Custom music (beyond Custom 1 & 2)

[waymu]

 

Something I discovered while messing around with the audio files. Does not work on regular RCT2.

 

[Broxzier]

Many of the .dat files are just wave files. By replacing the extension to .wav you can hear what songs they are. Replacing any of these will replace the music you hear in-game. You can even replace the in-game sounds (coaster speed, peeps, sound effects, interface user feedback sounds, etc.) which are saved in a special way. This following page explains how css1.dat works and how it contains all the sounds in the game: http://freerct.github.io/RCTTechDepot-Archive/css1dat.html It's quite interesting to know how it works.

[waymu]

On 1/10/2016 at 06:18, Broxzier said:

Many of the .dat files are just wave files. By replacing the extension to .wav you can hear what songs they are. Replacing any of these will replace the music you hear in-game. You can even replace the in-game sounds (coaster speed, peeps, sound effects, interface user feedback sounds, etc.) which are saved in a special way. This following page explains how css1.dat works and how it contains all the sounds in the game: http://freerct.github.io/RCTTechDepot-Archive/css1dat.html It's quite interesting to know how it works.

I've always wondered how I could replace the sound effects for fun. Maybe there's a way to extract css1 and then pack it all back in afterwards?

I've used some program in the past to unpack all the sound effects in RCT3. Problem is, I had no idea how to get them back into one file.

Edited January 20, 2016 by waymu

[Xeltron245]

I did this and it only played the first few seconds of the track I inserted and then started again.

 

EDIT - I replaced CSS3.dat (Dodgems Beat Style) with a new music file and this is what happened.

 

Does this perhaps have anything to do with the fact that those are 8-bit?

Edited February 27, 2016 by Xeltron245

[jensj12]

The song can't be any longer than the original. Songs with a different bitrate may be cut even shorter. Follow the guide as precisely as possible (options like a different bitrate or file type) to prevent any issues.

[Xeltron245]

Yep got it. Trimmed down the music I wanted in to fit by a bit of mixing, hopefully eventually this can be bypassed.

[imlegos]

Trigger's Toolkit has some audio tools, including translating every sound file in the game to a .mp3, and replacing audio files with those you would like to. Trigger is actually the one who created the ORCT2 steam stub, he also has a few other tools like a content gallery for viewing assets and a maze generator.

[imlegos]

Also, ORCT2 does support css50.dat, which is recomended to be used as RCT1's theme, but can be used to add your own title music.

[imlegos]

Also also, For some reason, Windows Media Player (Win10) can read .dat files properly. No clue why this is a thing, but it is.

[Broxzier]

Some .dat files are straight forward .wav files. The media player simple opens the file, checks the first 4 bytes to see it's a RIFF format, then it reads the header, sees that it's a wave file, and uses the data in the header to load the sound from the rest of the file. Most media players should be able to handle this, an extension alone means nothing.

[Nubbie]

Really nice info, helped me a bit too when I tried to change the titel music

I don't want to hijack this thread, just point out that I made a tutorial here on the forums on How to change the title music in the game.

Link:  HOW TO - Custom title screen music (Tutorial)

 

[TCE]

Any news on when you can actually go beyond custom 1 and 2?

[Deurklink]

1 hour ago, TCE said:

Any news on when you can actually go beyond custom 1 and 2?

I am going to assume when we have new save file format 

[TCE]

1 hour ago, Deurklink said:

I am going to assume when we have new save file format 

Which doesn't seem like will ever happen unfortunately

[Deurklink]

Just now, TCE said:

Which doesn't seem like will ever happen unfortunately

It takes time..

There's a huge amount of issues, and a small group of people working on it in their spare time.

https://github.com/OpenRCT2/OpenRCT2/issues

[X7123M3-256]

Just now, TCE said:

Which doesn't seem like will ever happen unfortunately

Wait, what makes you think that? It's been stated many times by the developers that this is planned for the future.

 

I'm not actually sure if you need a new save format to increase the number of custom music slots - in fact, I'm pretty sure you don't, since those music files don't go in savegames, and I'm not seeing anything in a quick search of the code that would suggest otherwise. But if you wanted to make it so they did go in savegames, then that would need a new save format.

Edited January 19, 2018 by X7123M3-256