NAME F1Bnm VERSION v1.7a (Feb 08, 2000). Find the latest version at http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsdi/ FUNCTION Edits F1RS and MGPRS2 Sound Bank files. These are *.BNM files in your resson directory, e.g. Bnk_0.BNM). AUTHOR Rene Smit PLATFORM Windows 95/NT (32-bit MFC program) FILES F1Bnm.exe F1Bnm.txt REQUIREMENTS MFC42.DLL MSVCRT.DLL If F1Bnm complains you don't have one of these, download them from my homepage: http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsdi/mfclibs.zip and store them in the same directory as F1Bnm.exe. DESCRIPTION This utility lets you edit F1RS and MGPRS2 sound bank files (stored under the \f1datab\resson and \datab\resson directory respectively). After you've started F1Bnm, the main window appears. First, set your preferred default game in the Game menu. This can be either F1RS or MGPRS2. After that, open a .bnm file with the File|Open command. Locate a .bnm file to edit (for example bnk_0.bnm) and open it. If everything went okay a window appears with the list of sound resources located in the sound bank file. This is the Resource View. During loading of the file, F1Bnm will write all banked samples to single .wav files in the same directory. It won't remove them when you exit F1Bnm though. Just make all samples external if you are low on disk space. Resource View ------------- The name and description are taken from the .BNS file. If you want to change them, you can load that file into a text editor and change it there (always use " around strings). You can listen to a sound in this list by selecting it (click on its name) and pick the menu command Sound|Play. If you double click on it, there will appear a dialog in which you can edit the sound resource properties. You cannot listen to or edit CD Audio resources. Within this dialog you'll mostly want to select a new .wav sound file and edit loop information if necessary (e.g. for engine sound). You select a new sound file by clicking on the "select" button. There will appear a file open dialog which starts in your resson directory. Pick a new .wav file from here. If your custom .wav files are located somewhere else, please copy them to the resson directory first, because this is where F1RS will try to find it! Once you've made a selection there will appear a dialog where you can preview the .wav file and/or browse for another one. If you're satisfied with your selection press OK and you're back at the sound resource properties dialog. The following data has now been entered for you (extracted from the .wav file): sound file length, sampling rate, sample bits (8 or 16), channels (1 for mono, 2 for stereo), and file name. Additionally, the loop data has been initialized to defaults. If you want to get a smooth loop without ticks you almost always need to enter 'good' values in the loop start and loop length edit boxes. You can find out these values by experimenting with a sound editor. Ofcourse, if you disable looping of the sound there's no need to edit this information. You can also specify if the sound needs to be banked or must be retrieved from the .wav file within the game (external). When the .bnm file is saved, all sounds marked as 'Bank' will be appended to the .bnm file. The offsets will be calculated automatically. Once you're ready with editing you can dismiss the dialog by pressing the OK button. This will apply the changes and the list of sounds will be updated. Event View ---------- New in v1.3 is the Event View, which can be brought up with Window|New Event View (or Ctrl+E). This will show all sound events located in the .bnm file. The following events are recognized: Play, Stop, Pitch, Volume and Effect. The Pitch and Volume events can be edited (with Edit|Properties). They have two parameters that affect the sound, ranging from 0 to 65536. Header Information ------------------ You can view the .bnm header with View|Header, which will show a dialog with the header information. This is of no real use, but it gives some extra data for insiders. The sample data offset is the offset (in hexadecimal notation) of the sample data within the .bnm file. The offset of a sound resource is relative to this offset if its storage type is 'Bank'. If its storage type is 'External', its data is retrieved from the .wav file instead, usually using a default offset of 44, which is the sample data offset within a .wav file. Other Commands --------------- There are two more commands in the menu. If you want to get rid of all the banked sample data, you can make all sounds external with Edit|All External. This will truncate the .bnm file to a minimum size (equal to sample data offset), make all sound storage types 'External', and set all sound offsets to 44. If you want to make all sounds banked, use Edit|All Banked. This will append all .wav files to the .bnm file and calculate all offsets, while making all sound storage types 'Bank'. HISTORY 14-03-98 Start of F1Bnm project. Shows sound resources information in .bnm files. -------- Release v1.0 -------- 16-03-98 Added editing of sound resource table. -------- Release v1.1 -------- 17-03-98 Some other enhancements. -------- Release v1.2 -------- 20-03-98 Added viewing of sound event table. No editing of sound length and offset. Ability to save banked sounds. 22-03-98 Added editing of sound event table. -------- Release v1.3 -------- 27-09-98 Fixed bug that made it refuse to read MGP .bnm files. Resson directory only used for file open dialog now. Added writing out of all banked samples upon loading. -------- Release v1.4 -------- 28-09-98 Now also works if there's no F1RS .ini file found. -------- Release v1.5 -------- 10-01-99 Added choice of either F1RS or MGPRS2 default directory. -------- Release v1.6 -------- 06-02-00 Added name and description from .BNS file. Added support for Bnk_2.bnm. -------- Release v1.7 -------- 08-02-00 Fixed a bug that could cause a crash during parsing of the .BNS file. -------- Release v1.7a -------- KNOWN BUGS If you find any bugs or have any suggestions for improvement, feel free to mail me at: f1perfview@xs4all.nl. THANKS Thanks to Roland Kohrsen for providing initial information on F1RS sound bank files. Thanks to James Whitmore for testing. DISCLAIMER USE THIS PROGRAM AT YOUR OWN RISK. THE AUTHOR IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE THAT IS DONE BY THIS PROGRAM TO ANYTHING IN ANY WAY. IF YOUR .BNM FILE IS COMPLETELY MESSED UP BY F1BNM, COPY THE ORIGINAL ONE FROM YOUR F1RS CD. LEGAL IT IS NOT ALLOWED TO SELL OR DISTRIBUTE THIS PROGRAM WITHOUT EXPLICIT PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR. THIS PROGRAM IS NOT ENDORSED BY UBISOFT.