ROM Hack Metroid: Other M Redux (Based on Maxximum Edition)

[ShadowOne333]

Ok cool beans. And is there a specific ID I can change your Redux to in case I want all three to be loadable from Wiiflow at once?

Does it cause an issue if all three share the same title ID?
I'd usually just make a custom boxart for a specific game, but if you really need a custom title ID, I think original Other M is R3OE01, ypu could try R3OER1 for Redux and R3OEM1 for Maxximum.

 

[ScaryHobbit]

Hey Shadow,
Really neat project you are working on!

I'm using your thread as a guide for my own personal Other M modding project - I'm trying to edit and replace the cutscenes and subtitles in the USA retail version of Other M to create a "True Japanese" Riivolution hack that's based off of the more direct translation that was shared by Lexicon Lookout, and shown in full in TiLMENDOMiNATiON's video.



The subtitles are easy enough for me to change - just edit the message.all file.
But I could use a bit of help on modding the cutscenes so they have the Japanese dub instead of English. Mainly on the audio side right now.
I was able to create an sfd of dm01to02 with Japanese voices and get the video playback to work in-game (Apparently video files on the Wii have to be rendered in 4:3, then the Wii hardware stretches the video to 16:9.), but the audio is mute in-game even though I had created an adx from an mp3 and muxed it together with the mpeg to create the sfd.
However, the audio is fine when playing the sfd in MPC-HC

I'm on Windows 10, btw.
I'm mainly using Method #2 from Albert Marin - Method #1 makes my Webroot Antivirus throw up warnings, and Method #3 apparently isn't recommended.
I also have Vegas Pro to edit and render video and audio files.

So here are my questions if you are able to give advice on how you did your videos:

1) Did you originally start with MP4's/MPG's, or did you start with sfd's and convert them to other files?

-It seems I have two main methods to make my video files: Either take TiLMENDOMiNATiON's video itself, cut it up, and convert everything to mpeg and sfd in a way that the Wii/Dolphin can read it (mainly Dolphin) - Or convert the native sfd's to mpeg, rip the Japanese audio from TiLMEN's video, and mux them together.​

- I discovered that ffmpeg can convert sfd to mpeg by using,​

"ffmpeg -i dm01to02.sfd -an -c:v mpeg1video -b:v 8M -f mpeg dm01to02.mpeg",​

...but I doubt it's officially supported by ffmpeg, and while the bitrate works it's likely not an optimal conversion.​

-When I tried to create an adx from a wav rip of TiLMEN's clip, the audio of the completed sfd was completely broken. Maybe if I use ffmpeg to create it directly from the mp4 instead of an mp3...​

​

2) What exact video and audio specs are needed for correct playback in-game?

-I think aspect ratio is one I figured out, but what about bitrate (both video and audio), file size, render settings, etc?​

​

3) Would you be willing to give a step-by-step guide on how you were able to edit and render the video files and/or what way you recommend?

-While the methods in the OP are a good starting point, I feel there's quite a bit of info that's lost in the the rest of the thread among the replies, or was never really explained how you got it to work. If it's possible to post an update with all those steps together, that would be extremely helpful.​

​

Sorry if I'm barging in a bit, though if you are able to offer advice I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks!

 

[ShadowOne333]

Hey Shadow,
Really neat project you are working on!

I'm using your thread as a guide for my own personal Other M modding project - I'm trying to edit and replace the cutscenes and subtitles in the USA retail version of Other M to create a "True Japanese" Riivolution hack that's based off of the more direct translation that was shared by Lexicon Lookout, and shown in full in TiLMENDOMiNATiON's video.



The subtitles are easy enough for me to change - just edit the message.all file.
But I could use a bit of help on modding the cutscenes so they have the Japanese dub instead of English. Mainly on the audio side right now.
I was able to create an sfd of dm01to02 with Japanese voices and get the video playback to work in-game (Apparently video files on the Wii have to be rendered in 4:3, then the Wii hardware stretches the video to 16:9.), but the audio is mute in-game even though I had created an adx from an mp3 and muxed it together with the mpeg to create the sfd.
However, the audio is fine when playing the sfd in MPC-HC

I'm on Windows 10, btw.
I'm mainly using Method #2 from Albert Marin - Method #1 makes my Webroot Antivirus throw up warnings, and Method #3 apparently isn't recommended.
I also have Vegas Pro to edit and render video and audio files.

So here are my questions if you are able to give advice on how you did your videos:

Oh neat! Thanks for the comment.
Sorry for the late reply, I'm on vacations and rarely go online during these days.

I'll try to go through each of your questions one by one addressing them in the best way possible:

1) Did you originally start with MP4's/MPG's, or did you start with sfd's and convert them to other files?

-It seems I have two main methods to make my video files: Either take TiLMENDOMiNATiON's video itself, cut it up, and convert everything to mpeg and sfd in a way that the Wii/Dolphin can read it (mainly Dolphin) - Or convert the native sfd's to mpeg, rip the Japanese audio from TiLMEN's video, and mux them together.​

- I discovered that ffmpeg can convert sfd to mpeg by using,​

"ffmpeg -i dm01to02.sfd -an -c:v mpeg1video -b:v 8M -f mpeg dm01to02.mpeg",​

...but I doubt it's officially supported by ffmpeg, and while the bitrate works it's likely not an optimal conversion.​

-When I tried to create an adx from a wav rip of TiLMEN's clip, the audio of the completed sfd was completely broken. Maybe if I use ffmpeg to create it directly from the mp4 instead of an mp3...​

​

I use a video editing software called Shotcut.
Thankfully enough, Shotcut allows you to directly import the SFD file as a video file, only caveat is that it doesn't have sound during import.
For this, you will need to extract the WAV file(s) out of the SFD using either Albert's method with ffmpeg, or method #1, though for this I recommend doing Albert's to get the most accurate WAV extraction from the SFD with very low to no loss in quality.
Then, once you have both the SFD and the WAV files ready, dump them into Shotcut and you should be able to start editing them with no issues.

For exporting the file, I created a custom profile with a resolution of 640x480 for the video.
Actually, I think it's better if I share the settings directly I used for the custom profile I made in Shotcut for the Advanced option in Export.
They're in order of Video, Codec and Audio, the Other tab doesn't matter.

Spoiler: Shotcut Advanced Export settings

You might be able to create another custom profile that makes it easier for you to work with. I exported to MPG, but you could probably export to MP4 with the best video and audio quality settings, just remember to export it with the 640x480 resolution so the SFD conversion doesn't struggle.
The only thing that matters here is that you're able to create an SFD that properly plays back in Dolphin/Wii.
Albert's method does work wonderfully for this, and the other option (Dreamcast SDK) is also a really good one, either one should work and give very similar results.

2) What exact video and audio specs are needed for correct playback in-game?

-I think aspect ratio is one I figured out, but what about bitrate (both video and audio), file size, render settings, etc?​

​

As I mentioned in the previous answer, for video you need 640x480 in resolution, but for audio I have yet to find a proper one that works.
You could probably bypass this by making the audio in whatever format you want, and then converting it to WAV using ffmpeg with either Method 1 or Albert's once you're ready to merge both the video and audio into an SFD file.
For audio bitrate I like to go with 192k as minimum, and for video I think Albert's method specifies the video bitrate in one of the ffmpeg commands.

3) Would you be willing to give a step-by-step guide on how you were able to edit and render the video files and/or what way you recommend?

-While the methods in the OP are a good starting point, I feel there's quite a bit of info that's lost in the the rest of the thread among the replies, or was never really explained how you got it to work. If it's possible to post an update with all those steps together, that would be extremely helpful.​

​

Sorry if I'm barging in a bit, though if you are able to offer advice I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks!

Answer #1 should give you all the missing beats, at least I believe so.
Shotcut is the remaining missing link from the OP, but in reality you can use whatever video editing software you wish once you manage to extract both the video and audio out of the game's original SFD files.
Shotcut has the nice addition that it lets you import an SFD file as video directly without screwing with it, so that by itself should give you a really good video quality by its own, with that and extracting the WAV audio using ffmpeg with Albert's commands, you should be set to start editing with no issues whatsoever.


Another thing you might want to take into consideration, and one thing I haven't been able to 100% confirm yet, is that I believe the SFD files ALL have both the English and Japanese audio included within the very same SFD file, just as different audio streams. Once the console/emu detects which region the game is being played at, it changes them accordingly, be careful with this.

You could probably just switch the audio streams/tracks through other methods and keep the original SFDs intact by playing around with ffmpeg commands, and simply focus on the editing of the message_all.dat file for the subtitles. It's something worth trying out on your end, since it seems like it would help you out a lot.

 

[ScaryHobbit]

Thanks for your help! Still trying to make it work...

Another thing you might want to take into consideration, and one thing I haven't been able to 100% confirm yet, is that I believe the SFD files ALL have both the English and Japanese audio included within the very same SFD file, just as different audio streams. Once the console/emu detects which region the game is being played at, it changes them accordingly, be careful with this.

I've found some software called TMPGEnc that was able to unmux Other M's SFD files,
and the SFD's having both English and Japanese audio tracks is CONFIRMED!

More info about TMPGenc and how to unmux the ADX files is found in this archived thread from forum.doom9.org called ".SFD (an extension of an MPEG file) extraction/converting problem." - in a reply by b66pak.
(Apparently I'm not yet allowed by GBATemp to link url's.)

Still haven't figured out how to get the audio working yet. Maybe the game will only play the audio if it detects two audio tracks in the SFD file instead of the one I was doing earlier.

I'll play around with this some more.

Update: YEAH BAYBEE! Your suggestion did the trick!
Other M indeed needed two audio tracks in order to playback in-game correctly.
Basically, I use TMPGEnc to split Other M's SFD files into individual files for each track - creating one m1v file for the video, and two ADX files for each audio track. I then convert the m1v file back into an mpeg-1 file.
I then use CryTools-win-x64 to mux the files back together like so:
"sfdmux.exe [final video].sfd [video file].mpg [Japanese track].adx [English track].adx" - in exactly this order.
Put the finished video file in the game and start up Dolphin, and the game plays both audio and video correctly. BOOM, Japanese cutscenes in the NTSC-U release of Metroid Other M!

I'll move my stuff from here to the Metroid Other M Undub Project thread so people can discuss it more there instead if interested:
https://gbatemp.net/threads/metroid-other-m-undub-project.251973/page-3

 

[ShadowOne333]

I've found some software called TMPGEnc that was able to unmux Other M's SFD files,
and the SFD's having both English and Japanese audio tracks is CONFIRMED!

More info about TMPGenc and how to unmux the ADX files is found in this archived thread from forum.doom9.org called ".SFD (an extension of an MPEG file) extraction/converting problem." - in a reply by b66pak.
(Apparently I'm not yet allowed by GBATemp to link url's.)

Still haven't figured out how to get the audio working yet. Maybe the game will only play the audio if it detects two audio tracks in the SFD file instead of the one I was doing earlier.

I'll play around with this some more.

Update: YEAH BAYBEE! Your suggestion did the trick!
Other M indeed needed two audio tracks in order to playback in-game correctly.
Basically, I use TMPGEnc to split Other M's SFD files into individual files for each track - creating one m1v file for the video, and two ADX files for each audio track. I then convert the m1v file back into an mpeg-1 file.
I then use CryTools-win-x64 to mux the files back together like so:
"sfdmux.exe [final video].sfd [video file].mpg [Japanese track].adx [English track].adx" - in exactly this order.
Put the finished video file in the game and start up Dolphin, and the game plays both audio and video correctly. BOOM, Japanese cutscenes in the NTSC-U release of Metroid Other M!

I'll move my stuff from here to the Metroid Other M Undub Project thread so people can discuss it more there instead if interested:
https://gbatemp.net/threads/metroid-other-m-undub-project.251973/page-3

Oh that's fantastic news, mate!
Glad that you were able to confirm what I theorized, and more so that you could do it in a much more effortless manner than fully relying on video editing.
Do you happen to have a link to that TMPGEnc software? It will surely be handy for refreence and some tests.

Also, may I please ask for your help on yet another test?
I want to see if another theory I have is right or not, and it should be easy for you to test on your end if you're willing to.

You're only using TMPGEnc to flip the ADX files, rigth? You're not doing video editing?
If that's so, and if you're using the Riivolution method to load the new SFD files, could you please test out dm08_01, dm46to49 and dm63Bto65 through the Cutscene viewer and see if they play fine for you? Test this with the SFD files you made which have the two ADX tracks flipped.
I don't quite remember what was wrong with dm08_01, but dm46to49 plays at 1/2 speed, and dm63Bto64 has a REAALY long wait when it should start playing, like a minute or so, before it properly starts (you can hear a slow-mo STOP! yell and then freeze for a minute, then it continues normally).

I suspect something about the additional japanese ADX track missing on my SFD files might be the culprit.
If you have doubts on what cutscenes those are, rely to the OP post, te videos depicting each cutscene are there, simpky look for those in the Cutscene/Movie viewer.

 

[ScaryHobbit]

Do you happen to have a link to that TMPGEnc software? It will surely be handy for refreence and some tests.

Sure! I think GBATemp upgraded my account, so hope this works:
https://www.tmpgenc.net/en/download.html
This is the official link for the software - the one in the doom9 forums is from a very old 3rd party site.
It's a freeware software, but it also has MPEG-2 encoding that is trialware for 30 days.

These are the steps for opening and extracting from the SFD's in TMPGEnc:
tmpgenc.exe > file > mpeg tools > demultiplex > browse > files of type: all files > browse for SFD file
doubleclick audio_stream 0x00 > save as [file 1].adx
doubleclick audio_stream 0x01 > save as [file 2].adx
doubleclick video stream > save as [video].m1v

To convert the m1v to mpeg-1 so it can be muxed into an SFD again:
file > mpeg tools > multiplex > browse > files of type: all files > browse for [video].m1v
Leave the encoder as MPEG-1 (automatic)
Name your output file and click Run to convert

That should be able to at least let you extract the audio nearly every time.

For video, however, there are some caveats. Some videos will make it throw up a notice detailing errors in its conversion. While you may be able to play it in a viewer, mux it, and play it in-game, the video file will probably have trouble with playback.
And if MPC-HC and the like aren't able to play it, you may as well scrap the file.
For those videos, it's better to convert them with ffmpeg instead.

You're only using TMPGEnc to flip the ADX files, right? You're not doing video editing?
If that's so, and if you're using the Riivolution method to load the new SFD files, could you please test out dm08_01, dm46to49 and dm63Bto65 through the Cutscene viewer and see if they play fine for you? Test this with the SFD files you made which have the two ADX tracks flipped.
I don't quite remember what was wrong with dm08_01, but dm46to49 plays at 1/2 speed, and dm63Bto64 has a REAALY long wait when it should start playing, like a minute or so, before it properly starts (you can hear a slow-mo STOP! yell and then freeze for a minute, then it continues normally).

So for dm08_01, dm46to49 and dm63Bto65...

dm46to49 (Where Samus catches up with MB, who then reveals the existence of the Metroids on the ship) - I actually have no issues so far with this clip. Maybe I'll find something later in the process, but it plays perfectly so far.

dm08_01 (The swarm bug boss intro) - This is one of the files I had problems in TMPGEnc with. While I've been able to get this file itself to play okay, it's the subsequent video files that are affected. The short video files that play during the boss fight suffer extreme lag in it's video read, looking very choppy and messing up the subtitle timings - the audio continues to play as normal. Thankfully though, it's a short segment and the video playback is fixed as soon as the battle ends and in-game cutscene dm09 plays.
Granted, this is in Theater Mode... I will want to test it in normal gameplay.

dm63Bto64 (The climax and epilogue) - Similar issue as the previous scene - There is no loading issue on my end and the clip will also play in full (good thing too, as it's one of the longest and most important in the game). But it has effects on two subsequent clips that is more severe but in a different way.
The first is the credits - It causes a glitch that prevents any text from displaying in the credits unless you directly play it from chapter select. You can still at least listen to the music and watch Samus' helmet in the video tho...
The second scene is dm65_02 (Where Samus finds Adam's helmet) - This will actually cause Dolphin to crash mid-scene when it's swapping between in-game and CG footage (as in the base untouched footage) with this error:
Core\PowerPC\MMU.cpp:1154 E[MASTER]: Warning: Invalid read from 0x00000000, PC = 0x8001be44
Core\PowerPC\MMU.cpp:1154 E[MASTER]: Warning: Invalid read from 0x00000000, PC = 0x8001be44
Looks like it could be an MMU error, but this does not happen on vanilla Other M.

So to sum things up...
One scene is okay on my end - the other two have some kind of error, but is very different from what you have.
There will likely be stuff that comes up later, but my progress right now is:

dm01to02, dm03to04, dm06_01 = Perfect

dm08_01, 02, and 03 = Errors

dm46to49 = Perfect

dm63to64 (affecting Credits and dm65_02_cut11to15) = Crash

Very weird. I'm not sure what exactly is causing these - it seems almost like a game bug that we are only finding now on the modding side.
It could possibly be a Riivolution issue, so I might try testing these with a full file replacement and repack everything into an ISO so it runs more directly.
Hope that helps though!

 

[ShadowOne333]

Sure! I think GBATemp upgraded my account, so hope this works:
https://www.tmpgenc.net/en/download.html
This is the official link for the software - the one in the doom9 forums is from a very old 3rd party site.
It's a freeware software, but it also has MPEG-2 encoding that is trialware for 30 days.

These are the steps for opening and extracting from the SFD's in TMPGEnc:
tmpgenc.exe > file > mpeg tools > demultiplex > browse > files of type: all files > browse for SFD file
doubleclick audio_stream 0x00 > save as [file 1].adx
doubleclick audio_stream 0x01 > save as [file 2].adx
doubleclick video stream > save as [video].m1v

To convert the m1v to mpeg-1 so it can be muxed into an SFD again:
file > mpeg tools > multiplex > browse > files of type: all files > browse for [video].m1v
Leave the encoder as MPEG-1 (automatic)
Name your output file and click Run to convert

That should be able to at least let you extract the audio nearly every time.

For video, however, there are some caveats. Some videos will make it throw up a notice detailing errors in its conversion. While you may be able to play it in a viewer, mux it, and play it in-game, the video file will probably have trouble with playback.
And if MPC-HC and the like aren't able to play it, you may as well scrap the file.
For those videos, it's better to convert them with ffmpeg instead.


So for dm08_01, dm46to49 and dm63Bto65...

dm46to49 (Where Samus catches up with MB, who then reveals the existence of the Metroids on the ship) - I actually have no issues so far with this clip. Maybe I'll find something later in the process, but it plays perfectly so far.

dm08_01 (The swarm bug boss intro) - This is one of the files I had problems in TMPGEnc with. While I've been able to get this file itself to play okay, it's the subsequent video files that are affected. The short video files that play during the boss fight suffer extreme lag in it's video read, looking very choppy and messing up the subtitle timings - the audio continues to play as normal. Thankfully though, it's a short segment and the video playback is fixed as soon as the battle ends and in-game cutscene dm09 plays.
Granted, this is in Theater Mode... I will want to test it in normal gameplay.

dm63Bto64 (The climax and epilogue) - Similar issue as the previous scene - There is no loading issue on my end and the clip will also play in full (good thing too, as it's one of the longest and most important in the game). But it has effects on two subsequent clips that is more severe but in a different way.
The first is the credits - It causes a glitch that prevents any text from displaying in the credits unless you directly play it from chapter select. You can still at least listen to the music and watch Samus' helmet in the video tho...
The second scene is dm65_02 (Where Samus finds Adam's helmet) - This will actually cause Dolphin to crash mid-scene when it's swapping between in-game and CG footage (as in the base untouched footage) with this error:
Core\PowerPC\MMU.cpp:1154 E[MASTER]: Warning: Invalid read from 0x00000000, PC = 0x8001be44
Core\PowerPC\MMU.cpp:1154 E[MASTER]: Warning: Invalid read from 0x00000000, PC = 0x8001be44
Looks like it could be an MMU error, but this does not happen on vanilla Other M.

So to sum things up...
One scene is okay on my end - the other two have some kind of error, but is very different from what you have.
There will likely be stuff that comes up later, but my progress right now is:

dm01to02, dm03to04, dm06_01 = Perfect

dm08_01, 02, and 03 = Errors

dm46to49 = Perfect

dm63to64 (affecting Credits and dm65_02_cut11to15) = Crash

Very weird. I'm not sure what exactly is causing these - it seems almost like a game bug that we are only finding now on the modding side.
It could possibly be a Riivolution issue, so I might try testing these with a full file replacement and repack everything into an ISO so it runs more directly.
Hope that helps though!

Thank you so much for the link to the software, and for the in-depth testing.
The videos affecting other adjacent videos is something I haven't tested on my end yet, as I only focused on the edited cutscenes at hand.
The fact that both 46to49 and 63Bto64 seem to play fine on your end makes me think that maybe I do need to add the second audio track to those SFDs after all.
I'll try doing that and then test them quickly to see if the issues with the slow playback and the odd freeze are resolved by doing that.

Perhaps the suggested method of doing all of this would have to be through Wii Backup Fusion to create a standalone ISO out of the whole modified files.

 

[ScaryHobbit]

Further testing on crashing cutscene dm65_02_cut11to15...

Turns out it's not the other video or sound files that is making it crash, but the message_all.dat file!
I.E. the subtitle file.
Very strange... but when I deactivate the modded message_all file and just use the vanilla one - even if the modded clips and sound is activated - it plays correctly and doesn't crash.

I suppose worst-case scenario it only affects a couple brief scenes in the postgame, so I can still play the postgame with the Japanese tracks. I just can't change the subtitles.

 

[ShadowOne333]

Further testing on crashing cutscene dm65_02_cut11to15...

Turns out it's not the other video or sound files that is making it crash, but the message_all.dat file!
I.E. the subtitle file.
Very strange... but when I deactivate the modded message_all file and just use the vanilla one - even if the modded clips and sound is activated - it plays correctly and doesn't crash.

I suppose worst-case scenario it only affects a couple brief scenes in the postgame, so I can still play the postgame with the Japanese tracks. I just can't change the subtitles.

The message file was the one causing the crashes?
That's really weird, I tested out running the changes without the Riivolution patch that loads the message_all.dat file and it still has those weird side effects on my end.

Additionally, I now remembered what the issue with dm08_01 was, it played the audio too fast and it finished before the cutscene was even over from the Theather.
It's something similar to what happens to dm46to49, except that for that one the audio plays too slow, as in slow-motion.

I'll try muxing in the Japanese audio in hopes that fixes something, let's cross fingers.

 

[ScaryHobbit]

I tested running the modded message_all file when packed into an iso instead of running from Riivolution, and it still causes the same invalid read crashes. So it's either an error with the game or Dolphin.
Furthermore, as I edited more of the subtitles starting from the beginning of the game, the more invalid read crashes it causes later in the game.
I can also start seeing the error coming within the subtitles themselves, as it suddenly glitches out and prints either incorrect gibberish or is simply missing entire words - then it crashes.
It seems that the game's code is somehow tied to the subtitles as it is currently written in the vanilla game, and that changes to the file create conflicts with the coding even if you don't add extra lines in the .dat file - even though it shouldn't be affected.

I've edited all the cutscene subs from the beginning of Other M to the end of scene dm10 (Samus' thumbs up flashback / Adam's briefing), and after watching thru the entire Theater Mode, the only segments that crash are still in the post-game. However, it's starting to creep further ahead into the runtime, so who knows what scenes will be affected as I get further along.
I might just have to split things up into multiple message_all files for different parts of the game as a workaround.

On the plus side-
-I've finished editing all the main story cutscenes - sans some of the exclusive Theater Mode video files.
I've also watched through the entire Theater Mode with all of my modded videos and the results are promising.
The only other video file that caused problems was dm61to63A (The start of the MB reveal and battle, as opposed to dm63Bto64). Same symptoms as dm08_01. I still need to test actual gameplay vs Theater Mode. This cutscene is thankfully the last one in its chapter, so if you select the following chapter it will play the subsequent video files normally.

Have you had a chance to do any big edits of the message file?
I would like it if someone is able to confirm if they've run into any invalid reads while messing around with in-game subs and text.

 

[ShadowOne333]

I tested running the modded message_all file when packed into an iso instead of running from Riivolution, and it still causes the same invalid read crashes. So it's either an error with the game or Dolphin.
Furthermore, as I edited more of the subtitles starting from the beginning of the game, the more invalid read crashes it causes later in the game.
I can also start seeing the error coming within the subtitles themselves, as it suddenly glitches out and prints either incorrect gibberish or is simply missing entire words - then it crashes.
It seems that the game's code is somehow tied to the subtitles as it is currently written in the vanilla game, and that changes to the file create conflicts with the coding even if you don't add extra lines in the .dat file - even though it shouldn't be affected.

I've edited all the cutscene subs from the beginning of Other M to the end of scene dm10 (Samus' thumbs up flashback / Adam's briefing), and after watching thru the entire Theater Mode, the only segments that crash are still in the post-game. However, it's starting to creep further ahead into the runtime, so who knows what scenes will be affected as I get further along.
I might just have to split things up into multiple message_all files for different parts of the game as a workaround.

On the plus side-
-I've finished editing all the main story cutscenes - sans some of the exclusive Theater Mode video files.
I've also watched through the entire Theater Mode with all of my modded videos and the results are promising.
The only other video file that caused problems was dm61to63A (The start of the MB reveal and battle, as opposed to dm63Bto64). Same symptoms as dm08_01. I still need to test actual gameplay vs Theater Mode. This cutscene is thankfully the last one in its chapter, so if you select the following chapter it will play the subsequent video files normally.

Have you had a chance to do any big edits of the message file?
I would like it if someone is able to confirm if they've run into any invalid reads while messing around with in-game subs and text.

Interesting, so on your end it all boils down to the message_all.dat file.
The only considerable changes I've done to that file is blank out certain subtitles, but not adding anything.
I only replaced the text for subtitles I removed the audio for with spaces, and that's it.

One thing left to figure out is how exactly are the subtitles loaded, and how modify at what time (frame) they pop up on screen.
I need to do this for both the Ridley and Sector Zero scene since I did cut off some portions of those for better pacing, story telling and consistency, but the subtitles still load at their original time frames. I tried meddling with the .dat file to see if I could find where that was, but couldn't find anything. It's most likely handled through the main.dol file.

You could try doing the same, simply blank out or replace certain subtitles with only spaces, without adding or removing anything yet, and see how the games behaves with only that change.

 

[Sowden]

Does it cause an issue if all three share the same title ID?
I'd usually just make a custom boxart for a specific game, but if you really need a custom title ID, I think original Other M is R3OE01, ypu could try R3OER1 for Redux and R3OEM1 for Maxximum.

Yeah actually, Maxximum has its own ID, it's R3MEM1. You can see that here.

https://www.gametdb.com/Wii/R3MEM1

I don't know how you go about submitting a new ID, I wonder if Redux could have an official one? But I just went with R3OER1 like you suggested. Are you planning on making a custom cover for Redux? I dono if having more than one ID screws with Wiiflow, but I know it messes with Wii Backup Manager. I've got both yours and Maxximum up. One problem I have though is I can't seem to fire a missle in 3rd person using B, in either versions. I have it running in Wiiflow and USB Loader GX, both with the needed cheat code in Ocarina. Is there something I'm missing?

 

[ShadowOne333]

Yeah actually, Maxximum has its own ID, it's R3MEM1. You can see that here.

https://www.gametdb.com/Wii/R3MEM1

I don't know how you go about submitting a new ID, I wonder if Redux could have an official one? But I just went with R3OER1 like you suggested. Are you planning on making a custom cover for Redux? I dono if having more than one ID screws with Wiiflow, but I know it messes with Wii Backup Manager. I've got both yours and Maxximum up. One problem I have though is I can't seem to fire a missle in 3rd person using B, in either versions. I have it running in Wiiflow and USB Loader GX, both with the needed cheat code in Ocarina. Is there something I'm missing?

Not sure what the issue with the 3rd Person missiles is, it works for me on both Dolphin and Wii.
Make sure to try with both the Gecko cheat and with the Ocarina code. If you did modif y the ID, perhaps you'd have to adjust the cheat code so it works with the new ID. Try using it in vanilla Other M, it should in it with no issue, if it does then it's a matter of title IDs.

 

[Sowden]

Not sure what the issue with the 3rd Person missiles is, it works for me on both Dolphin and Wii.
Make sure to try with both the Gecko cheat and with the Ocarina code. If you did modif y the ID, perhaps you'd have to adjust the cheat code so it works with the new ID. Try using it in vanilla Other M, it should in it with no issue, if it does then it's a matter of title IDs.

I discovered where my confusion was. The codes I had were working all along, but they only gave half the instructions. You have to hold down B AND press 1. I was holding down B and nothing was happening. But everything works great. @ShadowOne333 Are you planning on picking up where the project left off, doing the things that it wanted to do, or are you just working on remstering the quality of the videos?

 

[ShadowOne333]

I discovered where my confusion was. The codes I had were working all along, but they only gave half the instructions. You have to hold down B AND press 1. I was holding down B and nothing was happening. But everything works great. @ShadowOne333 Are you planning on picking up where the project left off, doing the things that it wanted to do, or are you just working on remstering the quality of the videos?

Ah good to know you figured it out.
Indeed, the missile code works similar to that of the 2D titles, where you hold a button (usually R like in ZM/F) and then press the fire button to shoot missiles. Super Missiles are triggered by making a full Charge Beam, and then pressing B on Other M whien the charge has been maxed out.

As for continuing stuff from Maxximum, I already did quite a bit.
I managed to edit the cutscene models to add the textures from the in-game models, managed to merge the Gecko code for the missiles with the main.dol file, so one can play Redux without the need of cheat codes and by using a single ISO, this also applies for things like unlocking Hard mode and Theater mode right from the start (though I'm unsure if this should be added by default).
Modified the subtitles to remove the original cutscenes' cringy dialogue that was removed in the Redux cutscenes, and some other things.

Final things remaining to wrap up are:
1) A proper Power Suit model for Samus, based on the unused model found in the game
2) Fix cutscenes dm08_01, dm46to49 and dm63Bto64 so they play fine in-game through Dolphin.
3) Figure out how to modify tge subtites to appear at different timeframes for the Ridley and Sector Zero cutscenes.

 

[ShadowOne333]

@ScaryHobbit I found my issue with dm08_01.
Turns out that somehow the trimmed audio file from another edit I did for dm08_01 was being used for it, so I properly muxed-in the right audio track and now it works okay.
I also went ahead and muxed in the japanese audio tracks for both dm46to49 and dm63Bto64.

Unfortunately, the Japanese tracks didn't help at all with the playback issue those two had.
dm46to49 still seems to play at half the speed, and dm63Bto64 still seems to take a min to properly load in.
Still though, it's nice to be able to put back the Japanese audio tracks, I might do that for the other cutscenes as well later on.

 

[ScaryHobbit]

I found my issue with dm08_01.
Turns out that somehow the trimmed audio file from another edit I did for dm08_01 was being used for it, so I properly muxed-in the right audio track and now it works okay.

Nice!
Did dm08_01 cause glitches with the subsequent clips like it does with mine?

Unfortunately, the Japanese tracks didn't help at all with the playback issue those two had.
dm46to49 still seems to play at half the speed, and dm63Bto64 still seems to take a min to properly load in.
Still though, it's nice to be able to put back the Japanese audio tracks, I might do that for the other cutscenes as well later on.

I'm assuming you've edited both, right?
Do your edits happen to be longer or shorter than the original video?

I did a test with a completely seperate video (A throwaway clip that I made completely independent of Other M many years ago) that I converted into an SFD for playback in-game, and had it replace a few vanilla videos here and there.
With one of the videos, the modded one I made was longer than the game's vanilla video file. This caused the picture to playback at half speed before crapping out while it waited for the audio to finish, before the game was finally allowed to load the next video.
When plopped in to replace a longer cutscene, the modded video seemed to play fine though - It even started the next cutscene as soon as the modded one finished.

Might be something you will want to check, in case the length of your edits are creating a mismatch with the game's code.

 

[ShadowOne333]

Nice!
Did dm08_01 cause glitches with the subsequent clips like it does with mine?

It seems like so, yeah.
I left the rest of the Theater entry play out, and the subsequent clips did have oddities to them, like choppy playback and other stuff.
I'm unsure why this might be happening, as from what I know, I didn't modify anything other than silencing a specific inner-monologue by Samus, the rest is entirely the same. (Well that and making the researcher's corpse have red blood)

I'm assuming you've edited both, right?
Do your edits happen to be longer or shorter than the original video?

I did a test with a completely seperate video (A throwaway clip that I made completely independent of Other M many years ago) that I converted into an SFD for playback in-game, and had it replace a few vanilla videos here and there.
With one of the videos, the modded one I made was longer than the game's vanilla video file. This caused the picture to playback at half speed before crapping out while it waited for the audio to finish, before the game was finally allowed to load the next video.
When plopped in to replace a longer cutscene, the modded video seemed to play fine though - It even started the next cutscene as soon as the modded one finished.

Might be something you will want to check, in case the length of your edits are creating a mismatch with the game's code.

If I'm not wrong, both cutscenes (dm46to49 and dm63Bto64) are the exact same length as the original ones, those weren't trimmed or expanded at all in terms of length.
In dm46to49 the only thing I modified was some of Samus' lines to silence them, and in dm63Bto64 I only modified Samus' suit colour to match that of the Gravity Suit, nothing else in terms of length of the cutscenes from what I recall.

The only cutscenes that have been modified to be shorter in length are the Ridley (dm36to43) and Sector Zero (dm52to56) cutscenes. And from what I could tell, those seem to play just fine.
I'll try to make it so that both dm46to49 and dm63Bto64 are shorter in length by perhaps a second or two, just to see what happens, but I'm unsure when I'll be able to test that out since I'm a bit short on time as of late.

If it's within your possibilities, would you be willing to test that theory out with my dm46to49 and dm63Bto64 SFD files from the link in the OP, please?

 

[ScaryHobbit]

Started with dm63Bto64 for now, and after downloading the video from YouTube and converting it to usable files I think I found the problem:
Your audio files are too big. A straight conversion of each vanilla audio track is ~19,587kb, while yours is 26,990kb
This is causing mine to do what yours does and force the game to freeze and spend 30 seconds loading the file (and afterwards makes the credits play at double speed + missing credit text).

In contrast, if I mux your edited video with the vanilla audio, that corrects the issue entirely.
And since the only difference in the audio is a brief hard-to-hear change of Samus saying "Melissa" instead of "Wait", i'd recommend just sticking with the vanilla audio - saves you some work from trying to compress your edited audio file.

(I even tried muxing the edited audio with a compressed version of your edited video - just to bring down the total sfd file size to below the original vanilla file, but it still had the same issue. So it's 100% the audio file.)

Haven't tried dm46to49 yet, but it could be a similar issue.

 

[ShadowOne333]

Started with dm63Bto64 for now, and after downloading the video from YouTube and converting it to usable files I think I found the problem:
Your audio files are too big. A straight conversion of each vanilla audio track is ~19,587kb, while yours is 26,990kb
This is causing mine to do what yours does and force the game to freeze and spend 30 seconds loading the file (and afterwards makes the credits play at double speed + missing credit text).

In contrast, if I mux your edited video with the vanilla audio, that corrects the issue entirely.
And since the only difference in the audio is a brief hard-to-hear change of Samus saying "Melissa" instead of "Wait", i'd recommend just sticking with the vanilla audio - saves you some work from trying to compress your edited audio file.

(I even tried muxing the edited audio with a compressed version of your edited video - just to bring down the total sfd file size to below the original vanilla file, but it still had the same issue. So it's 100% the audio file.)

Haven't tried dm46to49 yet, but it could be a similar issue.

Oh that's really interesting!
I never thought of checking the audio sizes before and after editing.
For dm63Bto64, I think it's fine to leave the original/vanilla audio file (alongside the Japanese track in it too), since all I did for that one was simply change Samus' suit colours. Most likely dm46to49 has a similar issue, so I think it'd be better that I try to redo all of them with properly sized audio.
Btw, do you happen to have the dm63Bto64.sfd file with my edited video and the fixed audio you did to include it as the final SFD for it?
(Does your fix also help fix the credits and missing text that come after this one?)

Also, if you don't mind, would you explain to me precisely what you're doing to properly extract the video and audios of each file and how you're muxing them back?
And more precisely, how to edit the audio files so they properly work in this instance (since I'm removing certain sentences and other stuff from them).
This so I can more or less stream-line the process and add this as a new way of editing SFD files in the OP (and most likely the recommended method too).

Thank you for your help, it has been incredible and is surely helping a lot to narrow down the SFD playback issues.