Secret of Monkey Island - CD Talkie Edition Project

[Espiox]

The Secret of Monkey Island: CD Talkie Version

(SoMI Classic with Special Edition Voices)

 

Download Here!

 

This thread was dedicated to inserting the SoMI Special Edition voicework into the original CD version of the game, creating the "Talkie" version that never was. Earlier discussion can be found in the Hack Ideas thread, and a similar Monkey Island 2 Talkie thread is here.

 

F.A.Q.:

 

Q: What is the aim of this project?

A: The aim is to put the voices from the Special Edition into the original PC CD version of the game, like a classic talkie release (like DotT, Fate, etc.). We are not simply making the voices work in the Classsic mode of the SE.

 

Q: Are you including the narrator's lines?

A: I, and I'm sure many other fans, felt that the narrator in the SE is too goofy and over-the-top. More importantly, it's totally unnecessary. For that reason, I don't intend to include the narration. If there's enough demand, we could possibly put together a version with him included though.

 

Q: Will this work for people who don't have the Special Edition?

A: No. You will need the Special Edition game in order to access the voice files. For legal reasons we cannot distribute the voice files (or any other game files).

 

Q: Will this work for people who don't have the DOS CD version?

A: Yes. There is a complete copy of the required game data files and CD audio track inside the SE files, which can be easily extracted.

 

Q: If I use the CD version game files embedded in the Special Edition, will the SE bugs be present?

A: No. The bugs in the Special Edition Classic Mode come from the new interpreter, not the actual data files.

 

Q: Since it's for the DOS CD version, will it actually run in DOS?

A: It does, except that CD audio is not supported, which is a limitation of native SCUMM V5. However, the patched game adds support for MT-32 and General MIDI.

 

Q: Do you have any other features planned (like including SE music, "fixing" the VGA version, etc.)?

A: The current patch fixes quite a lot of bugs, some which were introduced with the enhanced CD, and even some present in every version of the game available. The patch converts both soundtracks ready to be used with ScummVM.

[Fealiks]

Good work, I'm looking forward to it!

 

On the second point, make sure the newly created file is of the same format as the others (.wav, .mp3, etc), and make sure the file name is what the program is expecting.

[Laserschwert]

Would it be possible to offer this thing as a "patch"? That way only people who own the SE will be able to pull this off, and there's no piracy involved (which would occur when sharing the actual speech files). Maybe a batch-file that pulls the speech files out of the SE's PAK, converts them accordingly (and possibly combines split lines into a single file) and re-inserts them into the CD-version of the game using ScummSpeaks.

 

This would allow to share this project without running into legal trouble.

[Espiox]

Fealiks: The file is the same format and name as the others, but SS gives me an "Unrecognized sound file type" error.

 

Laserschwert: Once I've solved the split dialogue issue, I'll look into sharing it. Should be relatively simple though.

[plamdi]

Just please, for the love of all things good, do not add V/O on the narration... it sounds so horrible that I can't imagine anything worse.

[jott]

Which format are you using? Ogg, FLAC or mp3?

 

And how did you create the mappings? All manually or did you use the information from speech.info to generate a basic layout?

 

It would be good to know how many exceptions there are. I'm all for an automated process which would ease redistribution. It's not a real problem to join multiple wav files for example given some previous definition (or even a heuristic that matches multiple lines).

[Espiox]

Just please, for the love of all things good, do not add V/O on the narration... it sounds so horrible that I can't imagine anything worse.

 

Don't worry, I have no intention of adding the Narrator to this version.

 

 

Which format are you using? Ogg, FLAC or mp3?

 

And how did you create the mappings? All manually or did you use the information from speech.info to generate a basic layout?

 

It would be good to know how many exceptions there are. I'm all for an automated process which would ease redistribution. It's not a real problem to join multiple wav files for example given some previous definition (or even a heuristic that matches multiple lines).

 

I'm using mp3 right now.

 

I'm using the info from speech.info to find the right audio file and then I'm matching it to the text pulled from the CD version (using scummtr) manually using ScummSpeaks.

[jott]

I bet you could cover 98% of the associations automatically without any real effort.

[Silvor]

Seeing as the classic version included in the Special Edition is quite buggy, I for one am really happy that this project covers the dos version of the game.

Good luck with your work Espiox, really hope it goes well.

[LogicDeLuxe]

Some lines of speech are broken down into two or three audio files (eg. "Yikes! / Don't sneak up on me like that!" or "Ah...yessir... / --yech-- / ...sure does at that."). ScummSpeaks only seems to allow one audio file per line of text. I've tried pasting the audio files together in Audacity but ScummSpeaks won't let me use the file.

That's easy to solve. Just insert them like this:

Original scummtr output:

Re-elect Governor Marley.\xFF\x03"When there's only one candidate, there's only one choice."

Changed to a talkie version:

\xFF\x0A\x01\x00\xFF\x0A\x00\x00\xFF\x0A\x0a\x00\xFF\x0A\x00\x00Re-elect Governor Marley.\xFF\x03\xFF\x0A\x02\x00\xFF\x0A\x00\x00\xFF\x0A\x0a\x00\xFF\x0A\x00\x00"When there's only one candidate, there's only one choice."

Works fine with scummtr. Though, unfortunately scummspeaks doesn't handle any extra voice samples within the line.

If your tool could also just build the monster.so3/sog/sof by itself, we don't need scummspeaks for this.

 

EDIT:

I for one am really happy that this project covers the dos version of the game.

However, it would be ScummVM only. The native DOS interpreter plays CD audio and can't load voice samples at the same time.

 

Thinking of this, would it be possible to replace CD audio with the MIDI tracks of the floppy version? That would make a true DOS talkie CD possible.

[Espiox]

Right, I've gotten a combined audio file into the game (I combined the wavs and then converted to mp3, rather than trying to combine the mp3 files).

 

And it seems to work! Not perfectly timed to the subtitles though.

 

EDIT: LogicDeLuxe: Whoops, I didn't see your post. I'll try that out too.

[Krasas]

Seeing as the classic version included in the Special Edition is quite buggy, I for one am really happy that this project covers the dos version of the game.

 

Wait, no, this is wrong. Espiox mentions in the op that he is working on the CD version of the game, and that one is exactly identical to the classic one used in the SE version.

 

Edit: By the way, good luck with the project Espiox!

 

From what I understand you are doing work similar to the Monkey Island Speech Project, so you could avoid much work if you got them to help you with issues they have already resolved.

Also, I think jott is right. It would really help you, if you came up with a script or programm to do most of the work automatically for you, because the manual way sounds a little too time consuming.

[Silvor]

Wait, no, this is wrong. Espiox mentions in the op that he is working on the CD version of the game, and that one is exactly identical to the classic one used in the SE version.

 

There's some inventory graphics that's switched up in the Sepcial edition (both classic and enhanced) and also the music on the classic version is bugged as well, like the voodoo lady music keeps on playing after you exit the voodoo house.

Belive me I've experienced those things first hand.

It also seems that the classic version in the Special edition runs more choppy than the regular dos version ever did.

 

If there was any way this could run without scummvm that would just be amazing. But if scummvm is the only way to go so be it.

I always prefer to use the original dos versions of the games myself.

[LogicDeLuxe]

Espiox mentions in the op that he is working on the CD version of the game, and that one is exactly identical to the classic one used in the SE version.

True for the game data. Not true for the interpreter, though. That one is indeed known to be buggy.

[jott]

Here is a little tool that looks up strings from the speech.info and a mi1.txt (scummtr.exe -w -g monkeycdalt -of mi1.txt -H) in the same dir and outputs a "match.bat" with "ren sample.mp3 linennumber_sample.mp3". It splits up multiple lines (\0xff\0x03).

 

It's a *very* dirty hack but should do the job.

 

http://helicoid.de/scumm/mkspeech.zip

 

This can be used as a starting point for generating a monster.sou - even with multiple lines like LogicDeLuxe proposes.

[Espiox]

LogicDeLuxe: I tried your method (inserting the extra speech) but with the Cobb dialogue I tried, the two sections end up overlapping, because the subtitles move on before Cobb is done with the first bit.

 

With the file combining method, the speech doesn't overlap, but the subtitles still move on before he gets there.

[LogicDeLuxe]

If there was any way this could run without scummvm that would just be amazing.

You could try the interpreter version from the Fate of Atlantis demo. Rename it to monkey.exe. It is compatible to the Monkey Island resources. Unfortunately, there is an inconvenient script in Monkey Island checking for the CD, which means, you can't replace the original tracks with the special edition's, since they differ in their playing times.

Another problem might be the savegame menu. Not all versions of the interpreter have the ability to select a path on a different drive, which is required for SCUMM V5 CD versions. I didn't check.

[Silvor]

You could try the interpreter version from the Fate of Atlantis demo. Rename it to monkey.exe. It is compatible to the Monkey Island resources. Unfortunately, there is an inconvenient script in Monkey Island checking for the CD, which means, you can't replace the original tracks with the special edition's, since they differ in their playing times.

Another problem might be the savegame menu. Not all versions of the interpreter have the ability to select a path on a different drive, which is required for SCUMM V5 CD versions. I didn't check.

 

I'll give that a shot if this project gets finished and released, thanks.

[Espiox]

Here is a little tool that looks up strings from the speech.info and a mi1.txt (scummtr.exe -w -g monkeycdalt -of mi1.txt -H) in the same dir and outputs a "match.bat" with "ren sample.mp3 linennumber_sample.mp3". It splits up multiple lines (\0xff\0x03).

 

It's a *very* dirty hack but should do the job.

 

http://helicoid.de/scumm/mkspeech.zip

 

This can be used as a starting point for generating a monster.sou - even with multiple lines like LogicDeLuxe proposes.

 

I've got my mi1.txt and speech.info in the same folder, but that tool doesn't seem to work for me (or I'm being a dumbass again). I screen-capped the windows here.

[jott]

Try again with an updated version: http://helicoid.de/scumm/mkspeech.zip

In the end there need to be some more tweaking done like replacing " => ' and ^ => ... (or vice versa) and join multiple lines on an \xFF\xDD\x64\x00.

Ultimately it should directly generate the monster.sou I guess (which shouldn't be that hard to do).

 

P.S.: As mentioned this is more of a hack than a useful utility. It's just to show how easy you can generate a mapping from the speech.info to the original lines.

[Espiox]

Still getting the same problem here.

[jott]

Ooops, sorry. I uploaded the wrong file. Try again please.

[Espiox]

Okay, it seems to have worked this time.

 

EDIT: It looks like this project requires somebody with a little more coding know-how than me at it's wheel. I couldn't even code a "Hello World" app, yet this project needs a tool that can merge audio files, and generate the MONSTER.SOU file. I'm happy to help out and supply info from what I've done so far though, if anybody else wants to finish this.

[LogicDeLuxe]

LogicDeLuxe: I tried your method (inserting the extra speech) but with the Cobb dialogue I tried, the two sections end up overlapping, because the subtitles move on before Cobb is done with the first bit.

I don't know anything about the lip sync entries. I don't think scummspeaks generates any meaningful data for them. Maybe tweaking those could solve this issue.

 

Combining samples is an option with slightly off subtitle sync, right. Another side effect would be the need for some duplicated. There are some multi-sample-lines which have only some of the samples in common with other lines. Those needs to be duplicated with this method. Those aren't too many lines, though.

 

The best thing would be a method which automatically could decompile the complete game, patch the scripts to divide those multi-sample-lines in individual speak events, and recompile the entire game.

 

Too bad, there is no such convenient tool like Deutex for Doom, which not only extracts all resources in individual files (like scummtr does), but also converts them to usable formats and back so that a wide base of existing software can be used to modify them.

[Espiox]

The Speech Project hacks that cocomonk22 sent me separated the alternate speech lines (see the first bullet in the o.p.). I guess it's possible that a similar method could be used to separate the dialogue lines?