How to Extract .vfs files?

Discussion in 'Metro 2033 Forums' started by Keavon, Jan 26, 2013.

  1. Keavon

    Keavon Well-Known Member

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    Hello, first time here at the forums, and I just beat Metro 2033 last night :) (Edit: Last night was not intended to rhyme with Last Light)

    So I want the soundtrack, and would like to extract it from the game files.

    I've done some research, but I haven't been able to find anything that works. I want to extract .vfs files, specifically sounds.vfs0, but it would also be interesting to extract the videos to watch from videos.vfs0 and the models and textures to play around with and look at from content.vfs0 and textures.vfs0.

    Does anybody know how to do this? I'd really like the full quality soundtrack, and I can't find a download for it anywhere.

    Thanks.
     
    #1 Keavon, Jan 26, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 26, 2013
  2. Bamul

    Bamul S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
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    I could only find one tool to do this: http://www.elberethzone.net/en/dup-download.html

    It is a bit complicated though as it requires messing around with the settings, and it uses another tool to open .vfs files which requires you to mess around with even more settings. I've managed to open sounds.vfs0 and found over 2000 .ogg files in there. All of these have really incoherent names and a lot of trial & error would be needed to sort the out the music from all the sound effects.

    You can have a go at it if you want, but I'm not sure if it's worth it. Hope I've helped at least a bit - enjoy your time on the forum! :)
     
  3. Teddy Picker

    Teddy Picker Well-Known Member

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    You should be able to find the OST on YouTube. After doing so, just rip them off there via a YouTube - to - MP3 website (just google it, there are a ton).
     
  4. Bamul

    Bamul S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
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    The OST on youtube is incomplete though, and in that file you have every single sound file from the game and more. This is really interesting stuff, I have to say. I've found various types of footsteps, the squeaky turning of the valve in-game, some background voices and a file that has all of the ambient sounds of battle from the "Frontline" level included in it. It's a shame it's all so randomly named and I can't see a folder structure of any kind. :(
     
  5. Keavon

    Keavon Well-Known Member

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    Thanks, but what is the other tool to open .vfs files? It doesn't seem to support Metro 2033 or .vfs0 files, and the vfs files it does support is from a different, unrelated game.

    Unfortunately, that is incomplete and ripping it from Youtube loses quality.
     
  6. Bamul

    Bamul S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
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    Have you downloaded the program I linked to and installed it? If you have, then I can try to run you through some of the things I did to get it to open the sounds.vfs0 file. :)

    Btw, I just found the first piece of music in the file. It's some kind of tribal ritual tune and I honestly don't remember it being in the game. Interesting... I wonder what they wanted to use it for.

    UPDATE: I've just found the theme used during the "bad" canon ending of the game... pretty neat stuff. I'm glad you asked this question Keavon, otherwise I would not have found all of this. :lol:
     
    #6 Bamul, Jan 26, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 26, 2013
  7. Keavon

    Keavon Well-Known Member

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    We could sort the tracks by length and delete most sound effects, as most sound effects are only a few seconds long.

    Yes, I installed the program. What are your steps?
     
  8. Keavon

    Keavon Well-Known Member

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    Okay, I just used Hyper Ripper to search for ogg files and found 2041 ogg files. Great!
     
  9. Bamul

    Bamul S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
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    Sorry for not replying - I got carried away with this and found a crapload more of the soundtrack. And yep, that's a brilliant idea with sorting them by length - but we have to convert them to .mp3 or .wma then as well, I think.
     
    #9 Bamul, Jan 26, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 26, 2013
  10. Keavon

    Keavon Well-Known Member

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    I'm batch converting them all to ..wav now... this is going to take about half an hour. But .ogg is a nasty format, so I'll have to wait. With .wav, I can get access to the length in Windows Explorer.

    Thanks for the tip of using Dragon UnPACKer. For those wondering, download Dragon UnPACKer and click File > HyperRipper then go to the Search tab and click the [...] button to select the file, then go to the Formats tab to select the desired format (.ogg in this case), then go back to the Search tab and hit Search. You can drag these files out into a folder and use them from there.
     
    #10 Keavon, Jan 26, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 26, 2013
  11. Bamul

    Bamul S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
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    I'm using Format Factory - it's actually pretty fast (to .wma), but I think I'm gonna have to do it in parts because there is a file count limit on the program.
     
  12. Keavon

    Keavon Well-Known Member

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    When we sort through these sounds and narrow it down to only the music, we should release a complete sound track for the community to download in full quality, since there is currently no way to get the soundtrack.
     
  13. Keavon

    Keavon Well-Known Member

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    I'm using dBPowerAmp. It's a marvelous program, but it's about $40. However, I seem to have broken the trail thing somehow (not intentionally) so it's working like the full version and it's not expiring. No idea what I did to make that happen, but I'm pretty happy. It's a very good piece of software.
     
  14. Bamul

    Bamul S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
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    I agree. We will miss some though as there are a few very short musical pieces in Metro 2033 (though I'm not sure if they are considered part of the soundtrack anyway). The trouble will be naming all of them. :shocked:
    Lucky you. :p I have to convert it in three parts (1000, 1000 and 41). Two parts are done, now for the last one.

    UPDATE: Done! Finally! :D Now to sort them in length. Which ones should we get rid of? Anything shorter than 30 seconds? A minute?
     
    #14 Bamul, Jan 26, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 26, 2013
  15. Keavon

    Keavon Well-Known Member

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    You can still download the trail version of dBPowerAmp. It's fully featured and just expires after some amount of time.
     
    #15 Keavon, Jan 26, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 27, 2013
  16. Keavon

    Keavon Well-Known Member

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    I'm getting a few different files with actual metadata, like names for the tracks. We can use those names as the official name, then just use the Wiki's names for the others, and come up with something for the rest.

    If there are really sub-10 seconds tracks, I don't think they count as part of the soundtrack, but more of a sound effect.
     
  17. Bamul

    Bamul S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
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    Eh, it's okay. Format Factory is decent... I doubt I'll have to convert more than 1000 files at a time again anytime soon. :lol:

    Good idea.


    So, which ones should delete? Shorter than 30 seconds? Shorter than a minute? We're still left with 269 tracks that are 10 seconds or longer.
     
    #17 Bamul, Jan 26, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 26, 2013
  18. Keavon

    Keavon Well-Known Member

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    I'm copying everything that's 10 second or above into another folder for manual listening, and deleting the ones that are not music.
     
  19. Bamul

    Bamul S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
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    There's 269 of those. :wacko: Shouldn't we narrow it down to a smaller number by deleting some more? :p
     
  20. Keavon

    Keavon Well-Known Member

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    I'm just going to live through it. I'll tell you the file names when I'm done.

    I also just found an actual track for the soundtrack that was 11 seconds.
     
: .vfs, .vfs0, .vfs1, vfs, vfs0