Final Fantasy VI Music/Sound Modding

[Kafziel]

In this thread im gonna explain how to replace the games music files, please note that i still haven´t found a way to loop them correctly.

Update: New version of FFVI_Explore got released, it now let´s you create self installing patches

1. You need FFVI_Explore by Nyxojaele to open,extract and replace FF6 game files, you can get it here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/38150185/FFVI/FFVI_Explore_v0.3.zip

2. Open FFVI_Explore select open archive then navigate to: steam\steamapps\common\finalfantasy vi and open "main.obb" (make sure to backup this file in case you screw something up)

3. Navigate down until you find files that start with "sound", the first 96 files, give or take, are the music files , these are all .ogg files with custom headers you cannot replace them with any other format like .MP3 or .WAV or else the game crashes.

4. Now we are going to extract a music file, note that the music files are ordered the same way as the in game music player, im gonna choose terra´s theme which is "s006.akb", right click on "sound/s006.akb" and select extract, your extracted file should be in a folder called "sound"

5. For this next step you´re gonna need an hex editor i recommend HxD: http://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/ . With your hex editor open "s006.akb"

6. Select everything until "OggS" as shown in this picture: http://i.imgur.com/Jy4nkhP.png and copy it, this is the custom header i mentioned in step 3, every file has a different one, i don´t know if it holds the loop data since .ogg files are capable of having loops aswell.

7. Open an .ogg file with the hex editor and paste insert the header right before "OggS" as shown in this pic: http://i.imgur.com/b6UtLzV.png , then save as "s006.akb" without the quotes.

8. Go to FFVIExplore highlight "sound/s006.akb" and press Delete, this will delete the file so that there are no duplicates.

9. Drag and drop "s006.akb" into FFVIExplore and highlight it, just above "Output Directory" theres a bar, click it, right now it should say "s006.akb" change it to "sound/s006.akb" without the quotes, then click on save archive.

Problems/Bugs

Adding a header of a diferent track that you´re trying to replace causes the game to crash. For example replacing Terra´s theme and using the Battle theme header
The battle theme when replaced stops playing after some time

[Saftle]

Awesome, thanks for the tutorial! Be sure to update the thread to reference the newest FFVI Explore version (v.0.2) which allows creating self-applying patches: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/ff-modding/discussions/2/451848854988454751/

Also, you should try and get in touch with insidious611 or Covarr from the QHIMM forums. They are almost done creating a mod for the original FFVI on SNES that completely replaces the soundtrack. A joint effort in creating a mod for both the FFVI SNES release and FFVI Steam release would be amazing.

Thanks again for your work.

[Saftle]

Moved thread to FFVI Subforum, for easier coolaboration.

[Kafziel]

Here´s a patch file to change the overworld theme to Sean Schafianski´s Terra´s Theme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juORAXpgb_M
The file is mp3 ripped from Youtube, the looping is almost perfect but theres still a slight seam

http://www25.zippyshare.com/v/AFDshtkw/file.html

[The Math King]

Hi all,

I come seeking aid for a complete music overhaul project I'm working on. This is for the PC\Steam version of the game, but I hear that the game files are identical so it could be useful for other ff6 formats.

I cannot get the songs that I've included in the game (I've done them all) to loop properly.

~What I did:
I took all the music .akb files using FFVIExplore, found orchestral music online, converted those to .obb, looped them by samples (LoopStart= and LoopEnd=) in Audacity, created an .obb that has the same type of content in the file (looked at an .akb file and noticed it only had LoopStart= and LoopEnd= , no authors or comments, etc), took the akb header info for all the files and put them in the new.obb files, renamed file.obb to file.akb, and put them in the game. I did this for all the music except for the opera scene and the final battle (was going to do that later).

~The Result:
The result is that everything plays in the game, but the looping doesn't! It loops flawlessly in audacity, but the game doesn't seem to care where I put my LoopEnd=.


~Discoveries:
1): The game will only recognize new music up to the length of the original song. So if the original song goes for X samples, and my new song goes for Y>X samples, It won't recognize any loops or content after X samples.

2): All the loop information that the game uses is in the akb file. I tried making a song where all the loop information is within the original length of the song next. This resulted in the exact same looping behaviour in all previous attempts! It seems that the akb file contains not just the length of the song, but the entire loop content (despite the original ogg files containing loop data too).

If somebody can help me out with generating akb files from ogg files, that would be great!

[The Math King]

I got it working. I'll post the mod soon with all 50-ish music files fully looped and replaced. Thanks goes to the creator of FF6explore, who improved his akb wrapper to make this project work.

[RiverNyxx]

Good luck with your mod! I'm looking forward to it~

[leoj_reimroc]

Very excited for this one. I was about to start a new game, but I think I'm going to wait for this mod.

[Falcon]

In case anyone else is having trouble with their songs either cutting short or not looping properly, here's what I discovered: After you paste insert the akb header into your ogg file using a hex editor (step 7), you still need to edit the header further. Bytes 00000014-00000016 are the LoopStart values, 00000018-0000001A are the LoopEnd values, and 00000008-0000000A is the file size in bytes. Since these values were copied from the original akb file, they won't match your replacement ogg file. First, you need to convert your loop values (samples) to hex. Then replace the bytes in the header with the inverted hex number (from right to left). For example, if my LoopStart value is 428910 samples, convert to hex to get 68B6E, and then replace bytes 00000014-00000016 as 6E 8B 06. Depending on the song length, these values can sometimes extend further, i.e. byte 00000017. Once the file is saved, get the file size in bytes (not size on disk), convert it to hex, and replace bytes 00000008-0000000A with the inverted hex number. This should allow the song to play longer than the original without cutting short. Side note: If the LoopEnd is at the end of the song, but it doesn't work, I've had good luck setting the LoopEnd value at least 1 sample less than the song's total length. Thanks to The Math King and madsiur for pointing me in the right direction.

[RiverNyxx]

Pretty sure the latest FFVI_Explore takes care of this automatically. I recall updating it to handle exactly that, at somebody's request.

[Falcon]

Originally posted by Nyxo:

Pretty sure the latest FFVI_Explore takes care of this automatically. I recall updating it to handle exactly that, at somebody's request.

Ugh, you're right Nyxo. Somehow I missed the Mod Helper / AKB wrap feature in the newer versions :(

[KVG88]

Originally posted by The Math King:

Hi all,

I come seeking aid for a complete music overhaul project I'm working on. This is for the PC\Steam version of the game, but I hear that the game files are identical so it could be useful for other ff6 formats.

I cannot get the songs that I've included in the game (I've done them all) to loop properly.

~What I did:
I took all the music .akb files using FFVIExplore, found orchestral music online, converted those to .obb, looped them by samples (LoopStart= and LoopEnd=) in Audacity, created an .obb that has the same type of content in the file (looked at an .akb file and noticed it only had LoopStart= and LoopEnd= , no authors or comments, etc), took the akb header info for all the files and put them in the new.obb files, renamed file.obb to file.akb, and put them in the game. I did this for all the music except for the opera scene and the final battle (was going to do that later).

~The Result:
The result is that everything plays in the game, but the looping doesn't! It loops flawlessly in audacity, but the game doesn't seem to care where I put my LoopEnd=.


~Discoveries:
1): The game will only recognize new music up to the length of the original song. So if the original song goes for X samples, and my new song goes for Y>X samples, It won't recognize any loops or content after X samples.

2): All the loop information that the game uses is in the akb file. I tried making a song where all the loop information is within the original length of the song next. This resulted in the exact same looping behaviour in all previous attempts! It seems that the akb file contains not just the length of the song, but the entire loop content (despite the original ogg files containing loop data too).

If somebody can help me out with generating akb files from ogg files, that would be great!

Hey, I was just wondering if this was still in development :)