Wii decryption?!?! by Mouser X at 2:50 AM EST on December 29, 2007
HCS linked me to this in #usf. The video shows them running homebrew code on the Wii. Apparently to get there, they got some of the Wii decryption keys. If I understand correctly, this means we can *FINALLY* rip some audio from Wii ISOs. I very much hope this is true... Mouser X over and out.
I find this stuff exciting. However, it looks like we'll still have to wait awhile before it can be put into use for Wii ISO file extraction... Hopefully sooner rather than later. Mouser X over and out.
It's *EXTREMELY* unlikely that Super Mario Galaxy uses ADX. SMG is a 1st party game, and the ADX format is a 3rd party format. I can't think of any reason that Nintendo would pay an outside company for their software, when they can do it with their own software for "free" (compared to paying for it). It's far more likely that SMG uses DSP, or AFC. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if the game used a new format entirely. But ADX is completly unlikely in every regard that I can think of.
On the other hand, if you mean someone could convert SMG files to ADX, then yes, that's possible, if the files can even be played. It should be noted that SMG uses streamed audio. There was an article about it on Nintendo's website. It's fully orchestrated, so that's nice. However, to utilize a "dynamic" feel, there's actually 2 parts to the music. There's the music you hear, and then there's a MIDI track, that's used for timing. You'll never hear the MIDI, of course, but what it does is it allows the music to be synced up with sound effects, and other such events. This way, they can get both streamed audio (full orchestration), as well as a 'dynamic' "feel" to the music, since it changes (how much, I don't know) based on how you play the game, or what you're doing at the time.
Another interesting note is that, due to using streamed music, it makes it easier to rip the audio files (if they can be found), and easier to play them (if their format can be figured out). However, due to it being a "dual" format, it makes it difficult to get the "full" music, because of its "dynamic" characteristics. I guess you could say you win some, and you lose some. Still though, it's pretty neat that it works the way it does. I certainly look forward to it. Mouser X over and out.
SMG is orchestrated, yes, but before that, the music was synthesized (and then recorded to a streaming format, probably, but it was not live music anyway), and you can even find trailers of the game previos to the orchestra recording that have synthesized versions of the music, concretely I heard Egg Planet synthesized in an earlier trailer and then the orchestra recording, and I like both versions. While the live one is of course superior, the synthesized version was quite nice too, and it had a somewhat different arrangement in some parts.
Now you mention that dual formatting and it makes me wonder if the midi version (sans soundfonts, probably) is the same the composers (Kondo and the other guy) created for the synthesized versions and, if so, could also be retrieved and used to recreate them in some manner.
There's also the possibility that they are stripped down, basic versions of the original midis (I mean, stripped instruments and harmonics) intended only for that syncronisation for sound effects, but it could be interesting, anyway.
Of course, I have no chance of doing this with my null practical knowledge of the technical aspects of the task, so someone else would have to do it :P
And no, I didn't just come up with a baseless "theory" about the "pre-orchestra" midis (just in case someone is wondering). You can read those "Iwata interviews" on one of the official Nintendo sites. There's a series of interviews about Mario Galaxy and the one dedicated to the music and sound reveals how music was composed synthetically at first and at that time that was going in the final product, until the main composer (Not Kondo, the other one, I don't remember his name) came up and asked for an orchestra and he managed to have his budget aproved by the bosses. So yes, those midis did exist at some point, and could well be the basis for the synchronizing midis mentioned above.
I remember a trailer in which the synthesized version was used, without any sound effects. But I could just find two videos with SFX from GDC and E3 2007. Could be wrong, though.
My guess is that they're still using JAudio and the common streamed audio formats from recent games, so "getting the MIDI" is next to impossible. But even if you did, you still have to create a perfect duplicate of the soundfont from the extracted instrument samples. And that's one big ass job. Maybe I'll get around to doing a test SF2/DLS from the "Faron Woods" bank and join it with the MIDI I created. Just out of curiosity how the result will be.
There are 81 tracks, of which 28 are orchestra recordings and 53 are sequenced. So I don't think they'll separate the two types from each other because of disc space issues.