Most people's responses to this post are stating that most of the BGM's are located in the BGM folder, and can be replaced or removed by changing the .mp3 or .wav files located there. I would just like to say I am aware of this fact but that is not the purpose of this guide the purpose of this guide is on how to change EMBEDDED music i.e. not located in the BGM or ambient folders but in the .hfs files themselves. This guide serves more than that purpose though, it can be used if people simply want to know how to convert extract and view any and all of the .hfs files for Vindictus if people would like a more complete guide that JUST relates to the .hfs files and using VZipFlip then please ask me and I will put one together.
Thank you
--CXloud
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Grettings everyone!
So, how many of you here are sick of hearing the same irritating tune play out everytime you depart for a battle quest? Well, I'm gonna show you how to change all that! It's reasonably straight-forward.
Firstly, you will need a few things to get started
- VzipFlip - a nice little utility for converting the .hfs files to .zip and back again. download here (unzip and save this into a new folder on your desktop)
- WinRAR - to zip the new files. download here
- Audacity - a free music editing tool for trimming down the song you're going to be using. download here
- Vindictus game folder (obviously)
- some time to spare
Okay so, what I'm going to show you now is just to change the boat start music BUT this guide doesn't end there, it is possible to apply this method to change any other sound files located in any other .hfs file. I am currently in the process of isolating all the .hfs containing sound files and what sounds they specifically are, if anyone is interested in a full list please do let me know.
Anyways, lets get started,
First things first, what you're going to want to do is begin by finding a nice little mp3 you want to play during the boat departure. I actually used a song already present in the vindictus 'BGM' folder, (the track with 'pvp' in the title) as I thought it was fairly fitting 'fight start' music.
Now once you have a track you want to use, you're going to need to pick a section of it that is NO LONGER than 30 seconds. (yes I know its short but from what I tested, any longer and it won't work any shorter and it will loop).
Once you've found what you want, open your mp3 of choice into Audacity and trim it down. To do this simply, select the start point of your isolated section and drag all the way back then hit the 'delete' key on your keyboard, do the same again, but this time selecting the end point of your section and dragging to the end of the track.
Done? excellent, make sure you play the track to double check that it's exactly how you want it. Once you have it how you like simply select 'File > Export as MP3' save this new mp3 somewhere you wont forget it, and set the filename as 'ui_start_sail'
ignore the next window that pops up as this is just for media player purposes (i.e. noting artist/title/album etc.) just leave everything blank.
Okay now that we have our new mp3 we can start on replacing the old one. So, lets start by finding the mp3 file we are replacing. What you need to do is go into your Nexon game folder the into the folder named 'hfs' (e.g. C:\Nexon\Vindictus\en-us\hfs) you will notice all the files have ridiculously long filenames this is unfortunate but luckily the naming is global (all filenames remain the same for every copy of vindictus) now, the file we are looking for is called '232B03472C8C5B5883D9A88A5BDB766BDFEF5328'
Once you have found this file make sure you back it up just to be on the safe side.
Right, remember that program vZipFlip you downloaded? Copy this file into the same folder that you saved vZipFlip into (make sure it's a new folder preferably on your desktop for the purposes of this guide).
We are now going to be using the Windows command prompt, as vZipFlip is a command line utility. So start up your command prompt (Start > run > cmd) once it is open, enter the command 'cd desktop' once your path indicates you are on the desktop you then need to enter the folder to which you saved vZipFlip and the hfs file, do this by typing 'cd directory_name'' (i.e. 'cd New Folder').
Now that you are in the new folder you need to run vZipFlip and tell it to convert the hfs into zip format. Do this by typing 'VZipFlip z 232B03472C8C5B5883D9A88A5BDB766BDFEF5328.hfs' and hitting enter.
(Don't worry you can paste onto the command line by clicking the top left hand corner of the window and selecting 'edit > paste' there is no need to type out the entire name manually but don't forget to add the .hfs extension)
This should run through very quickly. As soon as it says 'Wrote to \232B03472C8C5B5883D9A88A5BDB766BDFEF5328_.zip' then it has completed succesfully. Unfortunately VZipFlip has access issues and won't write the new .zip file into the current directory but you can find it under your root drive (usually your 'C:\' drive).
Once this has completed you can delete the hfs file from the new folder (otherwise it'll get in the way later on MAKE SURE YOU DONT DELETE ANYTHING TO DO WITH VZIPFLIP)
Once you have deleted the hfs file from the new folder and you have located the nice new zip file you can open the zip and take a look at the files, you should see a bunch of sounds relating to the ui. dont worry too much about these.
Anyway, what you need to do now is extract all of these files into the folder containing VZipFlip (where you previously placed the hfs) and delete the zip file from wherever vZipFlip places it, as i said previously this is usually your root drive.
When they have all extracted you need to find the file 'ui_start_sail.mp3'. Found it? Good! now delete it.
Once deleted you can then place the new one you created earlier using Audacity into this folder.
Now that your new little theme tune is there and you're happy with it all we then need to re-zip all of these files. Provided you have already installed WinRAR successfully (if not do so NOW) you can then rezip these files by selecting all of them (make sure you don't accidentally select the vZipFlip files or this could cause some unknown issues) once selected, right click on any one of the selected files and choose the option 'Add to archive' A WinRAR pop-up should appear, what you need to do here is name your new archive you are going to want to name this archive the same name as the hfs file now that you have the right name, under the 'Archive format' option click the 'ZIP' radio button. Leave all other options as they are then click 'OK'
Once that has completed you should now notice that you have a new zip file in your folder, we now need to convert this back into .hfs in order for it to be compatible with Vindictus. To do this we will again be using VZipFlip.
Start your command line and cd into your new folder the same as you did when you were converting the hfs file. Now this time the command you will want to type is 'VZipFlip h 232B03472C8C5B5883D9A88A5BDB766BDFEF5328.zip' (don't forget the .zip extension)
Again, this should run through in a very similar fashion to before and will, AGAIN, save the newly created hfs under your root drive, but thats not so much of a problem now.
VZipFlip for some reason likes to gives it's filenames an underscore ' _ ' at the end. Just delete this underscore from the filename before doing anything more.
Once you've deleted the underscore you can copy this file back into the Vindictus hfs directory ('C:\Nexon\Vindictus\en-us\hfs') When prompted select that you want to replace the existing file.
OKAYYYYYY, now, I do believe that about covers it! CONGRATS! you've just successfully changed the bgm for your departing boats! (well make sure you test it before you crack open the champagne).
I hope some, if not all of you have found this useful! If so then good, this guide has served its purpose!
Happy hunting!
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I do hope this guide wasn't too confusing for anyone, somehow I fear it may be as I slightly confused myself at some points whilst writing this. But, I believe I have corrected any mistakes I made, and if I haven't then I apologise but will correct them ASAP.
If you do have any issues with this please let me know and I'll help you as best I can.
Also for those of you who are epicly baffled by this guide or are just plain lazy send me a message and I'd be more than happy to do it for you.
But again any questions or queries feel free to throw them my way!