ShenSun
Site Staff
- Joined
- Jul 24, 2018
You sir are doing the work of a god. Great project and it makes me excited for the future of Shenmue HD
Shenmue Audio Restoration Project.
- Thread starter Dewey
- Start date
You sir are doing the work of a god. Great project and it makes me excited for the future of Shenmue HD
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2018
- Location
- London
- Favourite title
- Shenmue II
- Currently playing
- Remember Me (PC)
- Steam
- amirmoosavi
I wonder if there was different encoding used for different lines of dialogue for the Japanese audio? Still wondering why some lines of dialogue in that dub sound crisp and clear, would be interesting to compare the files. Then again, I've never played the Japanese dub of Shenmue before so maybe it was like that before? I know with the Dreamcast version of Shenmue II, there are some lines of dialogue which are more compressed than others (notice this especially when buying stuff at the convenience store in Aberdeen; sounds like it's more compressed and/or was recorded in a different session).
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2018
- Favourite title
- Shenmue II
- PSN
- Nineteencc
- Steam
- MurderousInt
Wanted to say thank you and I will be keeping tabs on this project.
No rush, you are doing this off your own back and we don't know fully what d3t will change/fix up to November with the JP release.
You might not think it adds much back, but I'm happy knowing people like you can make this port become closer to being the only version you will need going into the future and preserving the series like what it should have done.
Yeah Shenmue II switches between 14 kHz and 11 kHz. I think they managed to get away with 22 kHz in the Japanese dub in Shenmue. The Japanese version must've had more space left on the disc compared to the western version. Though there was lots of space in either release left in the format, Shenmue II managed to pack tons more on the discs.
They could've easily used the higher sampling rate for at least the opening and other major cutscenes but I guess with the English dub they wanted everything to have sound on the same level.
Still not sure how the format in the rerelease works. Think they made everything into a sort of Xbox version. The English dub in Shenmue II instantly seemed to sound just like at did on there at least.
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2018
- Location
- UK
Well, I thank you for taking on such a big job.
It's all packed in AFS files, just like the original. If you jump on the Discord (I'll PM you an invite link), just ask around and get pointed in my direction and I'll get you all set up with everything you need to start converting. No lie, when I first realized how bad the audio was, and how fixable it was; you were one of the first people I thought of that could be a HUGE help.
They didn't cut samplerates, but bitrates. The way they cut bitrates shows it was, in fact, intentional. In fact, the way to fix the audio is to start over from scratch; but only do half the work on the audio that they did... just stop at the midway point, and the audio will be 1:1 with Dreamcast... That's not hyperbole. Literally just do only the first half of what they did, and it works. It seems like everything here is in the original format, except for where it needed to be changed (IE voices); but they made some really -REALLY- weird choices. Again, just pop in on Discord and find me, I'd love to have you on the team (which currently only definitively consists of me, but others on Discord have been a HUGE help)
EDIT: Also, here's a quick side by side (and not a great one, just a quick one I recorded at 4 AM) of the latest scene I've fixed the audio for
Original:
Fixed:
EDIT 2: I just want to let everyone know I released a small preview (literally just that cutscene above) on Discord. I won't link it here, but you can find a link elsewhere on the dojo. Future releases will most likely be released the same way.
Last edited by a moderator:
Sorry about the double post, but I wanted to bump the thread to let everyone know that converting Free-roam voices may not be such a massive hurdle afterall; I think I figured out a workaround for most of it, that will only force me to manually compare ~35 files per disc (hopefully only 35 per disc, I've only really looked at disc 1 so far; but it should be pretty much the same across the board). Comparing 35 files by hand is way more palatable than comparing over 12,000 files (per disc) by hand.
Funnily enough, while Shenmue 1 HD has worse audio quality, Im 99% certain that Shenmue 2 HD actually has better quality than the original Xbox version. Not crystal clear or anything but less compressed for sure.
I highly doubt that, and as soon as I can source a copy of shenmue II for Xbox, I’ll be looking into it
RiGoRmOrTiS
Joined: 2002
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2018
- Location
- Newcastle, UK
Shenmue 2 audio mix is all over the place, some voices sound very muddy and low volume, others are clearer and also louder. Super inconsistent. Not the mention the music is still messed up in random places, better than before with the latest patches but still not good enough.
Inconsistent isn't the word for it. Don't worry; great strides are being made, and I'll be fixing all the audio I can (this -WILL- include free roam audio, for sure, in the near future. A workaround for the issues I had have been found and/or made). When I get a bit further along in this, I'll be detailing exactly what the problems are with the audio in these ports, how these problems came to be, how I fixed them, and why it is absolutely ridiculous that I even have to do this.
All this being said, there is one way in which everyone can help me. Please, please, please, please, please; use the Forklift mod loader and English audio for Shenmue 1 (Japanese for Shenmue II... for now), even if you aren't going to be using mods; just to send file hashes to the Wulinshu server. My big road block now, is I can't (easily) put files in the game for testing, or get proper filenames, since I need hashes. Theoretically, I can get around that; but it will be time consuming and will delay this even more; and I can't work around that problem like I can the free roam issue.
Mittens2317
Class A Cunt
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2018
- Location
- Manchester
- Favourite title
- Shenmue
- Currently playing
- Minesweeper
- XBL
- Mittens2317
- Steam
- Mittens2317
You'd think, but especially in large, chaotic projects, just getting the game out is enough. For all we know, the original audio data could be lost.
If it isn't, it might only exist on some kind of media (DAT tape is most likely given the era) that would require all of the raw recording sessions to be captured and edited all over again. For the amount of speech in these games, it's unlikely Sega would bother with that expense, especially given that they're able to point to the game's age as a way to fend off any complaints about audio quality.
RiGoRmOrTiS
Joined: 2002
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2018
- Location
- Newcastle, UK
I was just wondering, are the midi files from the Dreamcast version of Shenmue 2 easy enough to copy over to the PC version? I really do wonder if they migrated the midi driver over from Shenmue 1 on Dreamcast and then tried to use it on midi files created for the Xbox version.if that's the case maybe we can fix the music in Shenmue 2 by replacing those with the dreamcast originals..
This is literally exactly what they're doing, and people are buying it. That's part of why I'm so motivated to convert all of this audio. When I finish the English dub, I'm going to make a video detailing what they did to the audio, how they fucked up, how they could have not fucked up, how I did exactly what they could have done to not fuck up, and how I got to that point. This audio quality makes me angrier and angrier the more I delve into it. Just a sea of bad choices for no reason.
I don't know; it's one of the things I'm going to take a look into once I get done with the Japanese dub of Shenmue 1. That being said, if someone wants to look into that or Shenmue II as a whole while I work on Shenmue I, that'd be awesome. I'm only one person, I can't quite do EVERYTHING.
And now, a quick update for the dojo. The major hurdles to this project have been overcome through a mixture of dumb luck, poor choices, and good friends. I'm not 100% sure in which way I'll release it, but we will have tools to do the conversion yourself if you want to see how truthful I am in the video I mentioned I'll be making up above. I should not be able to make this mod, given some of the logistical issues with it, but here we are. Production is ramping up, so I should have some sort of release beyond the teaser on Discord within the next few days to a week.
Mittens2317
Class A Cunt
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2018
- Location
- Manchester
- Favourite title
- Shenmue
- Currently playing
- Minesweeper
- XBL
- Mittens2317
- Steam
- Mittens2317
Look pal, you're obviously doing some top work here, and I really don't wanna discourage you, but I feel I have to bring this up for the sake of your own sanity and health...
Is there any chance that the apparently shoddy work was just a quick "fix" (of sorts) to get the game out on time? If this is the case, then the audio could theoretically be still getting worked on behind the scenes for the Japanese launch date, then patched into the western releases.
Now I'm not clued up on the situation as I haven't really been reading too much on Shenmue over the last year, and I'm only bringing this up because I'd hate for you to spend so much time and effort on it only for it to be a waste.
Your passion and dedication for this is next level, but it might be an idea to put the breaks on til the end of November (I think I read that's when they're dropping support for the re-releases, is that right?)
Either way, massive respect for what you're doing.
Is there any chance that the apparently shoddy work was just a quick "fix" (of sorts) to get the game out on time? If this is the case, then the audio could theoretically be still getting worked on behind the scenes for the Japanese launch date, then patched into the western releases.
Now I'm not clued up on the situation as I haven't really been reading too much on Shenmue over the last year, and I'm only bringing this up because I'd hate for you to spend so much time and effort on it only for it to be a waste.
Your passion and dedication for this is next level, but it might be an idea to put the breaks on til the end of November (I think I read that's when they're dropping support for the re-releases, is that right?)
Either way, massive respect for what you're doing.
There’s a slim chance, but I highly doubt it. I did a ton more work than this (this is all going to be detailed, because someone needs to talk about this, it’s outright unacceptable), but the end result, will be us doing literally half the work they did, and achieving far superior results. There are certain things that they had to make deliberate choices for, to do everything the way they did; and they were HORRENDOUS choices that did not need to be made, and depending on WHEN the choices were made, could even be seen as a way of trying to sabotage this release (although I don’t quite think that was the case). Ultimately, I think it was, at best, a case of giving the game to a bunch of interns and never looking at it again
Wow, now thats a story I would want to know more about. Thanks for all the hard work you and everyone else in this modding community are putting into making this the definitive version of Shenmue I & II. Who knows? Maybe after a couple of years we can have something of the case caliber as the Silent Hill 2 Enhanced Edition. http://www.enhanced.townofsilenthill.com/SH2/