Sounds

[rmm10]

I was wondering if anyone has an idea for how to control sounds in RoF2...specifically, how to mute the thunder sound when it rains in a zone, and that horn-like sound in HoH. Those sounds start to get on my nerves when I have multiple toons all playing those sounds back to back.

And before anyone says it...yes, I have already tried using the Sound Realism slider control and the Environmental Sounds checkbox. And yes, I know I can simply turn off all sounds at the hardware level using keyboard controls, or set the Sound Volume in the client to zero, or use various settings like a Nosound.txt file or Sounds=False. But I don't want to disable all sounds, as I want to use audio triggers. I also want to hear when my toons are being hit.

I've already tried deleting all the files in the Sound folder...sadly, this did not mute the thunder sound (and yes, I relogged my test toon after deleting the files...sound files, like map files, are probably all loaded into memory at startup rather than being disk accessed as-needed during play). I can't recall if it muted the horns in HoH...I don't think it did.

I did a search in the MQ2 docs for "sound" and "audio" and nothing was found, so I assume that it won't help. Although there is a plugin that seems to be an advanced version of audio triggers, it only seems to be able to add sounds, not subtract them.

[peterigz]

Eq sound effects are stored in eff and emt files, with emt being the newer file format that eq uses I believe. Unfortunately you might have difficulty editing those as I don't think there're any programs out there that will do it. Emt files are supposed to be more editable but I don't know what with.

[rmm10]

Ty peterigz. I did suspect that many zone sounds are in zone files and not in separate files. I had hoped that thunder would be in an independent file because its used in so many place.

But...hmm...I wonder if I can delete the hoh sound files to get rid of the horns but without affecting combat sounds...

[rmm10]

According to filext.com, EMT files are from Unreal Engine (did you know that EQ used Unreal Engine? I didn't). And it seems its a simple text file with 20 parameters in it (yes, I counted them). It appears to call a specific sound file and then play it with set conditions as directed to by the other 19 parameters.

EFF files might be, according to filext, from Infinity Game Engine by Bioware (the Star Wars Old Republic people). Unfortunately, its a binary file and so mostly likely beyond my capability to edit unless I want to start playing with a hex editor.

I got rid of the HoH horns by editing hohonora_sndbnk.eff. This particular eff is a text file. Looks like this:

EMIT
fanfare_tpts_honor
fanfare_tpts_valor
marching_command01
marching_command02
LOOP
electric_arcs_lp
fire_torch02_lp
lake_ripple_lp
wind_water_birds_lp
marching_lp

I began by deleting the top fanfare line and it worked...sorta. It got rid of that particular horn sound snippet but then EQ would play the next fanfare snippet instead. Deleting that too made EQ play the march. However, deleting all four entries did the trick.

Now if only I could figure out how to get rid of thunder...

[Megalomaniac]

I would get rid of the bat sounds in DSK it I could!

[peterigz]

Interesting, looks like both emt and eff are just text files. If it's binary then it might not be sound but spell effect or other visual effect related. It will just be a coincidence that they're the same extension that other engines use, everquest uses its own inhouse engine I'm pretty sure.

My best guess would be the sound is thunder_rolling.wav which is referenced in these files:

akheva_sndbnk.eff
blacksail.emt
bothunder_sndbnk.eff
buriedsea.emt
deadbone.emt
grimling_sndbnk.eff
hollowshade_sndbnk.eff
jardelshook.emt
lavastorm.emt
maiden_sndbnk.eff
maidensgrave.emt
mmcd.emt
mmce.emt
mmcj.emt
monkeyrock.emt
postorms_sndbnk.eff
redfeather.emt
relic.emt
shadeweaver_sndbnk.eff
suncrest.emt

But I wouldn't know how eq loads or shares the sounds across multiple zones where it can rain.

Edit: actually I just realised that the eff files are paired, one is binary one is text, so I imagine the binary file contains the wav files, and the eff/emt files that are plain text just tell the client what sounds are in those binaries - something along those lines.

[rmm10]

Yeah, I think you're right about EQ using its own in-house engine. The s3d files could be, again according to filext.com, either Micrografx Simply 3D or Strata 3D...which would mean EQ was using three engines all at the same time. Umm...Possible? Sure. Likely? Nope. So I think its all coincidence that EQ's file extensions are matching those of other programs.

I also came to the same conclusion as you when it came to the eff binaries...the text is a sorta script file that tells which snippet in the binary to play, and the binary is actually one or more sound snippets.

I tested some things in HoH again, and naturally I got both the horns and the thunder at the same time. 8-P
Thunder: once per 12-21 seconds
Horns: about once per 90 seconds

If I left hohonora_sndbnk.eff alone and renamed hohonora_sounds.eff, then the horn sound stopped.

And yes, there is something else that goes on with zone sounds, cause your list did not include umbral yet it thunders there too. And there are no umbral files that appear to be sound files. Maybe embedded inside umbral.s3d? But don't those s3d files contain graphics data? So many questions, so few answers...

@Megalomaniac: Go to your RoF2 folder and double-click on dreadspire.emt. When Windows asks which app to read the file with, choose "more apps" then choose Notepad from the list. In that file, you will find four lines that mention bats_fly_squeek02.wav. Try deleting all four of those lines (the whole line, not just the wav name) and see what happens. Keep in mind that this change will probably not take effect until you logout/login as I believe the sound files are all loaded into memory upon starting EQ. Umm...and be sure to keep an unedited copy of that file in case your experiment fails horribly. 8-)

[rmm10]

Ha! I KNEW I was not the only one in the world that was being driven crazy by the thunder sounds.

After my last post in this thread, I asked in the EQemu Discord server if anyone knew of a way to open or edit the various binaries. DougalDragon said S3DSpy but when I yahooed that, I got links to version 1.2 which win10 security does not like. I said this on Discord and Symetrix said version 1.3 does not trigger win10. So I did a yahoo that specific version.

https://osdn.net/projects/sfnet_eqemula ... y_1.3.zip/

During my initial search for S3DSpy, I also found this:

https://www.project1999.com/forums/arch ... 12623.html

This gives instructions on how to use S3DSpy to get rid of thunder. 8-)))

I'll be testing this out. And as always, make a backup copy first. I usually do so by dragging a copy to desktop, renaming it to, for example, hohonora_sounds_orig.eff and then dragging it back to its folder. That way, the original and the edited version are right next to each other.

[Megalomaniac]

Thanks I’ll give it a shot and report back!
Best of luck to you!