"Undub" Megaman X4 and Megaman 8

[acediez]

Edit 2018.05.02: New thread! Mega Man 8 and Mega Man X4 Undub


I've had for the longest time the idea of "undubbing" Megaman X4 and 8 (I'm thinking of the PS1 versions right now, but I'm interested on the Saturn versions too, specially for Megaman 8 ), and by that I mean...
- Put the in-game voice clips from the japanese version into the english version.
- Taking the animated videos from the japanese version, edit them to add subtitles, and encoding them back into .STR format to put them in the english version.

I don't have any real experience hacking a game, but I figured this project would be fairly simple, a matter of finding the right files to replace, finding the right tools to correctly extract all game files from the CD images and re-building the edit CD image, and the right tools to encode an edited video back into .STR format.

Tools collected so far:
- CDmage (to replace files in a PSX .BIN without breaking it)
- PSmplay (to play and recognize the content of .XA files)
- TOC_Changer_v1.2_by_Phoenix (to try and replace files bigger than the original)
- STR Converter by ikskoks, and VirtualDub (to add subtitles to STR videos. Not actually used yet)

Today, I started toying around with Megaman X4 (PSX).

What I could do (the easy part):
- Replaced the opening movie, just to see if replacing an .STR for another was as straight forwad as I thought. At least for this one it was, since the filesizes matched.
- Replaced most voice clips stored in .XA format (Maverick in-game voices). Didn't replace the title screen voice (the one saying "Megaman X4") nor the boss introduction voice clips (to keep their english names)

What I haven't done (the hard part):
- I haven't touched the rest of the .STR videos yet (the ones I want to add subtitles to). I'm not sure how easy or hard this would be once I have the editing done, I guess it all depends of how similar I can get the file sizes of the edited videos to be.
- Couldn't replace the .XA containing the ending song because the filesize was almost 5 MB bigger than the american one. I tried using the tool that changes the max file sized allowed on the Table of Contents of the CD ("TOC Changer"), but 5 MB is more than it allowed to change. Gonna see if I can find a workaround for this...
- I still can't find the in-game voices for X and Zero (which really worries me, since it's the most important part of this whole thing). It's not contained in any .XA file, so my guess it's in one or more .ARC files, which I don't know how to handle. Googling around, it seems that the .ARC format is a custom compression format, used only by a handful of game. So yeah, it's a lot harder than I thought. Now I don't know if it can be done without actual knowledge in the matter. (Maybe the only way for me to do this would be blindly replacing any .ARC file that "looks" like it could be a voice clip, and do a bunch of tests... *sigh*)

I was wondering if anyone here has had any experience trying this, or something similar? Any pointer or advices anyone here could give me would be very appreciated

[Talbain]

But... but...

WHAT AM I FIGHTING FOOOOORRRRR!?!?!!?!?!??

[Piotyr]

Actually all the japanese videos are still in the english version.

[Zoel]

Didn't Megaman X4 all the Mavericks kept the japanese voices? I remember they just cut out the line they say right at the start of battle.
You probably have to find a way to restore the voice line before the fight. Thats just for the mavericks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXS5IMKWlGY

And I think the song in the Megaman x4 intro is the same as the japanese version, and only the saturn version has the jpop song replace on to it.

Who knows maybe you have an easier time editing the japanese version instead of replacing the voice files in the US version.

[acediez]

I found the voice files.

PL00.ARC contains X's voices
PL02.ARC contains Zero's voices

But... here's the bad news.
When replacing any of those files, (some?) dialogue text turns into gibberish.

For example, replacing only PL00.ARC (into PL00_U.ARC) successfuly restores X's japanese voices, but this is what you get instead of text.



... and the same thing happens on Zero's dialogue, when replacing PL_02.ARC.

So I guess those .ARC files cointain more than just the voices, they contain some text and/or font or text pointer data too. Which means that unless I can find a way to extract and rebuild each .ARC file, I'm stuck.

(So far, I've tried FreeArc, Zipzag, and ZipGenius 6... none of them recognized these .ARC files as an actual ARC compressed file...)

[henke37]

That's because they aren't standard archives, but custom ones. Since it's a Capcom game I bet it's just yet another variant on the pointer table format they have going on the DS.

[acediez]

So... can it be done? 

(It's the only thing I'm missing, I already managed to edit videos and add subtitles on the Japanese videos succesfully)
January 23, 2013, 07:01:34 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

I found a little tool called "Biohazard File Archive Tool" that supposedly supports Rockman X4's ARC files

Forum post http://forum.xentax.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=6471
The files at Sourceforge http://sourceforge.net/projects/biofat/files/latest/download?source=files

... but when trying to open my ARC files with it, the tool crashes. At least for me. I googled around, and I found that the tool has limited support for Windows 7 x64, it barely runs. Can anyone with Windows XP x86 installed test this for me?
These are the two files I need to extract

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3901589/PL00_U.ARC
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3901589/PL02_U.ARC

I'd really appreciate it!

Otherwise, I might just try setting up XP Mode...

[mz]

Do you have all this crap installed?:

Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable - x86 9.0.30729.4974
   Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable - x86 9.0.30729.6161
   Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 x64 Redistributable - 10.0.40219
   Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 x64 Runtime - 10.0.40219
   Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 x86 Runtime - 10.0.40219
   Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 Service Pack 2
   Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Client Profile
   Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Extended
   Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Multi-Targeting Pack

Besides all those, once I tried to execute it, it started asking me for many SDL-related dll files, which I couldn't be bothered to look for... So: nope, I was not able to run it.

[acediez]

I think I do. I realized the last version (SVN6) does run on Windows 7 with the right .dll, so I managed to run it, but it didn't work for these two files.
I tried setting up a VM with XP on it, and it didn't work either... I got the same error.

So I'm officially stuck.

Maybe I'll try sending a message to the author of the tool and see if he's willing to give me some pointers... that's the last thing I can think of, since I can do what I wanted to do without unpacking those two files.

[Metal Knuckles]

Perhaps looking at efforts with the PC version would also help. For example, [/url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8nBQDLTR00]this guy has made progress in Lucas Gilbertson-ing Zero as well as Mark Gatha-ing X.[/url]

[SkinnyV]

Here you go: http://www.skinnyv.com/misc/Unpacked_ARC.rar

I couldn't get the latest version of the tool to work, it crash when I start it on Windows XP even after installing the shitload of DLL it require. I tried the first version and it worked, the only issue is that I do not think that version allow you to repack the ARC.

It's weird tough as I did some poking around the Mega Man X4 files and the ARC files you wanted extracted have a slightly different file size compared the the one I had. The content seem to match except for a few of the extracted bin files... Wonder if there's different revision or if one of us improperly extracted them from the disk. In any case, to avoid problems, I extracted the one you provided.

Oh and it is true, the Japanese voice sample are still present in the US version's file, dunno where the pointer are stored though.

[acediez]

Yeah, I realized all (or most) of the original files are still present, and new filenames have a _US suffix instead of replacing them. But I figured it would be easier to replace files than finding/editing pointers. I'm not familiar with any of that.

Thanks for unpacking! This is already a huge step forward, because maybe now I can re-pack it on one of the later versions of the tool that do work on my PC. (and thanks for telling me by PM, I really appreciate the interest!)

What version of the tool did you use exactly?

[SkinnyV]

I used biofat_svn06232011. I am not sure how you plan on doing this but I did a few tests and every software I tried to use to rebuild a psx image would give me a non-working cd image. I used Xebra and no$psx to test. I guess that it might be easier if you can manage to keep filesize exactly the same and just re-inject a few files.

Here's something I figure you might need to read at some point if you get stuck:

http://www.tales-cless.org/docs/thepsxdoc2.txt

But as of now, I think we are at an impasse since according to what I have read, even later version of biofat can only unpack Mega Man X4 ARC file and not repack them. I was able to run one of the newer version from October 2012(everything seem buggy as hell even on XP) and the menu for other games beside Biohazard seemed to have been completely removed... It's too bad because if you were able to repack the ARC, you would be almost done. Now it's just a matter of finding which of the BIN file from the ARC archive has to do with voice sample and which are used for text. This can even be found by trial and error.

[Miles_V]

My friend, first, Sorry for my bad English.  a long time I started the same proyect whit Megaman X4 but PC Versión now  is 80% undub but the most important detail is the voices of the 8 Maverick if you have played the JAP versión they say one dialog after the text in the USA Versión that dialog is removed and the link to these files are in the exe, now in the PSone Versión is similar because the pc versión is a port of the PSone.

Now let me explain about the ARC Files in the PSone versión: in the files PL00_U.ARC (X) PL01_U (Zero) and PL02_U (Ultimate Armor) you`ll find graphic, sound and the text of the game in the same file,
the text are codified in 16 bit an you must use Translhextion Hex editor or similar for locate the text at the final of the file and use the hex editor for replace the text without touch the rest and you must recalculate the pointers after of this because some text appear whith issue and chash the game, for the graphic you must use tile Molester there is the gaphic for menú, ect.

All ST files (ST01_00.Arc and others) are the stages you`ll find graphic, sound of the Stages and Maverick sounds in game but no text you can replace these files with the original versión

Now if you want touch or translate the Jap Versión (for the 8 Maverick voices) you must open with the Tile Molester the file Load.Arc and replace the fonts Jap whit the Font of the USA versión and replace the file mojipat.arc that file is the language of the Menu and Option

For finish. the most difficult part is recalulate the pointers because I dont know how do it is the main reason that I abandom the proyect and only made Whitout the 8 Maverick voices only the PC Versión
that proyect you will found in the Website of Gratisjuegos and the name of the post are Parche Megaman X4 español Voces en Japones (dowload all except the ARC Files because are in Spanish)

[blade133bo]

Hi, i insert japan voices megaman X and zero without errors in my project translate to spanish.
Tnx to cue, from romxhack
Ending an voices usa, replace with japan voices, but i cannot activate maverick voices.
I try replace xa  japan version, but no work.
Maybe can you help me? I am  spanish, sorry my   english.

[Zero Dozer]

Yeah, for this one, I think an undub would be way better than the english dub.

But do you know what I would love to see? A REDUB!

[acediez]

Hi, i insert japan voices megaman X and zero without errors in my project translate to spanish.
Tnx to cue, from romxhack
Ending an voices usa, replace with japan voices, but i cannot activate maverick voices.
I try replace xa  japan version, but no work.
Maybe can you help me? I am  spanish, sorry my   english.

In case you didn't notice, this is a 3+ yeard old thread 
To be honest, I didn't get very far, all I could release was a patch to replace the intro movies.

In the thread for that release, I received very clear tips on how to proceed, but honestly I don't have the time or interest to work on this at the moment. The good news is, far more capable more people than me are working on tools and improvements for the PS1 Mega Man games. You may be interested to check this, and this.

Besides, the user Miles_V (who posted on this thread long ago) pretty much did what you're aiming to do... an spanish translation with japanese voices, for the PC version of X4. So maybe you could contact him for tips, or check his project (I think you can find it easily by googling "Mega Man X4 español voces japones", as he said himself. It was originally posted on a site called gratisjuegos.)

I'd close this thread if I could, to avoid confusion. This is a very old thread that got necroed, I'm not currently working on this.

[blade133bo]

In case you didn't notice, this is a 3+ yeard old thread 
To be honest, I didn't get very far, all I could release was a patch to replace the intro movies.

In the thread for that release, I received very clear tips on how to proceed, but honestly I don't have the time or interest to work on this at the moment. The good news is, far more capable more people than me are working on tools and improvements for the PS1 Mega Man games. You may be interested to check this, and this.

Besides, the user Miles_V (who posted on this thread long ago) pretty much did what you're aiming to do... an spanish translation with japanese voices, for the PC version of X4. So maybe you could contact him for tips, or check his project (I think you can find it easily by googling "Mega Man X4 español voces japones", as he said himself. It was originally posted on a site called gratisjuegos.)

I'd close this thread if I could, to avoid confusion. This is a very old thread that got necroed, I'm not currently working on this.

Miles_V took my translation psx of the 2010, and replace this files on the PC version. And not say it was not their job.
doubt he can help me.
He only do copy paste.
In PSX version is more dificult. but, only re-calculate pointers voices of mavericks, to get 100% undub.
Maybe imposible for now.
Regards.