MEN OF VALOR PC .sab

bioscope · **Joined:** 22 May 2010 05:10 **Posts:** 4

Hey Luigi

I am going to try your forum. Years ago I ripped the easy .oggs from this game to make my own custom ost by Inon Zur. Then I noticed further music available in individual .sab format files. It didn't take me long to figure out that I could open them in cooledit, as they are raw pcm 22k. Some played fine, others, if I read the corresponding .sob text files are dynamic? surround? files that when played directly, play in many chunks with interceding static. Using oggenc didn't help, the same sound resulted. Opening in multichannel editors also didn't help, its definitely 2channel only.

There is also a music.sab archive with more of the music ie: stingers and possibly alternate versions of the dynamic tracks and licensed songs. This also has a corresponding .sob file. Towav extracted with no problem, but no filenames. Can you make a tool that will combine the extracted files with the info available on the music.sob text file? also, can you decypher this strange version of dynamic layering that this game used on the individual .sab music files?

Is it a type of interleave? If I focus on the chunks only, I get the sense that the music is clean, but split into too many chunks for my sanity, and then this curious static inbetween at regular intervals.

Btw, this is the only time I picked this up, JUST CAUSE was all clean....

aluigi · **Posted:** 25 May 2010 11:52

for the additional info I can't help in this moment.
while for the sob files have you verified if they are mp3s?
maybe I could take a look to these files in my installation later

bioscope · **Joined:** 22 May 2010 05:10 **Posts:** 4

The .sob files are text files that contain the audio info of the corresponding .sab files. When I open them in notepad, I read the term 'CTF2'. The .sab files are the big files that contain the pcm raw data. However, the game uses the Unreal engine, perhaps you have programming experience with this, as I see there is a uax file with more music info....

aluigi · **Posted:** 26 May 2010 08:54

is the following script useful?
http://forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.php?p=37008#p37008

bioscope · **Joined:** 22 May 2010 05:10 **Posts:** 4

Yep, but it works only on the clean files. The chunky ones are decoded with an incorrect playing time duration, about half the time as that noted in an editor, and still chunky. I think that one has to believe we are looking for a file within a file, but only recognised over 2 channels. Wasn't GRAW 1 and 2 also like this? I think one file may represent percussion, and the other strings and brass, if I concentrate hard on the playback. The clean files are about 5mb in size whereas the chunky ones are about 11mb in size. Another clue?

aluigi · **Posted:** 26 May 2010 22:23

can you tell me the name of one of these sab archives and the name of the file inside it that gives this type of problem?
if it's encoded using a codec (like one of the various adpcms) I could have some luck

bioscope · **Joined:** 22 May 2010 05:10 **Posts:** 4

Ok. First I will give you the name of one thats clean, and one thats chunky:

In the game directory 'coda':

MusicAirstrip1.sab (simply opened in an audio editor raw pcm 16bit 22050 clean playback with audible click at the beginning)
Musicairstrip1.sob (has following info:CTF2 E 5 MOV_BAT_OP5L4_Airstrip1_Dyn )

MusicAirstrip2.sab (also opened in audio editor raw pcm 16bit 22050, click, chunky playback over intermittent percussion track in background)
MusicAirstrip2.sob (has following info: CTF2 F @ 6 6 MOV_BAT_OP5L4_Airstrip2_Dyn)

aluigi · **Posted:** 28 May 2010 09:54

seems I don't have these files here (I have a stripped version of the game), maybe ask on xentax in the Audio section

Luigi Auriemma

MEN OF VALOR PC .sab