm not sure you're even allowed to link those on Nexus technically.

Don't worry, I have no intention of filing a copyright complaint or anything like that, but it's a very real possibility and Nexus doesn't mess around with copyrights

Falcom and licensing do not get along AT ALL.

You hear horror stories of games that have been ported multiple times and no single version works right or has the complete working set of original assets from Falcom because no single party can manage to figure out how to negotiate licensing with them :P

[Kaldaien]

引用自 BONKERS：

Man, who the heck doesn't notice this ♥♥♥♥ in development? There's no reason for such absurdly low bitrate audio in games any more. Zero excuses given the amount of storage available and the likely hood the source files are lossless. (Which makes me think, did Falcom screw this up on the PS4 too ?? Ugh)

Nothing should be less than max quality .ogg encoding these days. Unless you are starved for storage space on a platform like a handheld. And max quality .ogg is still super space efficient.


Also: you should post this in the guides section as a mod. No one in their right mind would take it down as it is just a mod. And there are many others for other games without issue.
They aren't going to sue you.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1376468264

I don't really trust console games anymore :) Now that I can physically see the corners that are cut with asset distribution on PC. It's inevitibly even worse in the console version, and those games can't really be touched-up. Which is why I think the Nintendo Switch is a great place to dump JRPGs off -- nobody's going to care that the quality isn't what it should be, because that's not why you buy a Switch.

I just hope that doesn't come back to bite Nintendo in the ass -- their Seal of Quality was changed to simply the Nintendo Seal about 15 years ago, heh.

[BONKERS]

引用自 Sasuga Ainz-sama：

引用自 Aemony：

It's probably because the mod package seems to be a straight conversation from the OST album. Game-specific tracks are usually designed for endless looping of the tracks, while OST albums are designed around hearing the tracks individually.

I wouldn't be surprised to learn if there's more differences than merely those loop cutoffs. Sometimes OST tracks are structured a bit differently as well, with shorter intervalls between various highlights of the track, while game-specific tracks are the opposite, as they're designed to be played over a longer period of time.

Yes, this. A lot of people think modding the music in a game is an arbitrary task, but it's really not.

Not it really isn't. Especially depending on how the game engine is set up on how to loop the music. Whether the loop points are built into engine specific scripting or manifest files or used based on loop tags in the audio header or what.

Speaking from experience modding Grandia II for HQ music as the music it ships with is abysmal in quality. That was an incredibly tedious game to mod higher quality music into without the audio going out of sync or loops breaking because why use not only super low quality .ogg files, but totally ignore the best part of using .oggs for games. Loop tags.

引用自 Kaldaien：

引用自 BONKERS：

Man, who the heck doesn't notice this ♥♥♥♥ in development? There's no reason for such absurdly low bitrate audio in games any more. Zero excuses given the amount of storage available and the likely hood the source files are lossless. (Which makes me think, did Falcom screw this up on the PS4 too ?? Ugh)

Nothing should be less than max quality .ogg encoding these days. Unless you are starved for storage space on a platform like a handheld. And max quality .ogg is still super space efficient.


Also: you should post this in the guides section as a mod. No one in their right mind would take it down as it is just a mod. And there are many others for other games without issue.
They aren't going to sue you.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1376468264

I don't really trust console games anymore :) Now that I can physically see the corners that are cut with asset distribution on PC. It's inevitibly even worse in the console version, and those games can't really be touched-up. Which is why I think the Nintendo Switch is a great place to dump JRPGs off -- nobody's going to care that the quality isn't what it should be, because that's not why you buy a Switch.

I just hope that doesn't come back to bite Nintendo in the ass -- their Seal of Quality was changed to simply the Nintendo Seal about 15 years ago, heh.

Ouch.
Quality matters, should always strive to get the best quality you reasonably can. And with audio it's so incredibly simple and easy to do so given you have the space available.
It's frustrating.

I am assuming the console file is on the right? Neither is great.

[Warrior of Right]

引用自 BONKERS：

Ouch.
Quality matters, should always strive to get the best quality you reasonably can. And with audio it's so incredibly simple and easy to do so given you have the space available.
It's frustrating.

I am assuming the console file is on the right? Neither is great.

Ya i was wondering the same what's the one on the right?
Have yet to put in the new music as i haven't really noticed how bad the music is yet,
just that the volume is kinda low even with it cranked...

[Kaldaien]

The one on the right-hand side is from the linked Nexus mod.

I actually wrote some code to re-encrypt (ROTFLMAO, if you can even call what they did to obfuscate the data in this game encryption) and import my own music.

All of the game's assets can be decrypted as such:

      uint8_t *data = new uint8_t [size] { };

      fread  (data, size, 1, fIN);
      fclose (               fIN);

      for (int i = 0; i < size; i++)
      {
        data [i] = (  (data [i] << 4U) | 
                     ~(data [i] >> 4U) & 0xF )
                                       & 0xFF;
      }

They're just twiddling bits expecting that's going to confuse modders, lol.

[Warrior of Right]

So it was comparing with the mod.
What do we need to decrypt the music? There a tutorial anywhere???
(the music is good so far but i wouldn't mind modding in some past Ys dungeon music)

Also do you know what .ogg is for the classic Ys item jingle?
Want to replace it with one of the classics ones as all the newer jingles sound off..

[Kaldaien]

You know... I might as well just release the tools I wrote to do it :)

Allow me like an hour or so and I'll have a build of my mod system with the necessary UI to do all this stuff.

[IBJamon]

There are python scripts to pack/unpack the files, as well as recreate the mod if you so choose. It's all in the Ys8 channel on the falcom discord. The tools already exist. :)

[Warrior of Right]

引用自 Kaldaien：

You know... I might as well just release the tools I wrote to do it :)

Allow me like an hour or so and I'll have a build of my mod system with the necessary UI to do all this stuff.

Sounds good thanks.
No rush tho take your time, i don't plan on replacing some of the OST until i have gotten further and start getting tired of some of the more generic repeated tracks.

Just went through almost the whole series in preparation for this so i already have hand picked a few remixes i wouldn't mind adding just waiting in a folder to mod in.

The only things bugging me right now are the Classic Ys jingle and jump sound effects which i'm sure are easier to replace as they don't have to be looped.
(once you find what audio file they are since they not labeled that is....)

[Kaldaien]

Here ye go:


Grab this[github.com] off of GitHub

Extract the contents of this archive to your game's install directory and then boot up the game.

General Overview

From the control panel (Ctrl+Shift+Backspace), there is a heading called "File Management."

Use this section of the tool to export encrypted files and import any changes

Directory Structure of Special K

Decrypted files will be written to <GameBasePath>\SK_Export\<resource_path>

The process for importing changed files involves placing whichever files you want in: <GameBasePath>\SK_Import\<resource_path> and clicking Import

Important Note regarding Import/Export speed

The process can take a very long time depending on the number of files you place in SK_Import\...\, and it WILL appear to have locked the game up, but that is not the case and you will get a pop-up in-game after all files finish importing.

As seen here ;)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1378169658

Example Usage

1. First export the C/C++ Headers; they will give you somewhat human readable names for many assets
   
   
   >> Said files wind up in SK_Export\inc\*.h
   
   
   • Note that Visual Studio is kinda stupid and might not recognize shift-jis and it certainly will not be using a Gothic font by default, so you probably cannot read ANY of the Japanese text (could you anyway? =P)
   
   
2. This looks interesting:
   

   //[y“¢”°ƒCƒxƒ“ƒg‚bF—³Ží‚Æ‘˜‹öz					][mp6107m /EB][SubEV_Past_06_HuntC_1	]
   #define SE_KAKO_6_10	SE_Y234		//–™ôšK

   
   
3. So, then export the Sound Effects
   
   >> SK_Export\se\se_y234.wav contains the audio file discussed in that gibberish, and it's now an actual .wav file that you can play if you want.

If you want to go ahead and replace the file I just showed you, just create a new directory called SK_Import\se\ and put some random .wav file in there with the name se_y234.wav, use the Import button in Special K and presto.





Incidentally, this game's resource manager is so primitive that it reloads these files everytime it goes to use them. So, uh, you can go ahead and start importing, exporting, replacing files while the game is running and they'll take effect immediately.