How to Acquire: The Audio of Most Source Engine Games

[Bizargh]

DETAILS

Format(s):
- WAV, MP3, OGG, VSND_C (Source 2, can be decompiled to original WAV or MP3 using VRF (Valve Resource Format) / Source 2 Resource Viewer[vrf.steamdb.info])

Credits:
Developers of the particular game you're extracting from.

List of Personally Known Source Games/Mods Aside from Valve's (Full List here: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/6858478-Source-Engine-Games/):

• 800 North & Digital Ranch: Dino D-Day
  
• Arkane Studios & Floodgate Entertainment: Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
  
• Crowbar Collective (Black Mesa Development Team): Black Mesa
  
• Facepunch Studios: Garry's Mod
  
• Firearms Source Team: Firearms: Source
  
• Fistful of Frags Team: Fistful of Frags
  
• Galactic Cafe: The Stanley Parable
  
• Goldeneye Source Team: Goldeneye: Source
  
• Hidden Path Entertainment (Co-developer): Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
  
• Interwave Studios: Nuclear Dawn
  
• New World Interactive: Insurgency: Modern Infantry Combat, Insurgency, Day of Infamy
  
• No More Room in Hell Team: No More Room in Hell
  
• Prism Studios: Portal Stories: Mel
  
• Puny Human Games: Blade Symphony
  
• PVK II Team: Pirates, Vikings & Knights II
  
• Ritual Entertainment: SiN Episodes: Emergence
  
• STUDIO RADI-8: NeoTokyo
  
• The Chinese Room: Dear Esther (Source)
  
• Troika Games: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
  
• Turtle Rock Studios/Valve South: Left 4 Dead

Terms of Use (Or General Permission):

• Valve Games: https://store.steampowered.com/video_policy. (List of games developed/co-developed by Valve[en.wikipedia.org])
  
• Crowbar Collective: http://www.blackmesasource.com/video-policy.html
  
• Galactic Cafe: https://web.archive.org/web/20131024060739/http://www.galactic-cafe.com:80/2013/10/video-monetization
  

  I, Davey Wreden, founder of Galactic Cafe, give full permission for anyone to record, stream, and upload any videos of our games (including Stanley Parable) to anywhere on the internet, and to monetize these videos with ads. No need to ask our permission, go forth, and cultivate revenue. Sow the seeds of your own financial viability. Monetize, and all is right with the world.
  
  Signed,
  Davey Wreden
  Galactic Cafe
  October 22, 2013

• Dino-Day: http://www.dinodday.com/?page_id=349
  
• Blade Symphony: https://web.archive.org/web/20171016141855/http://www.blade-symphony.com/about/
  

  Our Media Monetization Policy
  
  Puny Human allows all individuals to create and upload videos and images using Blade Symphony’s content (graphics, audio, music, cutscenes) and publish it to media websites such as YouTube.com and Twitch.tv, with the following restrictions:
  
  Do not take the assets from Blade Symphony (any raw audio or graphical content such as textures, models or sound files) and distribute them separately without express permission from Puny Human.
  Do not charge money or otherwise restrict users from access to any videos that either feature Blade Symphony or any of it’s content as outlined above.
  Do not sell or license your videos to others for payment of any kind that either feature Blade Symphony or any of it’s content as outlined above.
  Do not associate any inappropriate content (i.e. pornography) or bigotry (i.e. racism, sexism, homophobia) with Blade Symphony.
  
  Failure to abide by these restrictions may result in Puny Human requesting the video to be removed. Puny Human will, at its sole discretion, determine if a video does not comply with these guidelines.
  
  You are free to monetize videos using video footage and audio from Blade Symphony via the partner programs with YouTube, Twitch.tv, Blip.tv, Ustream.tv, or similar services whereby a website may pay you for views of a video.
  
  Puny Human retains all ownership and rights of its produced content, and may terminate or change the terms of this agreement at its sole discretion.

• No More Room in Hell Team: http://static.nmrih.com/videopolicy
  
• New World Interactive (Tweet): https://twitter.com/insurgencygame/status/410994769456680960
  
• Games/Mods by Other Developers: Subject to their individual terms of use. Monetisation forbidden unless they state otherwise.

GUIDE

This is probably something many PC based modders & machinimators are familiar with, but we're here to provide for those that aren't. With this guide, I hope to have you familiar with how to extract the beloved sound, music & dialogue of the many Source games & mods along with Source 2 games such as DOTA 2 & Half Life: Alyx.

For those curious about Titanfall, Titanfall 2 and/or Apex Legends, the information within this guide is not applicable to those games (At least regarding audio), but specific information for those games can be found here:

• How to Acquire: The Audio of Titanfall
  
• How to Acquire: The Audio of Titanfall 2 & Apex Legends

STEP ONE

In most cases, you will require the latest version of the tool GCFScape (v1.8.6 at the time of writing) or VRF (Valve Resource Format) / Source 2 Resource Viewer[vrf.steamdb.info] (v0.1.2 at the time of writing) to access the entirety of a Source Game/Mod's sound assets. These are tools that provide access, exploration & extraction of Source & Source 2 game assets such as models, animations, textures, sound, etc. for the purposes of community modding & media-making.
It is perhaps worth mentioning that GCFScape is a Windows Only program as far as I've been told nor can I verify VRF's operating system versatility. Regarding Mac alternatives, I discovered Source Finagler[www.markdouma.com] (Although it's age is worth considering) and once heard of a tool called "Gridmount", but as someone who hasn't used them nor knows anyone who has, I cannot help you any further there.

This article on the Valve Developer Community Wiki also has the download link to the latest version of GCFScape, and should effectively guide you on it's simple use. Don't worry, it's very short & sweet and has pictures: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/GCFScape
(Note: You can right click on folders such as "sound" to extract them & the entire content within, not just individual files such as "Heavy_domination15.mp3", "ui_startup_01.vsnd_c" or "br_collaboration11.wav").

STEP TWO

Now that you have the tool(s) in your hands, now it is a matter of where to look. Since the vast majority, if not all of mod-friendly Source Games are distributed by Steam and/or require Steam to play, I'll use the Steam file path as the example.

First, you want to find your games. This can be done normally or through "Open" in GCFScape & VRF:

• Primary: [Your Steam Library Location] > Steam > steamapps > common
  
• Alternative: [Your Steam Library Location] > SteamLibrary > steamapps > common

Here, you'll find all of your installed Steam games files. At this point, it's really a matter of choice & looking around, but I'll use some common examples of typical file paths to at least provide an idea of what you're looking for:

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive:
• Counter-Strike Global Offensive > csgo
  
  DOTA 2:
  
• dota 2 beta > game > dota
  
  Half Life 2:
  
• Half Life 2 > ep2
  
• Half Life 2 > episodic
  
• Half Life 2 > hl2
  
• Half Life 2 > lostcoast
  
  Insurgency:
  
• insurgency2 > insurgency
  
  Left 4 Dead 2:
  
• Left 4 Dead 2 > left4dead2
  
• Left 4 Dead 2 > left4dead2dlc1
  
• Left 4 Dead 2 > left4dead2dlc2
  
• Left 4 Dead 2 > left4dead2dlc3
  
  Portal 2:
  
• portal 2 > portal2
  
• portal 2 > portal2_dlc1
  
• portal 2 > portal2_dlc2
  
  Team Fortress 2:
  
• Team Fortress 2 > tf2

Basically, just enter the game folder, than enter another folder named after the game or it's expansion to get to the game's contents.

In rather rare cases, some Source Modifications such as Black Mesa (Legacy) which use Steam to run, but cannot be downloaded by Steam, are installed differently. So in their very particular cases, this is where you'd head.

• Primary: [Your Steam Library Location] > Steam > steamapps > sourcemods > "Game" ("BMS" in Black Mesa's case)
  
• Alternative: [Your Steam Library Location] > SteamLibrary > steamapps > sourcemods > "Game" ("BMS" in Black Mesa's case)

STEP THREE

You're there. Great! But don't go jumping to that "sound" folder just yet. It likely doesn't contain many sounds, if any sounds at all. The majority of Source games these days store their contents in "Valve Pack Files", also known as .VPKs, especially the Valve games.
There are exceptions I know of which don't use these for sounds such as: Black Mesa (Legacy), Dino D-Day, Left 4 Dead 2, Pirates, Viking & Knights II & The Stanley Parable, whose sound files are all sitting in the "sound" folder. But it's best never to assume, especially as even some using .VPKs will still have sounds in their "sound" folders, but there won't be many.

The .VPKs containing what you're looking for are either or any of the following examples:

• "pak01_dir"
  
• "[Game]_pak01_dir"
  
• "sound_misc_dir"
  
• "[Game]_sound_dir"
  
• "[Game]_sound_misc_dir"
  
• "sound_vo_english_dir"
  
• "[Game]_sound_vo_[language]_dir"

It's always the ones ending in "_dir". All the others with ending numbers are merely extensions from them, so you can simply ignore them (But do not be rid of them!).

From here, you may now enter them or open them through GCFScape or VRF. Although what follows is simply a matter of right-click on your chosen file(s) or folder(s) to extract to your chosen location, there are some specific differences when doing so for each tool to highlight, as well as a not-always-included official alternative that at least deserves mentioning.

STEP FOUR - GCFScape

It remains as simple as right-click on your chosen file(s) or folder(s), selecting "Extract" and then choosing your location for the extracted file(s) and/or folder(s), with the added benefit of being able to preview & playback any specific files before doing so.
However, when it comes to the ".VSND_C" files found in Source 2 games such as DOTA 2 & Half Life: Alyx, while GCFScape can extract them, you very likely will have issues trying to play them or find decompiling/converting them an inconvenient process. This is where VRF comes in handy.

This still remains the most recommended tool from myself if exploring, extracting or modifying games built on the original Source Engine due to the tool's maturity and strong familiarity in the Source community.

If you want a visual example, here's a video example of someone extracting the Portal 2 (Main Game Sounds) via GCFScape:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX4BWy0vOvQ

STEP FOUR - VRF (Valve Resource Format) / Source 2 Resource Viewer

It remains as simple as right-click on your chosen file(s) or folder(s), selecting "Export" and then choosing your location for the extracted file(s) and/or folder(s).
But when it comes to the ".VSND_C" files found in Source 2 games such as DOTA 2 & Half Life: Alyx, selecting "Decompile & Export" will extract these audio files decompiled into their original file format(s) such as .WAV & .MP3, saving you the need to decompile/convert them after extraction.

While this tool is very capable of exploring & exporting assets from games built on the original Source Engine, I would mostly recommend it for use with games using the Source 2 Engine both for being the tool's focus of development and for it's convenient ability to Decompile & Export the VSND_C files back to their original formats such as WAV & MP3 in a single click.

STEP FOUR - VPK.EXE

"vpk.exe" is the official tool included in a large number of Source Engine games including Black Mesa, Half Life 2, Insurgency, Left 4 Dead 2, Portal & Team Fortress 2, but is absent from the standard installations of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive & Left 4 Dead 2 (Until you download their included Authoring Tools or SDKs found under "Tools" in your Steam Library), so while I would recommend GCFScape & VRF first & foremost for their convenience, exploration & flexibility, it is worth mentioning this option nonetheless in case preferred and/or needed.

Firstly, see if your chosen game includes a "vpk.exe", which can be found in the game's "bin" folder as per these examples:

• Black Mesa > bin
  
• dayofinfamy > bin
  
• Garry's Mod > bin
  
• Half Life 2 > bin

If it doesn't, visit your Steam Libary, tick "Tools", see if your chosen game has any available such as the Left 4 Dead 2 Authoring Tools or the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive SDK, install them, then check their "bin" folders for a "vpk.exe". If looking into community mods such as Portal Stories: Mel or Half Life 2: Update that may lack a vpk.exe, it's most likely they utilise or are compatible with the base game's vpk.exe.

Secondly, create/paste a Shortcut for "vpk.exe" in a desired location (This will save you tracking down all of the additional files such as "tier0.dll" & more). Then copy & paste your desired game's .VPK files containing the sound and/or voice data into the same location (You will need all of the additional "_[No.].vpk" files, not just the "[Filename]_dir.vpk" files as they are split files that make a whole when together).

Then lastly, drag & drop the "[Filename]_dir.vpk" over "vpk.exe" to begin the extraction. Once complete, the entire contents of those .VPK files will be extracted for you.
This isn't the only way to carry out this particular procedure, but it does help in keeping your extractions organised and ensuring the procedure carried out correctly. But in truth, most people I know of seek out "vpk.exe" to oppositely create their own .VPK file to package their mods.

If this is a bit much to take in, this video provides a visual example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stKHEEaAHws

CONCLUSION

And that should hopefully "give you the keys" to the sound data for just about any game running on the Source Engines.
Additionally, the Team Fortress 2 (Old & Community files included), DOTA 2 (Source & Reborn), Black Mesa (Legacy) & Titanfall sound files are up for download in The Bizarchivist Sound Collection.