Yo. This is a severe necro, but I've been attempting to rip the audio files myself, and have met moderate success. So far, I ripped all the game's actual sound effects, through the following method:
- Extract the Audio.package file using SporeMaster 2.0.
- Use ffmpeg's built-in ea_cdata library, which converts EA's widely used XAS ADPCM format into readable (listenable?? xD) WAV format.
- ???
- profit!
Using the following command in-line on Windows CMD:
Code: Select all
ffmpeg -f ea_cdata -i "INFILE" "OUTFILE.wav"
Or the following in a .bat file for batch processing:
Code: Select all
for %%a in ("*.*") do "C:\Users\<YOUR_USER>\Documents\Darkspore\ffmpeg\bin\ffmpeg.exe" -f ea_cdata -i "%%a" "newfiles\%%~na.wav"
pause
(Note that this assumes that you're running the .bat file from the folder containing the .#01A527DB files, and that you have created a folder
within that folder called "newfiles", and that you have put all of this in your Documents folder under the folder "Darkspore", and that you have installed a copy of ffmpeg within said Darkspore folder.)
This converts all files with the .#01A527DB extension from the Audio.package folder into .WAV files the audio player of your choice can play back.
However, when attempting the same with the Locale/en-us/Audio.package, using the same method to extract
its .#01A527DB files, you run into the ffmpeg error "unknown header 0x0504 -- operation not permitted". So far, I've only seen this error when trying to decode the files in the top-level Audio.package (so:
not the Locale one) that didn't have the .#01A527DB extension (they're most likely .prop files or something like that).
This leads me to believe the audio files in the Locale folder were perhaps not encoded using the same "generic" EA XAS ADPCM format, though they share an extension with the files that
were. Would anyone know anything more about this, perhaps?
I'm currently still digging around the Internet. I'll post again if I know more.
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EDIT: SUCCESS!
I was able to extract the remaining audio files using EALayer 3.
https://bitbucket.org/Zenchreal/ealayer3/downloads/
https://forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=4922
Simply put, put a file next to EALayer 3, use the CMD line
and EALayer 3 will spit out the HELIX voice file.
Alternatively, extract the HELIX files from Locale/en-us/Audio.package first, then put the following .bat file in the same folder:
Code: Select all
for %%a in ("*.*") do "C:\Users\<YOUR_USER>\Documents\Darkspore\ealayer3-0.7.0-win32\ealayer3.exe" "%%a" -w
pause
(Note that this assumes that you're running the .bat file from the folder containing the .#01A527DB files, and that you have put all of this in your Documents folder under the folder "Darkspore", and that you have installed a copy of ealayer3 within said Darkspore folder.)
This will spit out HELIX's voice files within the same folder as .WAV files.
Happy ripping!
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EDIT II:
I was able to rip a lot of music, too. The process follows the same method described above, using EALayer 3. The only difference is that, this time, we target the files with the .#01EEF63A extension.
I was unable to convert about 19 files this way, however, some of them quite large. I fear these might be the cutscene audio files, which is what I was actually looking for in the first place. The search continues. But for now... let's listen to the results. ^^
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EDIT III:
Indeed, they were a bunch of ambient and music files. Notably, none of the music is actually the music that plays in the background of any of the cutscenes. This is quite telling: there's still some missing content somewhere. I suspect these files, which are the largest filesizes, and fail to convert using the previous methods:
#0B103B08.#01EEF63A
#1D3896C5.#01EEF63A
#3D541BD8.#01EEF63A
#07BDB888.#01EEF63A
#08A6AE68.#01EEF63A
#18E08BDA.#01EEF63A
#21AF3D7D.#01EEF63A
#23CB1230.#01EEF63A
#41B3187B.#01EEF63A
#42C8F53A.#01EEF63A
#84FD21FE.#01EEF63A
#799CAAAF.#01EEF63A
#906FCCAD.#01EEF63A
#03436E32.#01EEF63A
#40305B1B.#01EEF63A
#A453B855.#01EEF63A
#A6628920.#01EEF63A
#BAC8DF71.#01EEF63A
#BC0BF358.#01EEF63A
#C8DA8985.#01EEF63A
#C2683150.#01EEF63A
#C7338903.#01EEF63A
#DD5A2393.#01EEF63A
#DFFF2902.#01EEF63A
#E96BB3D0.#01EEF63A
#EE9469A7.#01EEF63A
My quest takes me further...