ROM Hack How to extract sound data from NDS ROMs

[SaitoKojima]

This is most particular to the ROM's sounddata.sdat file within it.

I'm trying to find out how to open up and listen to each individual sound clip within a ROM's soundata.sdat file. Specifically games like Ryusei no Rockman 2 and 3. My friend and I are working on a project, thinking of replacing the game's voice clips with our own, thus making a "dub," so to speak, of the game.


I was wondering what program will allow me to actually look into it. I've got DSBUFF to open the ROM itself, now's just the issue of the sounddata.sdat within.


Thanks in advance.

If you know any definitive answers, please email me at:

[email protected]

Reason is, I'm not entirely sure I'll be too active here to be able to see if anyone replies.

 

[SaitoKojima]

So..... no one knows?

 

[GhostToast]

quick search on gbatemp (which i'd recommend doing, yourself) yielded this, which seems like it could lead somewhere. looks like you might have to collect some tools other than those that you have. some which are typically reserved for licensed NDS developers.

http://kiwi.ds.googlepages.com/sdat.html


edit: also found this.

DS sound hacking
99% of DS ROMs use the standard DS sound file system: they will have an
obvious name like sound_data.strm or use a .sdat extension and frequently be in
their own sound directory when you look at their internals (while I say 99% use it
I have not seen a ROM that does not use it but I have heard from reliable
sources that certain developers (usually the less recognised ones) do not), the
DS sound files also use their internal system which goes as follows:
Offset 8 (hex) flip the bytes in the work here around to get the length of the file
Definition of sounds contained
FAT (explain byte order and whatnot).
When I was first playing around with trimming DS ROMs I noticed that when I
replaced the sound file of a ROM with smaller one it would often adopt the new
files sounds (and be damn annoying for it), this led to my favourite sound hack to
date (yes the Megaman5 re-Japanesed one again).
Later in life a few talented individuals figured out what sorts of sounds the DS
can play and even how to convert some of them to standard windows files (I
have a large collection of .mid files made from DS games lying around on my
computer).
I will detail this first:
You need a program to rip the sound files into their component sections:
Enter djbouche with sdattool.exe
Using this you can rip apart you .sdat file into the smaller files that make up the .
*You can generate some nice data files which are exceptionally useful when
hacking the sound files as I will detail in a few minutes.
Enter loveemu with sseq2mid.exe, this can turn a .sseq file into a Windows
compatible .mid one.
Djbouche’s site: http://djbouche.net/wp/sdat-stuff/
Loveemu’s site: http://loveemu.yh.land.to/
Look under the old files section to find my preferred version of sseq2mid.exe

from http://www.4shared.com/file/3636881/1f5f088d

 

[nIxx]

Try CrystalTile2 i never tried to unpack sdat files but the programm supports them

 

[Sp33der]

How would you convert it back then?

 

[SaitoKojima]

With SDATTOOL, it gives me a folder called "sound_data," with a few little folders inside.

Strange thing is, the only thing in there is the smap file, nothing else is inside the little folders within.


With Crystal Tile, it seems to be able to open the sound_data.sdat file, but I'm not sure what to really do with it. Is there such thing as a program that just opens up the SDAT file and lets me click-and-drag-and-replace my own files with the game's sound files?

So.... no one knows what's wrong?

I could send someone all the data (the voice clips, script, the ROMs, and sound_data.sdat) so they could see what's wrong or what they could do. That is, if anyone wants me to.

Another problem I just encountered.


When I want to use sdattool, I have to drag the sound_data.sdat file into the application. If I try to open sdattool on it's own, it shows the Command Prompt window for a second, then closes. The same thing happens when I drag Ryusei 2's sounddata_sdat into the program, only it creates a folder called "sound_data" with empty folders within it and only an .smap file that's around 24KB.

.....

 

[FAST6191]

The method above is a slightly older version, instead
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=125860
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=127442
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=129739
http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=130666
and the list goes on.

 

[SaitoKojima]

I found a way to listen to all the sounds via VGNTrans, now the only thing I need to know is how to be able to change the game's voice clips with my own.


If anyone wants, I could try getting a zip with all the game's Battle voices for you all.