Rewriting Cryo's Dune 1 : it seems possible !!!

[Nyerguds]

Audacity can export to VOC, but I've noticed the stable release of Audacity sometimes pads the file to 30 seconds for some bizarre reason.

[rymoah]

Audacity can export to VOC, but I've noticed the stable release of Audacity sometimes pads the file to 30 seconds for some bizarre reason.

Good to know :) Maybe next days, after having finished with cleaning the text files, I'll try with a development release of Audacity to see if this bug is present there, too. If so, I'll tell it to the developers hoping they can fix it. Then, I'll re-dub some speeches files and test them in the game (I think that Multi Ex Commander can also compress a folder to the dune.dat archive).

About the .voc files: I've noticed that in the PZ direcotry there's a file containing the "Dune Theme" from the Spice Opera by St

[Nyerguds]

it's not just VOC though, it happens with small WAV files too.

[bigs]

but unfortunately almost all of the desertic landscapes result in messy grayish images. I don't have time right now to write in details which files dump correctly and which not, but I will do it asap.

no, they dump correctly.

I just forced a grey pal for these sprites. In fact they dont have a defined pal because in-game they use palette defined by the game engine (because it is sprites with color changing depending of time or place).

So it's not intersesting to dump them with a "good" color. A good color index is enought.

http://www.bigs.fr/travaux/dune/

[rymoah]

no, they dump correctly.

I just forced a grey pal for these sprites. In fact they dont have a defined pal because in-game they use palette defined by the game engine (because it is sprites with color changing depending of time or place).

So it's not intersesting to dump them with a "good" color. A good color index is enought.

http://www.bigs.fr/travaux/dune/

Sorry, I didn't think about the fact that the sprites representing "outside" locations could use a palette defined by the game engine depending upon the time (day, sunset, night and sunrise). So this explains why also sprites of outside views of palaces, vilages and sietches have a grey pal.

Do you think that the same thing applies to some .hnm videos of the CD version? Because I think that some of them (for instance, those containing the flights over the dunes) can change palette if a day/sunset or night/sunrise effect occurs.

Rymoah

[rymoah]

Here is attached the first part of dialogues, that is, file PHRASE11.unp cleaned and reordered. :)

It contains Duke Leto, Jessica, Duncan, Thufir, Gurney and Stilgar's phrases. Each character has three fixed categories: Storyline, answers to "Come with me/Stay here" and other miscellaneous phrases. Then, there are some specific-character categories (for example Thufir has "Strategy expressions", Duncan "Spice production expressions", and so on). I have tried to maintain, especially in the Storyline category, the chronological order in which the phrases are pronounced. Soon I will post also the PHRASE12.unp texts, containing phrasess from the remaining characters (Fremen chiefs, Chani, Harah, Kynes, Baron Harkonnen, Feyd, Shaddam, smugglers, Harkonnen captains and the Book of Dune texts).

I also figured out that the COMMAND*.unp files should contain all the remaining texts in the game -- various labels in the map of Dune and the game panel, plus other things that I still have to analyse.

Rymoah

part1.txt

[rymoah]

A voc2wav bash script to convert .voc speeches in wav on Linux. The usage is the same of the voctowav.bat I have posted earlier -- unzip the content of this attached archive in the dune.dat directory and then launch the voctowav.sh. This script uses the voc2wav utility written in Perl by Peter Keel.

Rymoah

voctowav_linux.zip

[rymoah]

And here is the second part of the dialogues ;)

It contains phrases of Liet-Kynes, Chani, Harah, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, Feyd-Rautha, Harkonnen captains, smugglers and Fremen chiefs. It also contains some expressions used by all characters (for example, those to find a new sietch), Paul's visions and the Book of Dune texts.

Rymoah

part2.txt

[Monsieur OUXX]

I noticed that some people requested requested the developer role on the DuneRevival Java project recently (https://dunerevival.dev.java.net/) even though the site and the Java project are quite dead, it'd be cool if someone uploaded all the data posted on this thread (source codes, compiled dumpers, data files, technical discussions, technical links...) to make sure that no knownledge is lost if this forum gets erased ;-)

[rymoah]

I noticed that some people requested requested the developer role on the DuneRevival Java project recently (https://dunerevival.dev.java.net/) even though the site and the Java project are quite dead, it'd be cool if someone uploaded all the data posted on this thread (source codes, compiled dumpers, data files, technical discussions, technical links...) to make sure that no knownledge is lost if this forum gets erased ;-)

I totally agree, I'll see what I can do next days ;) I think it would be nice also to begin using the forums you created on dunerevival.dev.java.net, to discuss more technical details and leave this thread for news and update on this project.

Rymoah

[Monsieur OUXX]

I totally agree, I'll see what I can do next days ;) I think it would be nice also to begin using the forums you created on dunerevival.dev.java.net, to discuss more technical details and leave this thread for news and update on this project.

Rymoah

the problem with the "dunerevival" forum is that the users need to register to that obscure thing that is called "dev.java.net" (it can be a little bit scary if you don't know what you put your feet into), and then these forums have less visibility in Google.

[Nyerguds]

On the dunerevival site, I can't help but notice the claim that Electronics Arts owns the game rights of the first Dune game. As far as I know, that's absolutely not true... they only own Westwood's Dune games.

[rymoah]

On the dunerevival site, I can't help but notice the claim that Electronics Arts owns the game rights of the first Dune game. As far as I know, that's absolutely not true... they only own Westwood's Dune games.

Mmmm, so who owns the rights of the game at the moment? Cryo has been absorbed by Dreamcatcher, but I think that Dune was licensed to Virgin Games...

Rymoah

[Nyerguds]

According to Wikipedia, Dreamcatcher was acquired by JoWooD Productions.

[rymoah]

Concerning the distribution company, Virgin Games, MobyGames says:

"In 1993 they became Virgin Interactive Entertainment, before eventually working with Electronic Arts. Ultimately they were bought by Titus, who now themselves have ceased trading."

And about Titus the website reports that it went out of business in 2004. It doesn't specify wheter it was acquired by some other company or not, so my guess is that if EA doesn't hold the game rights, then no one should hold it at the moment...

Rymoah

[rorirub]

A quick note: AGD files are named after Adlib Gold, but they really are only OPL-3 chip music files.

Adlib Gold card offered as the first card an OPL-3 chip. I don't really remember the location of the secondary port set and if it was located just after the first two Adlib port set (ie. 0x388, 0x389, 0x38A and 0x38B). I do remember, though, that Dune and its player used an interrupt handing routine within the player initialization, which extensively used Adlib Gold interrupt scheme. It was because of this initialization that other sound cards with OPL-3 chip did not work with the AGD player and had to stick with plain OPL-2 based SDB player.

However, I remember having another card in those ancient times - the Sound Blaster Pro. This card offered OPL-3 chip as well. I've made sure RdosPlay initializes OPL-3 without using any strange (irq-based) techniques and thus worked well for SBPro as well as Adlib Gold card friend of mine had.

Thus, when digitally emulating and/or directly playing music from Dune, I strongly encourage you to stick to AGD files - it's worth the added burden! SDB musics sound much worse sometimes (especially the intro music is much better in the OPL-3 version than the OPL-2 version)..

Actually it was the SBPro 2.0 that had an opl3, the original sbpro had the opl2 still.

So, to my understanding, the game had 3 different sounding sets of music:

- opl2 (adlib/soundblaster), in the *.hsq files

- opl3 (adlib gold only), in the *.agd files

- MT32 (roland mt-32?), in the *.m32 files

That dune midi player application uses regular adlib/sb opl2 too.

Now, is there any way to play the opl3 *.agd files on a ver 2 soundblaster pro that has the opl3 YMF262 chip on it? I happen to have a card like that, and I'd really want to know how the opl3 differs in sound quality.

I tried exchanging the *.agd files with the *.hsq ones and launching the game in soundblaster mode, but it only had notable differences in two tracks, and even those were more like missing instruments (MORNING and SEKENCE, going by the names the dune midi player uses).

also first post, hello, etc.

[Monsieur OUXX]

Hey guys.

The repository is down :-( We should write to the administrator to have it back up (it's been inactive for too long). What's on it is not really essential, but, you know... It'd be a pity if we lost some information.

What we have so far :

- a sprites dumper

- I've started rewriting the game engine (no display yet, only text commands). I took the first language I could set up, because I'm lazy. So far it's in Flash. But it should be easily translatable into C# or object LUA. I've done, let's say...20%? You can move from room to room and on the map.

What we miss so far :

- would be nice if someone coded some kind of dumper for the musics. Something that could play the OPL files or the samples. Or at least give the name of a standalone library to do that. I only know of the embedded code in ScummVM/DosBox and it's pestering to reverse engineer the code

- we still don't really know how the palettes are stored (even though they are dynamic, the gradient colors are stored somewhere)

PS : about the copyrights. It's not the proper thread to discuss this matter. I believed that the rights belonged to EA because they last belonged to Virgin Interactive. I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere. Have a look at the 2 links I give in the very post of this thread.

[Nyerguds]

I found a tool that plays the Dune music... but it's a DOS exe, which only works in DOSBox, too.

[nemafakei]

Do you have the link?

[Monsieur OUXX]

I found a tool that plays the Dune music... but it's a DOS exe, which only works in DOSBox, too.

When I said that we'd need a dumper, I meant that we'd need a structured source code, something to integrate it into a custom project.

[nemafakei]

But we might be able to contact the author of the programme, who might be able to help us.

[Monsieur OUXX]

But we might be able to contact the author of the programme, who might be able to help us.

Don't tell me it's RdosPlay or I kill you lol

[Nyerguds]

[edit]

Ah it seems this tool was discussed before... it's the one made by Denis Julitov. Still, I don't know if anyone noticed it DOESN'T use the Dune files...

I seem to have found an email address of the guy though...

http://rigism.com/ar/t2842.htm

[/edit]

http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/junk/dunemidi.rar

Upon further inspection it seems the program doesn't use any of Dune's files at all... huh. But it sounds exactly like the originals. I haven't looked at the exe to see if it has exact data from the Dune game files stored inside though. Then again I don't know which files exactly are the music... there seem to be 3 different files for each track, and I don't know if those 3 are combined or just used for different sound systems. In the last case... the exe of this tool seems the right size to store them all for one type.

Note that it won't play unless you use DOSBox. VDMS worked too, but plays kinda choppy, and at about 2/3rd of the speed it should.

[Monsieur OUXX]

Indeed, we didn't investigate further this utility

I haven't looked at the exe to see if it has exact data from the Dune game files stored inside though. Then again I don't know which files exactly are the music... there seem to be 3 different files for each track, and I don't know if those 3 are combined or just used for different sound systems. In the last case... the exe of this tool seems the right size to store them all for one type.

I suspect that this .EXE stores all original Adlib files. (there were 3 versions of each tune in the game; I don't know exactly but I believe it was something like : one Adlib version, one MT32 version, and another one).

Haha, for one second I thought I was in 1992 running MS-DOS and I didn't understand AT ALL how I could play Adlib sounds on a PC with no Adlib sound card. Then I remembered that I was inside DosBox...  ::)

[nemafakei]

It's not every day you think of an ASCII UI as an "Immersive experience"...