Final Fantasy 8 > FF8 Tools

[PC] Import/export sounds - FF8Audio (1.1)

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Shard:
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What is FF8Audio?
FF8Audio is an upgrade of Qhimm's FF8SND. In addition to everything FF8SND offers, FF8Audio also lets you add and/or replace sounds to the sound database, lets you add descriptions to each sound, shows you the Field ID for each sound effect (which is different from the FF8SND IDs), has an "export all sounds" button, and can write all the sound data back into the database files.

How do I use FF8Audio?
Extract FF8Audio.jar and FF8Audio.bat (the Descriptions file is optional but you should use it) to the same folder which audio.dat and audio.fmt are located (usually within "Final Fantasy VIII/Data/Sound/" ) and run the bat file. ALWAYS BACKUP YOUR FILES!! I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE IF YOUR FILES BECOME CORRUPT! The buttons should be self-explanatory, but just in case. . .
* Load FMT loads all the sound data from the aforementioned files.
* Save FMT writes all the sound data you've loaded/messed with back into those files.
* Play Sound plays the currently selected sound.
* Extract Sound saves the currently selected sound to the "/export" folder this program creates (in the same location).
* Extract All saves all valid sounds to the "/export" folder, named by their Field ID.
* Mass Import imports every sound contained in the /import folder. The file name of each sound file will be its Field ID (for example, to replace the "escape from battle" sound (Field ID 7871), place a sound file named "7871.wav" in the /import folder)
* Replace Sound replaces whichever sound you're selecting with a sound file from your computer (a file chooser dialog will pop up)
* Add Sound adds a new sound file of your choice to the end of the list.FF8 supports only one type of sound format: Microsoft 4-bit ADPCM WAV. No program I know of can make these anymore, but luckily, Audacity gets close enough that my program can import a file made by Audacity and do a little housecleaning on it to make it work. To prep a sound file in Audacity, do the following:
* Make sure your Audacity project is 1 channel, 16 bit PCM
* Export the sound with the following options: "Other uncompressed formats -> WAV Microsoft -> Microsoft ADPCM"
* You can then import it with FF8Audio. To make sure it imported correctly, extract the sound back from FF8Audio and open it in whatever media player you use, because the "play sound" button sometimes doesn't work (see below).
What can I do with this?
FF8Audio only lets you modify the sound archives. It doesn't have any functions that let you actually change anything in the game (of course, replacing existing sounds will affect the game). Beyond switching sound effects for better (or different) sound effects, you'll need to have some knowledge of the field files and the script language to make big changes to FF8. With that kind of knowledge, you might be able to do something as spectacular as this.

I guess I should mention that this only lets you change sound effects. This program can't change the game's music.

Are there any bugs
You betcha!
The only known bug is that the "Play Sound" preview doesn't always load the sound properly. This is because Java doesn't really like playing 20-year-old sound formats. The sound files themselves are fine. If there's a sound that doesn't play properly (or doesn't play at all), just export it and open it with your favorite media player to hear it correctly.

The highest field sound ID that FF8 will load is 19999. This program has no way around this limitation. The IDs start at 7850 and FF8 only comes with 2700 of them (the highest ID that comes with the game is 10640), meaning you can add 9359 new sound effects that will work.

My voiceover project will eat up most of that space, I will edit this when I know exactly how many sounds it uses. If you plan on making a mod with new sound effects (as opposed to updated/replaced sounds) that's compatible with the voiceover project, you will have to avoid the IDs that I use.

Is source code available? Can I modify it?
I have released the source under the GNU public license.
https://github.com/ShardFenix/FF8Audio
You are free to use/modify/fork the code as long as you keep me and Qhimm as authors.

Special Thanks
I of course have to thank Qhimm for figuring out the file formats for the audio files and for releasing his FF8SND source code, which I used to get started on this project. I'd also like to thank the rest of you for releasing all these cool mods I love using.

Kaldarasha:
Can this tool expanded for FF7? It use the same archives for the sound, but in the dat have wav files and not snd. Currently is there only one working tool (cosmo)  and this isn't that good. It adds sound files in the audio.dat and link the audio.fmt list to the new file, so it is a fake replacement. But I need a tool which replace the sound in dat and leave the fmt as it is.

Shard:

--- Quote from: Kaldarasha on 2014-05-21 19:14:56 ---[cosmo] adds sound files in the audio.dat and link the audio.fmt list to the new file, so it is a fake replacement. But I need a tool which replace the sound in dat and leave the fmt as it is.
--- End quote ---
I don't understand (maybe it's a translation problem, your post was a little confusing).

The game needs the FMT file to load sounds. If you only change the dat, the game will never be able to find your sound.

I haven't tried it myself, but if you put this tool in the same folder as the audio.fmt and audio.dat ( FF7/data/sound/ ), it should work. The only difference would be that it still shows the FF8 Field ID for each sound, which would be much larger than it should, as FF7 has a smaller library of sounds.

You just reminded me to upload the version with the bugfix, though.

Kaldarasha:
Sorry for my English.
No it doesn't work with the FF7 audio.dat and audio.fmt. It is placed correctly but if I click on load FMT nothing happens.


I knew that the FMT is more or less the link to find the sound data. But I want replace a sound and not add one, but I fear that the FMT has also information about size and length of a sound data, which makes it necessary to update it as well.

Shard:
My program updates the FMT correctly, even if you replace an existing sound.

Run the .bat file that comes with the program (instead of the jar) and it should be able to open the FMT (I uploaded the new version just minutes ago, you should download it again from the link). If it still doesn't work, it means there's something different about FF7's FMT file. I don't have FF7 installed on this PC to test it.

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