24 replies to this topic

[kyrub]

Xcomufo.com has also the corrected music.dll for CE version. That's not the answer?

http://www.xcomufo.com/x1dl.html

[Tycho]

Bomb Bloke, on 8th March 2012, 8:23pm, said:

I've renamed the thread, but just so you know, if you wanted to do it yourself you can just go edit your first post. You'll need to use "full" rather then "quick" edit mode.

Thanks BB!  (BTW, I must not have sufficient access to do this.  I tried your directions but under full edit I didn't see a way to access the Title to alter it.)

Bomb Bloke, on 8th March 2012, 8:23pm, said:

The far reaches of my memory are telling me that whether the sound problems with movement occur have something to do with the surface the creature is moving over. Which makes sense when you consider that different floors make different sounds anyway, but maybe not so much for the snakemen...

You're right. Any unit that is walking on "feet" is given the sound event id #00 which tells the sound routine to reference the tile set to determine which lines from the CAT file to play and alternate between the two to get the sound of steps.  Other creatures have a set sound for their movement (snakemen, flying units, celatids, tanks,etc..). The zombie's problem is that when the game loads, the subroutine that initializes a lot of the data points sets the dword for the zombie's move event# to be the event ID of the small explosion (#18).  So changing that dword entry for the zombie with an editor never fixes the zombie problem because your entered value is overwritten when you start the game. I was a little lucky that in the starting routine code they use the specific dword. I probably would still be trying to solve this if I hadn't finally used a program that allowed me to view the memory locations in real time. It's amazing what happens when you use the right tools..  

Bomb Bloke, on 8th March 2012, 8:23pm, said:

I haven't seen any signs from Seb for quite some time. He hasn't touched UFOpedia.org since about May 2010.

I thought that I had not seen any activity from him but I'm still new here and to UFOpedia. Too bad. I had hope to offer my results on the sounds and fixes for code to the craft weapon's ufopaedia pages to him for inclusion on a future update.

[Tycho]

Bomb Bloke, on 8th March 2012, 8:23pm, said:

Some people (not me) use this patch to restore old alien voices to later versions of the game. Dunno how it affects the other sounds, but you might find it interesting if you haven't seen it already.

I checked out the files that are in the "patch".  The SAMPLE2.CAT file is definitely got the original sound samples: I didn't realize how bad the human screams were (the female screams sound more like a group of girls squealing.) Others I don't ever remember hearing.
But there are a few things I don't like about it:
1. He doesn't provide any documentation to tell you what has been changed in the code or the files, to help in case another mod conflicts with some of his changes.
2. I noticed the "clicking" problems people have mentioned.  
3. The patch doesn't fix any of the problems that I have been working on.  (Stun Rod, Snakemen movmenent, etc)

I may take a longer look at it and try to determine what I might can do with the new sounds but I would have to look deeper into the code to see how to give a new sound ref # to certain creature's actions.

UPDATE-
I just disassembled the modified executable and compared it to the original.  The author alters some of the sound routines and injects his own code into the empty spaces in order to reorganize the sounds instead of using the existing structures and modifying code only as much as necessary.   He still doesn't address the problems with incorrect sounds being played and seems to cause others (clicking at the end of many sound events).  
I doubt that using this altered executable would work with seb's loader and I am unsure how it would react with XCOMUTIL.

Edited by Tycho, 30 April 2012 - 03:25 PM.

[Tycho]

kyrub, on 8th March 2012, 8:41pm, said:

Xcomufo.com has also the corrected music.dll for CE version. That's not the answer?

http://www.xcomufo.com/x1dl.html

I think that file fixes the pauses between music changes especially as one goes back-and-forth between the music for an interception and normal geoscape music.

The problems I've been working on are some of the sound effects in battlescape.  Mostly dealing with the wrong sounds for certain creatures movements and the stun rod.  

I appreciate your help.  I am using Seb's loader, I've tried various CAT files from here and xcomufo.org, and tested XCOMUTIL but none of them ever fixed these problems.  

My coding skills aren't near the level of BB, Seb, or Blade.  I just started learning assembly in December. All these problems are really cosmetic but since no one has fixed them, they give me a good focus as I learn.

[kyrub]

Tycho, on 8th March 2012, 2:43pm, said:

I thought that I had not seen any activity from him but I'm still new here and to UFOpedia. Too bad. I had hope to offer my results on the sounds and fixes for code to the craft weapon's ufopaedia pages to him for inclusion on a future update.

Seb has posted a full source for UFO extender on Ufopaedia, so it's quite simple to include your sound fixes in the final release. I can help with it, if you're not familiar.

And pardon my initial mistrust, I thought you were referencing something that has been solved long ago.  It's really good you noticed the problems and you even found a solution yourself. If ever you need some info/coding help, just ask. Then again, sound and graphics are my worst enemies when it comes to disassembling... so I am probably not the best advisor around.