A request regarding the KOF2002UM BGM files and modding

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S-O
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Joined: Mon Mar 15, 2021 3:52 am

A request regarding the KOF2002UM BGM files and modding

Post by S-O »

I realize that this probably won't be a possible "small" update unless SNK allows you to do another general update for the game (I think you're all working on the upcoming PS4 port of 2002UM, so there may be a chance?), but this "issue" has been something that's been bothering me a bit. I was wondering, given the chance, if you could make [manual] music modding/replacing for the PC/Steam port of The King of Fighters 2002 Unlimited Match easier for the more tech-sway users/players with just a few changes in the game code (to clarify: I'm not asking for any "official" music replacement option to be added within the game itself).

Initially, both [the XBLA and your subsequent PC/Steam ports of] KOF98UM and KOF02UM used Microsoft's now unsupported Cross-Platform Audio Creation Tool (XACAT) Wave Bank (.xwb) format. People noticed that, after you and SNK's rollback update for 2002UM, you had changed the format of the music files to the more standard and readily-supported OGG format. While this made things easier in regards to modifying/replacing music if a user so wishes, it also made it harder in another area: Loop points.

See, the XACAT/XWB format and tools allowed people to set their own loop points from within the XACAT/XWB sound files themselves (which allowed user-made music mods for, say, KOF98UM, have proper loop points), which is something that OGG, as far as I can tell, doesn't natively support (which makes sense since the format wasn't quite designed for that - though OGG looping has been possible in other games and engines). However, it seems that you have hardcoded these loop points for the OGG-converted music within the executable(s) for the game itself (at least I think that's what you did)?

There have been attempts to "cheat" this limitation by extending the music itself to feel like it's looping properly, but that obviously adds too much to the file size of the music being replaced. While some would probably want to modify the exes to edit the loop points themselves, I don't know if that would be... advisable for obvious reasons. Therefore, what I want is for there to be a way to set loop points from either the OGG themselves (using OGG tag comments maybe?) or by decoupling the loop points from the game code/exes and making the loop points an easily editable file. This wouldn't be anything immediately noticeable to a general end-user, and more for general modders than anything else.

(And if, by the off-chance you're allowed by SNK to update KOF98UM and the music format changes to OGG too, allow the same type of loop point editing for modders for that game as well.)
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