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Innes's picture
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Joined: 2009 Aug 19
Retrieving music from games

I'm curious if anyone knows if this is possible.

The game in question is Greebles. The game's three tracks are in a format that would appear to use Quicktime Music Synthesiser to play in game, some sort of MIDI? I've located the files in ResEdit (which puts them in the 'moov' section) but i'm not sure if there is a way to retrieve them as a standalone file or what sort of file that would be if it was possible.

As is apparent, i'm not too clued up about this sort of thing, any input greatly appreciated

Cheers

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MikeTomTom's picture
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Joined: 2009 Dec 7

I didn't have much luck with this one. But you did say any input...

They are (classic Mac) QuickTime resources for MIDI. Typically, classic Mac QuickTime MIDI files have a single "moov" resource per QuickTime type MIDI file, with the MIDI track as a resource in the file and the file with a filename suffix ending .mid! (as opposed to .mid). It also has, per .mid!, a "pnot" resource, which is not present in the Greebles resource fork.

With the Greeble "moov" resources, using ResEdit:

Double-click the "moov" resource to view to its contained resources. Select one of the three moov resources and copy it via ResEdit's "Edit -> Copy" menu.

Go "File" menu, "New". A dialog pops up giving you an opportunity to save the new file in a location of your choice. Give it some file name, but also give it a filename suffix ending of ".mid!" A new empty ResEdit window opens. Click the new window if its not selected and paste in the resource you just copied.

Next, go to "File" menu again and choose "Get info for [your-filename].mid!". - In the following dialog, use the tab key (because it selects fields correctly) to tab to the "Type" field. Enter "MooV" (without quotes & its case sensitive). Next, tab to the "Creator" field and type "TVOD". Close the dialog, saving when asked.

Not quite finished yet... Double-click the "moov" resource again. Select the resource you can see and get info on it (Command + I). change its ID to 128, (this is the ID # used for every QT .mid!). Close and save changes.

Quit ResEdit.

Assuming you have the QuickTime Player installed: You can double click the resulting file to play the file in the QuickTime Player. You will likely need the full QT Player to look at the contents (get info) on what you just created. Because if like me, you won't hear much sound. I get sporadic sound "chunks", of pianos & horns, interspersed with long periods of silence. Getting info on the sound track via the player shows the number of instruments used (quite a few). But the results are not usable... no pnot resource for starters, whether important or not - it is missing.

This is as far as I could get with it. I could see all of the instruments used, per mid, but I couldn't get them to play back... satisfactorily.

[Edit] Also just noticed the three "MDAT" resources with the same resource ID's as the 3 "moov" resources in the Greebles file (named "Music 1, 2 & 3"). These would be controlling what sounds are created throughout the game-play I would think by manipulating the moov resource contents. Just guessing 'tho'.