Staredit Network

In order to make you even bother reading the post, I'll try to keep it short:

Since the names of files aren't stored inside MPQs, they need to be loaded externally via a listfile you load into WinMPQ. However, even the best listfiles don't have all names, and this is where you guys come in.

I'll attach a .wav file from StarCraft Beta's StarDat.mpq that we don't know the name of, and I would like help in guessing the name.

There are ways of automatically trying to guess names (called namebreaking), but I've been doing that for the past six months (probably even more) and so far without success. While I haven't found the name, I do have some criteria:

• The name begins with sound\bullet\
• The name is at least 10 characters long, apart from the "sound\bullet\"-part
• (Almost) all names are in alphabetical order inside MPQs. At the end of the post there is a list of the other files inside sound\bullet\
• As said, it's in alphabetical order, and I know from the namebreaking that it must be after "NI(I000000".

As you can hear, it's a zergish-type of sound. It's been long since I actually played StarCraft, so I can't remember what sound it is, if it even is in the "real" version and not just in the Beta.


sound\bullet\blastcan.wav
sound\bullet\blastgn2.wav
sound\bullet\dragbull.wav
sound\bullet\esphit00.wav
sound\bullet\hkmissle.wav
sound\bullet\laserb.wav
sound\bullet\laserblt.wav
sound\bullet\laserhit.wav
sound\bullet\lasrhit1.wav
sound\bullet\lasrhit2.wav
sound\bullet\lasrhit3.wav
sound\bullet\ncsFir00.wav
sound\bullet\ngufir00.wav
<UNKNOWN>
sound\bullet\parfir00.wav
sound\bullet\phofir00.wav
sound\bullet\phohit00.wav
sound\bullet\psahit00.wav
sound\bullet\pshield.wav
sound\bullet\psiblade.wav
sound\bullet\psibolt.wav
sound\bullet\ptehit00.wav
sound\bullet\ptrfir00.wav
sound\bullet\ptrfir01.wav
sound\bullet\shcklnch.wav
sound\bullet\shockbmb.wav
sound\bullet\shockcnn.wav
sound\bullet\spooghit.wav
sound\bullet\tbayam00.wav
sound\bullet\tdrFir00.wav
sound\bullet\tghfir00.wav
sound\bullet\tgofi200.wav
sound\bullet\tgofir00.wav
sound\bullet\tmafir00.wav
sound\bullet\tnsfir00.wav
sound\bullet\tncrap00.wav
sound\bullet\tphfi100.wav
sound\bullet\tphfi200.wav
sound\bullet\tphfi201.wav
sound\bullet\tscfir00.wav
sound\bullet\ttafi200.wav
sound\bullet\ttafir00.wav
sound\bullet\ttahi200.wav
sound\bullet\ttahit00.wav
sound\bullet\tvufir00.wav
sound\bullet\tvuhit00.wav
sound\bullet\tvuhit01.wav
sound\bullet\tvuhit02.wav
sound\bullet\zbghit00.wav
sound\bullet\zdeatt00.wav
sound\bullet\zdrhit00.wav
sound\bullet\zgufir00.wav
sound\bullet\zguhit00.wav
sound\bullet\zhyfir00.wav
sound\bullet\zhyhit00.wav
sound\bullet\zlufir00.wav
sound\bullet\zluhit00.wav
sound\bullet\zmufir00.wav
sound\bullet\zqufir00.wav
sound\bullet\zquhit00.wav
sound\bullet\zquhit01.wav
sound\bullet\zquhit02.wav


I hope everyone understood at least what I meant. Simply make an educated guess of what it might be called, based on what the other names are (however, almost all other names are <= 8 characters long, excluding directories and extension, and this name is at least 10 characters long.) And it also must be placed after NI(I000000

If you crave minerals, I can give you some if you find the name

it sounds zerg like, maby something related to broodlings or it might be a unused sound since it doesnt sound that familar. Ill go through some sounds sometime soon to see what I find.

You have starcraft Beta???? you willing to share?


Found it, sound\bullet\zhyhit00.wav

Nope. Tried, and didn't work.

Besides, when you put in sound\bullet\zhyhit00.wav in the list, it's not in alphabetical order anymore:

sound\bullet\ncsFir00.wav
sound\bullet\ngufir00.wav
sound\bullet\zhyhit00.wav
sound\bullet\parfir00.wav
sound\bullet\phofir00.wav

but the sounds are the same so you know im still right, but not in the bloody name way since Blizzard is gay about how they make betas.

I tried a similar thread, only for orders.dat, but many ppl gave up heh
Is that the venom attack ? I didn't get a chance to test...

The sounds are not the same. I can't recognize any differences from hearing alone, though.
Open up the two files in a hex editor and compare them, the unknown is significantly longer, has two small differences at the beginning (I am not too sure about the RIFF-WAVE whatever header, but it could be some kind of filesize), then a long part of the sound is perfectly equal in both files, then it starts getting different, and it stays different.

I am not too sure what that sound could be, my only guess would be something connected to the glave wurm... Would have to start SC for this, though.

Indeed, they do differ in size.

Does anyone have a server to play the beta on (link)? I'm thinking about the possibility to run ShadowFlare's listfile creator plugin for MPQDraft and see if it works... IIRC it crashes upon startup, but I may be mistaken....

Of course, this is under the condition that the sound is accessed, which is not certain. There are also 3 other unknown files (two .pcx-files and one that I don't know what it is). The Listfile Creator Plugin is definitely worth trying....


[edit=1]Indeed, MPQDraft can load up SC Beta just fine, but when the Listfile Creator is loaded along with it, it goes boom and crashes before it's even started. I'll try to bug ShadowFlare about it...[/edit]

Well lots of formats are different in SC beta, including the iscript.

I also opened up the exe and found that it's a lot more... let's say "friendly"
BTW check your PMs when you have time Oj

The h and n keys are close to each other... it could have been a typo.

znyhit00.wav

Well, znyhit00.wav would still be located after parfir00.wav, since z comes after p in the alphabet, but the unknown is located before parfir00.wav, so whatever the name is, it must be before parfir00.wav

I tried it anyway, and it didn't work. However, it can't begin with z.

"nydus" something? It seems possible at least. Did the Nydus Canal have an attack in the beta?

if the game actually use the sound you would probaly be able to find it in arr\sfxdata.tbl

AFAIK, not every sound is in there. Can anyone confirm or deny?

It's a good idea though, didn't think about it myself. I tried, though, and it's not there. :(

sound\bullet\ngsFir00.wav seems to be missing from the list you posted.
It's the only one I could find not accounted for in the TBL, which means the unknown might be sound\bullet\ngufir00.wav and the one labeled as such is in reality sound\bullet\ngsFir00.wav.

But what do I know ? I might be wrong
But there is no other explanation me thinks.

Negative. It's not a list I compiled myself, it's the physical order of the files inside the MPQ.

We know with 100% certainty that the order is correct, and with 98% certainty that the filename is in alphabetical order between the files above and below in (there is a possibility that it's not in alphabetical order, but I have yet to see that even once in the middle of a directory like that).


[edit=1]Almost all files are called something like "tvuhit02", with no more than 8 characters, apart from a few exceptions from the rule in sound\misc\ (like "outofnydus.wav"). Since we know that the name we're looking for is at least 10 characters long, I think it must be a word, or a combination of words put together (again like "outofnydus").

So, it's probably a word describing what the sound effect is. Like Kookster said, it sounds similar to the Hydralisk shot... Can someone come up with 10 char long names reflecting this? [/edit]

Hmm, I'll work on fixing that. It may just be a quick fix and may even be something that I've already fixed and just haven't released.

I wonder, how do you know this?

As I said, there is a way to automatically guess names, using Ladik's MPQ Editor. I've been running this for months, and so far, I haven't found anything. I'm currently at 10 characters long strings, and since it has tried everything under 10 characters, we know it must be 10 or above.

Almost all names are 7 or 8 chars long and follow some kind of logical pattern (tmafir00 for example - terran marine fire), but there are a few exceptions that are longer (for example sound\glue\scorefillend.wav). All of these exceptions seem to be real words and not abbreviations, so it's logical to assume that this unknown is also a real word.


ShadowFlare: Great! :D You'll upload it on your website if you finish it, I assume?

If SF manages to fix this, the problem of unknowns will be no longer a problem, I presume?

It's not that easy, I'm afraid. We can only hope that this sound and the other three files in StarCraft Beta are actually accessed by the game engine. In StarCraft (as in non-beta), there are 4 unknowns in StarDat.mpq that are never accessed, and Install.exe has two unknown sounds that I assume aren't accessed either, so we wouldn't have a grand new listfile with no unknowns left just because SF fixes her plugin, but with some luck, we'll have less in SC Beta.

Actually, come to think of it.... I don't know if anyone has actually monitored SFileOpenFileEx for Install.exe. SF: Do you know if this would be possible, and how difficult it would be?

To do this the function locations would need to be found in install.exe, since it does not use a dll file for the mpq functions.

Sounds like a defiler moving (Hero one)

IIRC, the Mutalisk had an extremely overpowered acid-type attack in the beta. My guess is that this is that attack sound... But it definitely sound like the Nydus canal sound combined with another sound... I'm gonna stick it into audacity and play around with it. The sound sounds a little raw for Starcraft (like when you play a sound backwards...)

EDIT:
Looking at the sound makes me think that this file is corrupted somehow... Here's an image of the sound wave, take a look at how rough it is:
Image

EDIT:
I've tried to clean up the sound. Here ya go...

I agree w/ nydus canal movement or possibly an earlier overlord load/unload transports? what letters would represent such movement and fit into missing slot alphabetically, I can't think of.

I have to give you guys a lot of credit; cracking unknowns is tuff!

How difficult would this be? Actually, I don't know if the unknown Install.exe files are used, so I suppose we should try to figure that out before making further investigations...

Ultramilkman: Possible, I suppose... Hmm...

It does resemble the Nydus sounds, but not exactly. I've attached the two nydus sounds from the beta, so you can hear the difference... intonydus is the same as in the "real" StarCraft. Outofnydus has a different name in the non-beta that I don't remember, but I assume they sound the same....

Jeremy: That image doesn't work... :( It's certainly interested if it is corrupted though, but I would find that very strange. [edit=1]Got it to load now. I'm by no means skilled in audio editing, but does that sound really look different from most other sounds? The few sound curves I've seen seem to look quite a lot like that, IIRC. But as I said, I don't know much about sounds[/edit]

Mutalisk, Overlord... Also possible... Need to think up possible names...


The file isn't the same as zhyhit00 that kookster suggested, but they do sound very much alike. I wonder if it could be something like the Hunter Killer (hero Hydralisk) attack? nhkattack.wav is one letter too short though :( The n doesn't really make too much sense either, since I find it difficult to believe that Hunter Killer was neutral, even in the beta...