Sound Recording/Editing and Repacking VOX.

[ytewrwqf]

Let's suppose I wanted to record different VOX/voices for the new subtitles in the game.



Sndrec32.exe allows you to save the sound as IMA ADPCM, you can save it as a template.


If this doesn't work it may be the offset, but I do no think it is relevant.
Do I need an offset editor to put the sound at a specific event in the game for it to work,
or is it just the sound format that is the culprit?

The dosbox version only has one VOX file EN_GM. It only has 42 narrator sounds, and 2 with twinsen talking.

CD IMAGE(Before Dosbox version):
I recall there being a Logic block address given for the sounds in the CD version, so I tried to manually replace all the sounds in the CD image, but you could not change the LB address, initially I thought that was why the sounds didn't work. (I don't know if the Logic block has anything to do with the offset, or if the offset is necessary to tell the game where and when the sound will play at a given event.)

Thanks.

[Zink]

I'm not sure, but I think you got it all messed up.

1. The VOX dorectory in gog version contains only one file initially (or no file at all), and the other files get transferred form the CD on demand (and stay on the disk). If you open the CD image with a virtual drive software, you will find the VOX directory there with all the files.

2. The VOX files are neither IMA ADPCM, nor any other commonly used format. They are in the same format as the HQR files in the LBA game. They are just containers for many small files, like zip, rar, etc. To replace the sounds, you don't have to know the offsets, you have to find a program that supports HQR archives, and can unpack/replace entries for you. We've got a list of them in the Quick Start & Modding Tools thread pinned in this forum. Search for names containing 'HQR' or 'package'.

3. The actual voice files are VOC, and that's the common format (by Creative Labs perhaps). I don't remember exact parameters, but it was something around 16bit 11kHz.

4. A single VOC file cannot exceed a specific size in LBA, so if you have a longer audio, it must be split to more files, and put in a special manner into the HQR file. They are called hidden entries, and need a modification of the first byte of the file (which in normal situation is always the same for the VOC file, so it does not lose the sound data). Some HQR editors (like my LBA Package Editor) adjust the byte automatically, but I don't know if all of them do that.

[ChaosFish]

I made a guide some decades/centuries ago on how to record to LBA voice format: http://lba.fishos.cc/bit/guides.html

See "How to create LBA voices". You just need WaveLab. The quality turns out pretty good.

[Battler]

Originally Posted by Zink

3. The actual voice files are VOC, and that's the common format (by Creative Labs perhaps). I don't remember exact parameters, but it was something around 16bit 11kHz.

For LBA 1. LBA 2 uses 22.5 kHz .WAV compressed with IMA ADPCM from what I know.

[Zink]

Originally Posted by Battler

For LBA 1. LBA 2 uses 22.5 kHz .WAV compressed with IMA ADPCM from what I know.

Right. Don't know why, but I assumed ytewrwqf asked about LBA 1 only.

[ytewrwqf]

Twinsen:1-118 voices
Zoe:154-181
Bob:228-230,334-337
Mr. Bazoo:263-271 "Don't DO THAT YOU FOOL! IT'LL BLOW UP!!

C:\program files\GoG.com\Little Big Adventure 2
I tried to replace the VOX file from the CD, since putting the newer VOX file in the proper folder ended up getting it deleted unless it was read-only.
Even then, the game wouldn't use the sounds. All I did was change the location of one sound to another.

The problem is when you try to open the LBA2.GOG file with Ultraiso, re-saving it will lead the game to asking you for the CD and the file size of the disc would change from 664 to 590MB
.
Is there a special software needed to re-save the GOG without the game asking for the disc?

[ChaosFish]

Did you try a no-cd crack? (1, 2)

[ytewrwqf]

*UPDATE
I downloaded the NRG version of the game (single disc). It allowed me to install the voices to the hard disk, the nocd patches fail to work.
TWINSEN.EXE loads the Zoe/Twinsen logo, but it closes the EXE after a quick moment.



The conversion method.
12-bit mono, 22khz, ADAPCM.