3rd Party Art Mods, Sound Mods, Helpful Info

[Scud]

Sony Soundforge, for one, will open .ogg files. I'm sure there are free ones that will as well (here's one: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/). Then all you need to do is click on the ogg file to play it and find the one you want to replace. Open the kelly's heros music in Soundforge or Audacity and resave it as an ogg, with the old file's name (save the old file first, of course).

Have fun,
Dave

[Crossroads]

Thanks Scud, I will play with this over the weekend.

I could of course experiment, but if anyone could confirm to me the allied background tunes?

aback0-2 for Allied music? As xback0-4 are aXis marches?

[Scud]

Petri,

I converted those files to mpgs so you can hear them. You can get them here: http://www.lakefrontmedia.com/dave/EFII_mpgs.zip. (~14 megs)

Dave

[Crossroads]

Cheers Dave, appreciated!

Meanwhile, I am now SO close to getting this right. But cannot get the BeSweet application to run correctly... Do you know of (free) converters available to convert MP3s to OGGs?

The breakthrough, for me, was to find the DVD Software's FreeYouTubeToMP3Converter and to use it to turn video clips to mp3s-

FOR ALLIED WF PLAYER:
- The River Kwai March
- Burning Bridges
- The Longest Day March
- an old old version of A Long Way To Tipperary

FOR ALLIED EF PLAYER
- Three selected Red Army Choir tunes: Oh Field, Volga Boatmen, Katyusha

But the final step to convert these to OGGs is missing...

UPDATE: Found a utility called (duh!) Free MP3/WMA/OGG Converter. Let us see if I can get it to work...
UPDATE2: Nope, but after testing several utilities, 4CS Multiformat converter did the trick. Burning Bridges in an OGG format! WOO-HOO!!! :)

[Scud]

Audacity does it and it's open source: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Install it, open the mpg and "save as", Choose ogg from the dropdown.

If you want to play with the sound file you'll see a jagged image which is literally a picture of the sound. The play button will advance along that image. You can highlight parts and delete, thus editing the sound or even cut and paste from other sound "images". In the old days we did this with a razor blade and a cutting block to reel-to-reel tape, rocking the reels back and forth and listening for the right spot to cut. Now you can just see it and if you goof, just "undo". Amazing.

Dave

[Crossroads]

Got it Dave, I might actually have a look at the Audacity, but so far so good: 4Music Converter did the job.

The next tough question is to find out about the logic behind music file names.

xbackg1 that I thought was German music as well, actually seems to be for the main file menu.

Allied music seems not only to be abackg*, but nbackg* as well. I replaced all those with the four pieces I did, and now witnessed the game playing both Tipperary and Burning Bridges for me

I do not want to share these files until I figure out what damage is potentially done here...

Anyone with the information as what music file corresponds to which JTCS event or situation?

Anyway, if any of you want to play with these OGG files, they can be found under my profile, in two folders (registered Blitzers only).

For now, I used a low quality conversion to keep file sizes small...

[Scud]

As long as you save the old files, I can't see in any kind of harm done. Even if you forgot to save the old files and accidentally overwrote them, you could still get them back easily enough from your original install or merely by asking here.

Glad you got it figured out. Have fun!

Dave

[Crossroads]

Playing A Legend Is Born, this time as the US player. It sure is more fun facing those Panthers, with Burning Bridges in the background It even ends with the famous "always with them negative waves" quote :thumbs_up:

Mind you: it is a lot to ask for to have someone playing that scenario as the GIs, without feeling any negative waves :chin:

Anyway, if anyone wants to replace those files, just look them up under my profile and rename them!

As I mentioned, I just replaced all abackg* and nbackg* files with these four, and it seems to work just fine.

Given that there's six nbackg* files available (0-5), I might try to convert a few more. Any favourites you'd like to see (or any of you?).

I tried the WF now from the Axis side, after a very quick test, the German music seems to remain original. Now, to replace EF Allied music with Red Army Choir peaces...

[Crossroads]

Alrightie, I believe I have figured this out, at least for the Allied side...

abackg* and nbackg* files seem indeed to be the music files for that side. Additionally, between the songs, ambient battle noices are played.

I removed the music files from my folder, in order not to infringe any copyright laws. If you want to implement this uber cool user mod, here's the how to:

1) Download the Free YouTube to MP3 Converter
http://download.cnet.com/Free-YouTube-to...65553.html

2) Paste these URLs to it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M00-Z3SOlOA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pekoS6N56...re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91aSwHb0n...re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IPFpN5w2...re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plN-je5Jf...re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCcuh4B5L...re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEGIgdoyz...re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhKnEo9Zy...re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu11QRO9BrQ

... to get the following music in:
The Bridge at Remagen [Main Title]
A Bridge Too Far
Where Eagles Dare [Main Title]
The Longest Day [March & Choral]
Band of Brothers [Main Theme]
The Bridge on the River Kwai [Colonel Bogey]
The Great Escape [Main Title]
Burning Bridges + Oddball
PATTON (1970) Main Title

Of course, you can select any YouTube vids for conversion...

3) Download the 4Musics Multiformat Converter
http://download.cnet.com/4Musics-Multifo...48009.html

Select the folder where you converted the MP3s into, once the files are in the 4Musics Converter, select them all, choose OGG as the output file, start the conversion. You need to wait a bit and to click "Continue" after each conversion unless you choose to buy the full version.

4) Rename each OGG file in the Output folder separately
abackg0, abackg1, abackg2,nbackg0, ..., nbackg5

5) Backup your original abackg* and nbackg* files.

6) Copy the new abackg* and nbackg* files into WF folder

7) Enjoy! I am not 100% certain all songs will be played, I will edit this message as I learn more.

EDIT: It seems all the tunes get played. But some of them appear also on Axis side. Perhaps some of the files are for both sides. At least nbackg0, 1, 4 and 5 were played for the Axis side as well.

That would seem to imply the nbackg* files are for both sides, abackg0,1, and 2 are for the Allied only, and xbackg0, 2, 3 and 4 for Axis only.

Over in all, three for Allied side exclusively, four (WF) or five (EF) for Axis side exlusively (and six common tunes. I have not looked at RS as I tend not to play it. But with The Pacific, Midway, etc available, maybe I should. I also need to revisit the Russian three tunes for EF (abackg0-2).

8) To have even more fun, replace also the xbackg1.ogg file to enjoy a new tune while selecting your scenario. It will start playing the minute you have the first Menu view, and continues to play until a scenario is started.

To experience how it works, I actually have two sample xbackg1 files in my private folder, one for EF, one for WF. Try them, selecting your scenario to play has never been this much fun! :thumbs_up:

As a bonus, I've created a really nice playlist for my mp3 player :thumbs_up:

Again, enjoy!

[Cam]

Hello
After playing this game for 10 years I got tired of the leader images.
For my own personal use, I created new leader.bmp files for the Russians, Germans, Brits and Americans. They are compatible. Am also working on other nationalities. It is a simple file swap

These are not for the " serious " wargamer. Most of the time I laugh at the images :) You never know who may show up...... famous actors, babes, monsters, villians, politicians, etc.

The files are comical and meant for that purpose only.

I can share them if anyone is interested
Cam