UPDATE: VPMAX in 2025!?

[crimsonquill]

Edit: while I'm thinking about it, I'm going through and packing up a bunch of the XMLII packs I sent... have you already gone through any yourself or should I just go down the list

I have been going thru your voice packs and trying to figure out how I would use other sound clips to fill in missing elements from NPC characters. Your XMLII collection has been a big help in getting me restarted on VPMAX outside of the few MUA packs I lost during my harddrive crisis and the remaining DC voice packs that Sledgehammer had finished. If you had done any further tinkering or added anything yourself just send them my way.

I was able to finally snag a used PS2 copy of MUA2 at my local GameStop today for $17.. so I will probably be playing around with the game for awhile and seeing if I can sample audio from the game into sounds files that I can edit and tweak into usable elements for voice packs in the next couple days. If they sound great then I can start gathering voice packs from MUA2 and add them into future updates. The really annoying thing is that VV changed their sound compression so the ripping and sound conversion tools that worked for XML2 and MUA no longer work at all for MUA2. So I'm forced to sample voices right from recordings of playing the game itself with all sound off but the voices. 

- CQ

[Tomato]

I went ahead and ripped some MUA sounds(Doom, Colossus, Moon Knight, Ronin)... while I'm at it, I'll send you towav... just drag the PC's .vss and .vsm files onto it and it'll rip all .wav files in there.

I finished an ok Angel pack(considering he's not playable, I managed a 25 sound pack), gonna track down some additional Archangel and Apocalypse sounds... they're pretty puny right now. working my way down the list for the more known chars

[Tomato]

ok, so... I still have yet to email the set I meant to (I keep forgetting to when I'm on the dsl line) but I just figured out how to rip MUA2 sounds... it's a pain though, the sounds bounce between 22050 and 11025 Hz and I have keep adjusting settings. Meh.

[crimsonquill]

ok, so... I still have yet to email the set I meant to (I keep forgetting to when I'm on the dsl line) but I just figured out how to rip MUA2 sounds... it's a pain though, the sounds bounce between 22050 and 11025 Hz and I have keep adjusting settings. Meh.

I'll be anxiously awaiting..

And very good news on figuring out how to get samples from MUA2! 

Uhm....Are you using the same ripping program and which console version of MUA2 are you pulling sounds from? I could easily help you if we synch our efforts using the same tools.

- CQ

[Tomato]

PS2 version, using a program called "PSound" basically you drag the .zss/.zsm files in and it'll give you a list of sound files for conversion to .wav. From what I'm seeing, the frequencies seem to be clumped together a bit... The dying sounds will all be the same, sometimes the whole file, etc.

I've gotten several of the playables already, the main problem's gonna be the x_voice... it houses all the villain and minion voices, so not only do you have to get frequency right, there's no visible sort system for the vps themselves(Each pack is grouped alphabetically, but no way to know if something was listed as DDoom or DrDoom). I was only able to pound out the XMLII voices because I played enough to recognise the voice. Quite frankly, I don't play MUA2 enough to distinguish Cyclops from Cap.

Edit: weirdness... x_voice doesn't have any VPs at all, and I can't find anything in the other files.

[Cry Havoc]

Awesome project!  But let me see if I understand this correctly, I downloaded all the parts up until 1.5 (the link to 1.6 is down BTW) Now all I have to do is merge the dats of all the previous files into 1.5, then copy/paste over the originals in the  path?

[crimsonquill]

Awesome project!  But let me see if I understand this correctly, I downloaded all the parts up until 1.5 (the link to 1.6 is down BTW) Now all I have to do is merge the dats of all the previous files into 1.5, then copy/paste over the originals in the  path?

No.. the dats and language files are continiously updated from version to version.. so you would only need to worry about the copy/pasting part. If you still have problems then the VPMAXv2 release is going to be an autoinstall program that will do all the dirty work for you.

- CQ

[Cry Havoc]

So I just need to copy/paste the files from 1.5 into their corresponding  paths then?

[Cry Havoc]

Plus the fix of course. 

[crimsonquill]

Plus the fix of course. 

Yup.. yup.. it's pretty simple. However it can be pretty intimidating if you worry about messing up while merging dats or have more then a few mods added on to the regular game.

- CQ

[Cry Havoc]

Another thing which I believe a member addressed earlier is that I see the new voices in the drop-down in character info, but when I select a voice it doesn't stick and/or I hear no sounds in actual gameplay. Of course this could just be a minor oversight on my part and just be something simple I overlooked.

[crimsonquill]

Another thing which I believe a member addressed earlier is that I see the new voices in the drop-down in character info, but when I select a voice it doesn't stick and/or I hear no sounds in actual gameplay. Of course this could just be a minor oversight on my part and just be something simple I overlooked.

That is usually caused by the speech dat in the Language folder not being the one from VPMAX or your actual sound files are in the wrong directory (I usually put them in the main FF folder AND the FFX folder). See these kinda thing are why I want to have an auto install program so small little errors don't throw everything out of wack.

- CQ

[Cry Havoc]

I hear ya man, i suppose I'll just wait for the auto-installer and save myself a headache, thanks for all your help in any case. 

[crimsonquill]

HA! Success!!

I finally managed to figure out a way to stablize PSound enough to keep my system from crashing while I am digging through games for sounds.  

I managed to start looking over MUA2 sounds and definitly found that while they may have revamped their sound formats it's just a minor labor to make sure the playback is set up correctly before I sample them. Tomato has sent me some examples of his work and I am very happy with the results. So I'm going to let Tomato officially join my VPMAX team and he gets to have his packs added with whatever signiture he desires in front of the character name (TO_GreenGoblin for example). Let me know what ya think Tomato.

I'm VERY pleased that I found a way to access all sounds from the Destroy All Humans 1 & 2 games using this tool which elimates the hassle I had of capturing voices from audio I recorded while playing the game and then chopping it all up into usable quotes for a character. The volume increased and decreased depending on the game play action and made getting consistent sounding dialogue was headache inducing and time consuming to the worse degree.    Hence why the only voice pack I created from my previous DAH work was a Male_Farmer WIP and it didn't sound great at all as a voice pack within the game.

And the best part is now I get to go thru my collection of PS2 games and find out how many voice packs I can create if I can crack open the sound files.  

- CQ

[crimsonquill]

Just a quick little update to reveal which PS2 games I have managed to crack the sound archives to sample voice packs from...

Destroy All Humans 1 & 2
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 1 & 2
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Smash-Up
Marvel Super Hero Squad
GI JOE The Rise Of Cobra
Ghostbusters
Justice League Heroes
Teen Titans
X-Men Legends 1 & 2
Evil Dead Hail To The King & Regeneration

and that is all I've messed with so far... but the list is building as I am borrowing more of my friends' collections to scan through.

Oddly Spider-Man 1 & 2 have some sounds available but no dialogue so far.. so it's either buried or unable to be heard outside of playing it.

- CQ

[Sledgehammer]

Crimson, long time no see!

I just want to mention that's fantastic that you're still keeping up with Voicepack updates, and getting them all into VPMAX. It makes everything so much easier.

And I want to add that I've discovered a way to extract files from both PS2 MUA 2 (I see that you can do it too), and... Next-Gen MUA 2!!! I'll be providing Voicepacks from that as soon as possible, if this is okay with you and the rest of the guys working with that source material. I think we may have more quantity of quips by merging both games, as the dialogue differs greatly.

Tell me what you think, and I'll be acting accordingly. I don't want to interfere with what you guys have been doing so far.

[crimsonquill]

Crimson, long time no see!

I just want to mention that's fantastic that you're still keeping up with Voicepack updates, and getting them all into VPMAX. It makes everything so much easier.

And I want to add that I've discovered a way to extract files from both PS2 MUA 2 (I see that you can do it too), and... Next-Gen MUA 2!!! I'll be providing Voicepacks from that as soon as possible, if this is okay with you and the rest of the guys working with that source material. I think we may have more quantity of quips by merging both games, as the dialogue differs greatly.

Tell me what you think, and I'll be acting accordingly. I don't want to interfere with what you guys have been doing so far.

Welcome back Sledge!

You didn't need to worry about VPMAX going away any time soon and I was more then happy to keep people directed towards your yahoo groups if they needed to just access single voicepacks that you worked on.

I'm definitly glad you are able to access the voices from the Next-Gen MUA2 because that was something Tomato or I had no access to or were able to figure out a way inside of the game discs once we got a hold of one. I don't even remember what exclusive characters were made available to play on the PS3 or XBOX360 versions.  

As far as what Tomato and I have been working on is just extracting samples from MUA2, MUA, and XML2 that had not already been collected into voice packs already and assembling enough voice clips to make the proper amount for a voice pack. The size limitation of Vox Studio 3 was a big hassle for actually playing long voice clips but it seems that with PSound it no longer will be a factor anymore for anything sampled out of a PS2 game. I have not yet tried to see if PS3 game sounds will be able to be accessed with it in the same way since I don't own the system or any games from it.

I don't think you need to worry about overlapping work just yet.. just start releasing what you have finished and we will hammer out the details as we move along.

- CQ

[Sledgehammer]

I'm definitly glad you are able to access the voices from the Next-Gen MUA2 because that was something Tomato or I had no access to or were able to figure out a way inside of the game discs once we got a hold of one. I don't even remember what exclusive characters were made available to play on the PS3 or XBOX360 versions.  

That would be Iron Fist. Juggernaut is not included in the Next Gen versions unless you've got some kind of code, and his lines are missing in my copy. Anyway, John Di Maggio reprised his role once again, so it would only serve as an expansion pack for my previous release.

There are plenty of old characters with new voices. From Cap to Jean, passing through Thor and Reed Richards. In my opinion, Vicarious Visions did an inferior work in terms of voice acting, especially when Raven did such a great job in that aspect. But it's still decent, and the geek in me is already trying to match those different voices with other characters. I'm just thinking out loud, but for example, this new Jean Grey could be Rachel Summers.

Then, there's the DLC, currently unavailable. For that, we'll have to wait until (or even if) Activision unveils a Gold Edition. Carnage, Cable, Magneto, Black Panther and Psylocke were the ones released. Psylocke, I presume, is done by the same girl who voiced her for the PS2 version. Needless to say, Carnage is the most interesting character for us, because he doesn't have a FF pack yet; the others do.

As far as what Tomato and I have been working on is just extracting samples from MUA2, MUA, and XML2 that had not already been collected into voice packs already and assembling enough voice clips to make the proper amount for a voice pack. The size limitation of Vox Studio 3 was a big hassle for actually playing long voice clips but it seems that with PSound it no longer will be a factor anymore for anything sampled out of a PS2 game. I have not yet tried to see if PS3 game sounds will be able to be accessed with it in the same way since I don't own the system or any games from it.

I'm familiar with PSound, it allowed me to extract the Justice League Heroes voices. I understand that it's compatible with PS One and PS2 consoles. I don't have PS3 games, but I've read that their audio works differently, just like Xbox 360 differs from plain Xbox.

So, I will be releasing XML packs, with some SMFOF along the way. If I finish everything, great. If I don't, we'll decide what to do with the unused XML/MUA material.

[life_matrix]

hey cq... was wondering if you had a chance if you could still post the speech txt files etc needed to merge into FFX3.3

And just to start off a Happy New Year... A *small* VPMAX update to do just that...

http://rapidshare.com/files/178346683/VPMAXFFX3update.rar.html

Just merge or replace the character.dat and object.dat into your FFX3 folder and the speech.dat/speech.txt into your Lang/English folder... Ta Da!!! And that should do it!

- CQ

Question 1: Is this VPMAXFFX3update.rar necessary in order to use both FFX3.3 and your VPMAX voice pack together without problems?

Question 2: Would you consider finding a new host for this file? Please? (The link on RapidShare seems to be permanently broken now...)

[crimsonquill]

Question 1: Is this VPMAXFFX3update.rar necessary in order to use both FFX3.3 and your VPMAX voice pack together without problems?

Question 2: Would you consider finding a new host for this file? Please? (The link on RapidShare seems to be permanently broken now...)

1. Yeah, the update is kinda necessary for FFX3.3 but all that file contained was just a merger of all previous .dats and language files so that they could be placed into the proper FFX folders after you installed FFX3.3 - you could make your own version of the update just by merging all of my VPMAX stuff after installing the last FFX update. I just threw that update together from my own files because I knew folks would go crazy with all of their voices disappearing after the installation of that update and couldn't wait for my next VPMAX update.

2. Well, I would be happy to do it... buuuuuut a virus attacked wiped out ALL of my harddrives awhile back (you can even see my headdesking post about it a few pages back in this thread) and everything I had that wasn't saved on a disc or backed up on a online file storage site was gone. And that particular update along with the VPMAX2.0 update I had just finished and all of my saved work to that date was obliterated. If someone out there HAS that file and would be willing to post a link here then I can finally add it to my install post and update my own website as well with that missing part.

It's taken me a long time to rebuild the toolbox of all of the programs I used from memory and then relearn the process I had so that sound files would be perfect. Too darn long if you ask me.     Of course now that I got all my stuff ready to work, offline stuff keeps dragging me away from my desk outside of a few skoping projects here and there.

- CQ

[freegentile]

Hey, CQ...I have all those pieces parts you listed out for download on the opening note of this string. Lemme know if I can help you reconstruct any of this that you might still be missing. Thank you for all your hard work & the great resources you've given us!

[crimsonquill]

Hey, CQ...I have all those pieces parts you listed out for download on the opening note of this string. Lemme know if I can help you reconstruct any of this that you might still be missing. Thank you for all your hard work & the great resources you've given us!

Thanks freegentile,

I've been slowly working on my voice packs and making some good progress but I'm still a bit away from any major updates for VPMAX in the near future. But I think everyone will be thrilled to see what I have in store for 2011.

- CQ

[crimsonquill]

Oh, what a year it's been and so much to do.. >.<

I'm so behind on getting VPMAXv2.0 together due to one problem or another.. but progress on assembling voices has found to be quote fruitful as I finally discovered a way to get access to the voice packs from Portal, Portal 2, and HalfLife 2. Which means that I spent most early November capturing the voices of Turrets and GlaDOS.. which I figured a lot of fans would love to use for their Danger Room robots/weapons/programs. I kinda figured if someone made a mesh of the X-Men's Danger she would have sounded a lot like GlaDOS. Wouldn't you?

Progress is coming slowly and I'm hoping to get a release for Spring 2012 instead.. with a huge amount of new voices. It will be worth the wait.

- CQ

[Outcast]

Looking forward to VPMAXv2.0 Crimsonquill.

[BentonGrey]

Hey CQ, it's awesome that you're still working on these.  They are hugely useful, so thanks!

[freegentile]

So, Sir Crimson of Quill...is ye ole VPMAX still alive & kickin' or perhaps just a twinkle in your eye?   

[crimsonquill]

VPMAX is alive but has been on hold while I was dealing with technical issues, being sick with psnemonia, family issues, and all sorts of things which kept forcing me to delay my progress on v2.0 every time I was getting on a roll.

Now that I have my new laptop, reloaded all my Freedom Force material, and have the Fall/Winter period ahead of me which allows for long weekends I should be getting back on track fairly quickly. I left off in the middle of sampling from Destroy All Humans 1 & 2 when computer issues forced me to stop. Those who played this tongue-in-check science fiction game series should remember some quite funny pop culture references among the character dialogue.

The White Ninja Leader: ""I am not teenaged/Nor a mutant/Nor a turtle. Loved the comic though."

Police Dispatch: "Police headquarters, Officer Johnson!"
Crypto: "Yeah, I'm lookin' for Mr. Jass. First name Hugh."
Police Dispatch: "Please call back when you have an original joke, sir."

Japanese Man:  "Should I join White Ninja? Or Black Ninja? On one hand, White Ninja are in glorious harmony with universe. On other hand, Black Ninja get to live on island north of Takoshima City. White Ninja get spiritual fulfillment. Black Ninja get paid. Black Ninja."

Silhouette: "Hmm... what am I doing tonight? Oh yeah, the same thing I'm doing every night: TRYING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!"

Crazy Man On Street: "So there were these astronauts on a star trek in a galaxy far, far away, but they turned out to be DAMN DIRTY APES! YOU MANIACS!"

Seems like great material for characters in the '60s & '70s. Still trying to get samples from Destroy All Humans 3 which is based in the '80s.

- CQ

[spydermann93]

Haha, the Destroy All Humans games were glorious

[crimsonquill]

Still alive and kickin' into the new year, folks. VPMAX is slowly moving forward when I find time to work on sound collecting. It's so frustrating when I hoped to get v2 out so much sooner. 

Loving all of the new skopes, meshes, and maps that came out in 2012 so thank you to all who put such hard work into them. 

- CQ

[cmdrkoenig67]

I'm glad to see that VPMAX is still in the works, CQ!

Dana