TresCom Forums

I'm currently attempting to build a custom .TPA file, however using TPA reader is taking exceptionally long due to it becoming more and more laggy as I add sounds. There are well over 150 sounds that need to be imported to just my Ambient.tpa alone, and another 200 or so with Effects and Stream combined, and the lag with only 30 sounds imported to one file is already becoming very frustrating. For example, I imported a single 1:35 minute long music piece to my Stream.tpa which ate up about 4 seconds, and then when I tried to import a second file of a similar length, it took double the time, and this continues as the file gets larger. Not to mention the program tends to hang quite frequently when repeatedly opening the .TPA file to add more sounds (another unnecessary step if I might say so).

With that in mind, do we happen to have a tool for quick TPA batch importing? I have all of my files named appropriately (AMB-WATERFALLLARGE-01.wav, etc) to what they should be in-game, and having to manually name them all through TPA Reader just adds a seemingly unnecessary extra step to the process. What I'd like to see is a program that you can simply drag and drop your wave files into (or select them via menu of course), and it automatically imports them all with the name you assigned to the .wav or .cau file in alphabetical order. This would save an insane amount of time importing. It would also be great to have a way to edit the name, subtitles and whether or not they classify as EFT status freely, perhaps in the format of some text boxes and switches. Basically all of TPA Reader's features, but with the ability to edit after the import and batch import. And preferably without all the lag, of course.

Would anyone be able to write this program, or point me to a tool that has all of the above that I am requesting? I'm fully aware of the batch importer, but it requires a lot of extra time writing each line of code and is a bit difficult for newbies. At the moment, I'm thinking the BAT importer is the best way to go, since TPA Reader becomes unusable quite quickly when you start making larger TPA files which use longer sounds, but again there's the coupe of issues I mentioned above. Still, the BAT converter is adequate if nobody feels like making a new program.

The only tool is the TPAAdd, which you mention. However, it does not allow adding subtitles, and it can be a bit messy. I am also aware that machf said the custom .TPA files we have is a bit buggy still, even the one made from scratch, as they are all made before we got the source AFAIK. But yes, a batch importer or option for TPA Reader would be nice.

I want to note... Tatu once tried making updated TPA files for Trespasser, updating the retail with sounds from earlier versions, and one of the side-effects was that sounds already in the TPA in question would sometimes.. disappear or become corrupted or something. I identified it when my favorite vehicle-crash sound stopped playing in levels. Not really sure the cause but it might be prudent to create TPAs from scratch.

How about using EffectsEditor? Of course, first you need to have the sound files in .CAU format... but that's not a problem, as I already extracted them that way from the earlier versions.

And you'll need to enter the sound names manually. Remember, file names (samples) are independent from sound names, as the same sample can be referred by two or more different sound IDs in-game.

Yeah. The issue was not updating the retail TPAs, the issue was that it somehow broke the foley-table. Has anyone ever manage to proper make their own foley-table?

machf wrote:How about using EffectsEditor? Of course, first you need to have the sound files in .CAU format... but that's not a problem, as I already extracted them that way from the earlier versions.

And you'll need to enter the sound names manually. Remember, file names (samples) are independent from sound names, as the same sample can be referred by two or more different sound IDs in-game.

Good suggestion, machf. EffectsEditor works like a charm. I'd actually forgotten it existed, having only tried using it a few times.

tatu wrote:Yeah. The issue was not updating the retail TPAs, the issue was that it somehow broke the foley-table. Has anyone ever manage to proper make their own foley-table?

So wouldn't it make sense to just create a brand new sound file with the missing sounds and use that as an additive TPA instead? Would that work?

I once looked at the Foley Tables and considered trying it out, but didn't bother with it in the end. I might give it a go since I really want to try some new sound materials, like "CHAINLINK" or "Terrain - Mud".

Well it would. This was a few years ago when I was working on my TUPP project. I wanted it to playable without ATX, so at that time I didn't want custom TPAs. Now with CE tho, that is different

TheIdiot wrote:

tatu wrote:Yeah. The issue was not updating the retail TPAs, the issue was that it somehow broke the foley-table. Has anyone ever manage to proper make their own foley-table?

So wouldn't it make sense to just create a brand new sound file with the missing sounds and use that as an additive TPA instead? Would that work?

Yep, that's what I would suggest...

machf wrote:

TheIdiot wrote:

tatu wrote:Yeah. The issue was not updating the retail TPAs, the issue was that it somehow broke the foley-table. Has anyone ever manage to proper make their own foley-table?

So wouldn't it make sense to just create a brand new sound file with the missing sounds and use that as an additive TPA instead? Would that work?

Yep, that's what I would suggest...

Hmm. Or you could just take the older TPA and use that as the additive. Should work fine, I would think, since it would override sounds that are the same anyway. You could even go the other way around using Retail as the additive TPA, which would cause the most up-to-date possible Sound Materials to be used instead.

Anyway, I got it all working fine. EffectsEditor works perfectly for my use, though I do wonder if and how you can add subtitles using it. Even so, you could probably do more using the OverlayText action, since that way you could change the position and colour of the text.