Pokemon Colosseum Rip by furrybob at 2:54 PM EST on January 14, 2011
Well, since nobody's done it yet, I decided to do a rip of Pokemon Colosseum. This rip contains all of the sequences in the game's bgm_archive.fsys file except for null_bgm_song (For obvious reasons,) and stand2_song, which is basically stand_song with about 15 seconds of silence in front of it.
If anybody is interested in how this was done, I first edited the bgm_archive.fsys file so that title_song was about 20 KB, and zeroed it out. From this base file, I inserted each sequence one by one into the title_song slot and recorded the output at the title screen.
This is the first rip, as far as I know, done using GC/Wii emulation. Recent work on Dolphin's Low Level DSP Emulator has progressed enough so that it emulates many games perfectly or almost perfectly. I've ripped the Wii version of Sonic 4 too, and just have to process it. I also got everything ready to do a rip of ZWW before I realized that Nintendo had already released an OST for it. >_<
This is pretty cool! I have very little intention of downloading this set (I've never been a pokemon fan), but the work you've put into it is impressive! I've also been mildly interested in the BRSTM tool, so I grabbed that (thanks!).
Regarding your method of grabbing the sequences, that's pretty cool! Really, what this says to me, is that it would be "relatively simple" (compared to previous methods) to create a xSF format for the Wii. The more I see about it, the more it sounds like the majority of the necessary steps have already been taken, and tools are to the point where they can be used to do the work necessary (though, probably quite rudimentary still). If I had those tools, and knowledge on how to use them, I'd make a (really bad) attempt at creating the "format" myself.
It seems that the hardest parts would be to modify Dolphin appropriately for use as a Winamp/Foobar2000 plugin (someone should bring this up to the Dolphin developers. I would think that a "brute force" method wouldn't be too hard. Essentially, remove graphics support/create a null graphics output plugin, and output audio to Winamp, instead of the speakers), and to create the "driver" for the audio. This might be made easier using a Dolphin savestate, though with appropriate tools, the driver could even be created on the console itself. No such tool exists, as far as I know. Essentially, it'd have to be run from the Homebrew Channel. Then, once running, this program (which would be similar to a debug tool. It'd deal with memory a lot) would run the game in question, and allow the user to modify the pieces (memory) in real-time. A well-informed user could use this to remove all functionality except audio output. To my knowledge, it'd essentially be like creating a Gameshark/Ocarina code.
Obviously, my knowledge on this front is rudimentary at best, and most likely wrong. Nonetheless, with the appropriate tools, a Wii/NGC xSF format is a very real possibility. We just need someone to step forward who is capable of implementing it! I am not that person. :(
Anyway, awesome job! It's great to see the advancements going on! Hopefully, it's only a matter of time before someone put together a Wii/NGC xSF format! I can barely wait! Mouser X over and out.
The BRSTM tool is using the encoder that was created for BrawlBox. I just took it and slapped a main function on it. I haven't bothered to put a standard command line usage on it, right now it's just input file, bool for if it loops or not, start loop point, end loop point. I haven't added checks on the input either, so it crashes if something's wrong. But it should work just fine here.
I was also thinking about a GC/Wii xSF format while doing this. Hopefully somebody with the proper knowledge will be able to work on that.
Now that the bugs are worked out of Dolphin's audio emulation, I've done a rip of Luigi's Mansion that actually has all the instruments, unlike one that was released recently. Because the game has dynamic tracks, these files have all of the tracks playing at once, sort of like some tracks in emulated sound formats do. The files are also not tagged, and I haven't processed them to the extent that I did the Colosseum ones.
Even if someone were to make a GC/Wii xSF format, there would be some games that wouldn't play at 100% speed unless you've seriously overclocked your CPU. Most games like Zelda/Pikmin/Mario would be fine, but some games like Tales of Symphonia or Pokemon Colosseum would run slowly. I can waste an entire core of my 3.2GHz i5 on DSP emulation in these games, and some songs will still only play at 60-90% speed. Dolphin's audio emulation is magnitudes better than it was a few months ago, accuracy is pretty much perfect, but it could still use a few more optimizations for speed.
Does anyone still have the soundtrack? Brawl Custom Music was the only site that had the full version, and they recently lost their entire library of songs. It's such a shame, because this soundtrack is great!
Here's the new link: http://www.mediafire.com/?dgk7tfaa35f3h The files are in the flac format, and there's a batch file in there that will convert them all to brstm files with the proper loops.