Homefront 2011

[ThotsBContagious]

Been trying to rip the audio straight front it with no luck.

Saw this video that would allow me just to record the game audio with no background
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NnmJBgpLgs

but the console commands don't work doesn't help he doesn't show how to use it either.

I tried using UPK decompressor/etc with no luck. I've got soundwavenode files and no idea what to do from there.

[Bizargh]

Assuming there's not too much custom-work done on the Unreal Engine 3 that Homefront runs from, there could be a way to enable developer commands via editing the .INI or config files, but it does depend on the game whether you can do this (Here's how to do it for Mass Effect for example: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Mass_Effect#Enable_developer_console), especially if it has multiplayer. Unfortunately, the best I've come up with is a Singleplayer FOV Changer tool: https://community.pcgamingwiki.com/files/file/487-homefront-fov-changer/

Do bear in mind that the video you've shown demonstrates the Xbox 360 version of the game (Gamecheat13 has typically modded from the Xbox consoles, which tends to be the reason why the methodology is either lacking or absent) so results could differ if you're successful.

Otherwise, my two recommendations for extracting audio would be UE Viewer[www.gildor.org] (umodel.exe) or UPK Extractor (which you can find bundled in here[forums.nexusmods.com] among others) if UE Viewer has issues (It helped me with Tribes Ascend when UE Viewer could only extract one player-character's voice files while UPK Extractor managed to get the rest).

I can't guarantee that these will work as some Unreal Engine 3 games have some custom-work done to them outside of the usual FMOD or Wwise middleware that can defeat these tools, but without having gotten the PC version for myself, this is the best I can give you from the top of my head.

[ThotsBContagious]

Originally posted by Bizargh:

Assuming there's not too much custom-work done on the Unreal Engine 3 that Homefront runs from, there could be a way to enable developer commands via editing the .INI or config files, but it does depend on the game whether you can do this (Here's how to do it for Mass Effect for example: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Mass_Effect#Enable_developer_console), especially if it has multiplayer. Unfortunately, the best I've come up with is a Singleplayer FOV Changer tool: https://community.pcgamingwiki.com/files/file/487-homefront-fov-changer/

Do bear in mind that the video you've shown demonstrates the Xbox 360 version of the game (Gamecheat13 has typically modded from the Xbox consoles, which tends to be the reason why the methodology is either lacking or absent) so results could differ if you're successful.

Otherwise, my two recommendations for extracting audio would be UE Viewer[www.gildor.org] (umodel.exe) or UPK Extractor (which you can find bundled in here[forums.nexusmods.com] among others) if UE Viewer has issues (It helped me with Tribes Ascend when UE Viewer could only extract one player-character's voice files while UPK Extractor managed to get the rest).

I can't guarantee that these will work as some Unreal Engine 3 games have some custom-work done to them outside of the usual FMOD or Wwise middleware that can defeat these tools, but without having gotten the PC version for myself, this is the best I can give you from the top of my head.

Oh wow didn't expect such a response but appreciate all the info.

Yeah I noticed later on both his and one other were 360 versions which gives me the vibe they left them in consoles only cause its stupidly hardly to get into them on there and they wouldn't risk it on PC I bet.

I did think about UModel which I use normally but its pretty crashy tbh with Homefront, can't recall why. Gildor said something about how they coded the game.

I did decompress/extract with UPK and I have soundwavenode files which I have no idea what to do so just stuck in a position there.

Again appreciate the help, have always enjoyed this group for all the extraction methods or sound packages from games.

[ThotsBContagious]

Yeah I'm gonna have to just record audio in game, find some way to extract cause from what I can tell 360 has maps not included in PC.

Ugh.. hate that crap.

Edit - Nevermind I forgot to get oggextractor.exe so now I have audio files.
Suppose leave this up just in case anyone else gets stuck

[Bizargh]

Originally posted by ThotsBContagious:

Edit - Nevermind I forgot to get oggextractor.exe so now I have audio files.
Suppose leave this up just in case anyone else gets stuck

I did forget to suggest oggextract.exe as a possible means as well (Usually, UE Viewer or UPK Extractor tend to be enough when custom-jobs or middleware aren't involved & don't require much different tools and/or methods). Feel free to leave this up as I myself can do with the reminder sometimes. Thanks!

And sorry I didn't respond promptly. I forgot to subscribe to the topic and I was dealing with a Steam Support inquiry regarding a small, but concerning issue at the time (Now resolved as desired, thankfully).

[ThotsBContagious]

Originally posted by Bizargh:

Originally posted by ThotsBContagious:

Edit - Nevermind I forgot to get oggextractor.exe so now I have audio files.
Suppose leave this up just in case anyone else gets stuck

I did forget to suggest oggextract.exe as a possible means as well (Usually, UE Viewer or UPK Extractor tend to be enough when custom-jobs or middleware aren't involved & don't require much different tools and/or methods). Feel free to leave this up as I myself can do with the reminder sometimes. Thanks!

And sorry I didn't respond promptly. I forgot to subscribe to the topic and I was dealing with a Steam Support inquiry regarding a small, but concerning issue at the time (Now resolved as desired, thankfully).

Don't sweat it man I appreciate you making this group in the first place. I've found a lot of sounds or how to extract it so its usefulness is great.

[ellis3246]

Originally posted by ThotsBContagious:

Yeah I'm gonna have to just record audio in game, find some way to extract cause from what I can tell 360 has maps not included in PC.

Ugh.. hate that crap.

Edit - Nevermind I forgot to get oggextractor.exe so now I have audio files.
Suppose leave this up just in case anyone else gets stuck

Do you still have a direct link to where you got oggextractor.exe??
(apologies for the necrobump for anyone else that sees this)

[Bizargh]

Originally posted by ellis3246:

Originally posted by ThotsBContagious:

Yeah I'm gonna have to just record audio in game, find some way to extract cause from what I can tell 360 has maps not included in PC.

Ugh.. hate that crap.

Edit - Nevermind I forgot to get oggextractor.exe so now I have audio files.
Suppose leave this up just in case anyone else gets stuck

Do you still have a direct link to where you got oggextractor.exe??
(apologies for the necrobump for anyone else that sees this)

No post is "dead" around here, so no worries!

I originally thought that they were referring to "oggextract.exe", which can still be found in the very same place as my probably-dated How to Acquire: The Audio of Mass Effect section recommends:
https://github.com/arkeet/oggextract
(See "Downloads" for the "Windows Binary" link for the .EXE or the "C Source" link for the self-compile). It is pretty old, but I believe it still works, or at least it's public nature has ensured others have provided more up-to-date alternatives.

However, looking around for an "oggextractor.exe", I did turn this up, courtesy of a Softpedia result's homepage referral, and it is very up-to-date (Latest release was 12th Feb. 2025):
https://github.com/FelixdelasPozas/OGG-Extractor
I've only just discovered it, so I cannot comment on how useful or reliable it is. However, it does have a G.U.I. and a list of 'officially supported' games running on various engines, so that's a promising start.

[ThotsBContagious]

Its been a good 2 yrs but pretty sure you're right.
I just recall dragging ogg files into a cmd exe basically.

[ellis3246]

How would i go about unpacking .map files outside of umodel?
i've noticed some audio files stored inside them
(to make it completely clear i've tried exporting them within umodel to no avail)

[Bizargh]

That's probably not the case. Looking at the game files for myself (At least whilst I download & install the game from Steam to have a look for myself), all of the game's audio should be stored within .UPK files (Homefront > GCGame > CookedPC > Audio & Audio_DLC2) as is typical of many Unreal Engine 3 games that don't incorporate middleware such as FMOD & Wwise or other custom systems. It could be possible that your process is detecting what audio the .MAP files refer to or draw from, but from what little I understand, they probably don't have audio packaged within them (They would if they were .MAP files from the Blam! Engine as almost entirely used by the Halo games, but that's a very different engine and it would be audio unique to the relevant .MAP file while pulling general audio from a "Campaign.MAP" & "Shared.MAP").

Just to repeat myself:

Originally posted by Bizargh:

My two recommendations for extracting audio would be UE Viewer[www.gildor.org] (umodel.exe) or UPK Extractor (which you can find bundled in here[forums.nexusmods.com] among others) if UE Viewer has issues (It helped me with Tribes Ascend when UE Viewer could only extract one player-character's voice files while UPK Extractor managed to get the rest).

In this case, much like the issue I encountered with Tribes Ascend while using UE Viewer, it could be more reliable to use UPK Extractor for Homefront instead (Something I've been aiming to change toward doing for Unreal Engine 3 games going forward).

[ellis3246]

Originally posted by Bizargh:

That's probably not the case. Looking at the game files for myself (At least whilst I download & install the game from Steam to have a look for myself), all of the game's audio should be stored within .UPK files (Homefront > GCGame > CookedPC > Audio & Audio_DLC2) as is typical of many Unreal Engine 3 games that don't incorporate middleware such as FMOD & Wwise or other custom systems. It could be possible that your process is detecting what audio the .MAP files refer to or draw from, but from what little I understand, they probably don't have audio packaged within them (They would if they were .MAP files from the Blam! Engine as almost entirely used by the Halo games, but that's a very different engine and it would be audio unique to the relevant .MAP file while pulling general audio from a "Campaign.MAP" & "Shared.MAP").

Just to repeat myself:

Originally posted by Bizargh:

My two recommendations for extracting audio would be UE Viewer[www.gildor.org] (umodel.exe) or UPK Extractor (which you can find bundled in here[forums.nexusmods.com] among others) if UE Viewer has issues (It helped me with Tribes Ascend when UE Viewer could only extract one player-character's voice files while UPK Extractor managed to get the rest).

In this case, much like the issue I encountered with Tribes Ascend while using UE Viewer, it could be more reliable to use UPK Extractor for Homefront instead (Something I've been aiming to change toward doing for Unreal Engine 3 games going forward).

Alright, i tried out oggextract.exe & the method of copying the upks/extracted soundwavenodes & then dragging and dropping them over the .exe seems to be doing nothing.
(oh btw felix's ogg extractor yielded nothing sadly )

I tried out manually getting it to work through the command prompt
(as directed here: https://forums.beyondunreal.com/threads/oggextract-tool-to-extract-music-and-sounds-from-upk-files.174128/ )
and i got a coding error relating to whatever was used to compile said .exe (ie. cygwin)
could you check & see if this is only happening to me?
im thinking oggextract got broken somehow in the 2 years leading up to this

[Bizargh]

Well, I've managed to get the game installed and I am starting to see the problems you're having with UE Viewer. Looks like you might be right about a good deal of audio, or at least voice data being bundled into, if not the .MAP files, then within the Map folder as a lot of the "LOC" (Localisation) .UPKs seem to be there.

However, I tried using UPK Extractor, and when testing 'GCGame > CookedPC > Audio > FL2 > A2_Music_S_4.upk, A2_Music_S_5.upk & A2_Weapons_S.upk', I got consistently successful results by:

• Copying the aforementioned .PUK files into a folder alongside the UPK Extractor bundle I have
  
• Editing the 'Extract.bat' file to choose the .UPK file of choice, and then running the process via the .BAT file (I did this one at a time, but there might be a way to do this for multiple files at the same time that I'm not aware of or failing to recall)
  
• Dragging 'n' dropping my chosen .SoundNodeWave files over 'oggextract.exe' (You can do this with multiple files at once, but there may be a Command or a .BAT instruction to alternatively do this too)
  
• And out came playable .OGG files for every SoundNodeWave file that I tested. I got to sit back & listen to 'M17_ShopMart_Mstr_Loop' (I remember rather liking this particular theme when playing the Xbox 360 release back around 2011), 'StandYourGround' (I don't even remember the game having a bespoke song for it, but I can see people being fond of it!) and the various "Fire" & "Reload" sounds for the 'M110', and some others.

And considering that the version of 'oggextract.exe' I recommended & used was last updated in 2012, it's had over 13 years to break. Then again, I am still running a Windows 7 P.C. from 2015, so that could possibly be a factor (I'm hoping to finally change that this year, but getting a new G.P.U. looks to be an ordeal, never-mind affordable at the moment and Microsoft is doing everything in it's power to convince me that Linux is the best choice of O.S. to move to). Like I said, there may be newer versions of it out there as it's code was released publicly.

Nevertheless, as far as I'm seeing, UPK Extractor is a good way to getting the game's Music & S.F.X. However, when it comes to Voice, I am struggling to pin down where they could possibly be stored if not in the .MAP files as you've found reason to believe. There might be other & better ways to manage it, but this is the first time that I've even tried for this game and this is the best I've gotten with the tools I have on hand.

[ellis3246]

Originally posted by Bizargh:

-snip-

Alright, it turns out what was happening was that i was putting in "Bad" (further testing & defining needed) Soundwavenode files that i presume oggextract was unable to work with for whatever reason as i have found myself with a working .ogg file after extracting a soundwavenode file from outside the levels folder

[ellis3246]

Thank you for both of y'alls time!
& good luck to whoever finds this in the future i guess

[juliana]

Originally posted by ellis3246:

Originally posted by Bizargh:

-snip-

Alright, it turns out what was happening was that i was putting in "Bad" (further testing & defining needed) Soundwavenode files that i presume oggextract was unable to work with for whatever reason as i have found myself with a working .ogg file after extracting a soundwavenode file from outside the levels folder

iirc the soundwave files can just be renamed to .ogg straight and they'll play fine. no need for any extraction