204 lines
15 KiB
Markdown
204 lines
15 KiB
Markdown
# Unheard City - user guide
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Replace voice lines, music, ambience and sound effects, and edit subtitles and menu text in **Batman: Arkham
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City (PC, Steam)**. Everything you change can be put back with one click.
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## Install and start
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1. **Windows:** unzip the download and double-click **Install.cmd**. It installs Unheard City for your user (no
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admin rights), adds it to the Start menu (and, if you want, the desktop) and offers to start it. Running a
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newer version's Install.cmd later upgrades it. To remove it: Settings > Apps > Installed apps > Unheard City.
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You can also skip installing and run `UnheardCity.exe` from the unzipped folder.
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**Linux:** unpack the download and run `UnheardCity`.
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2. The game is found through Steam automatically. If not (other drive, Linux/Proton), a red bar appears at
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the top: click **Choose game folder…** and pick the folder that contains `BmGame` and `Binaries`
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(Linux: usually `~/.steam/steam/steamapps/common/Batman Arkham City GOTY`).
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3. **Close the game** while you apply or revert changes (the files are locked while it runs).
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## Language
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There is **one language setting**: the **Language** list at the top of the window. It starts at the language the
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game is set to (Steam > game properties > Language) and applies to everything you edit:
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- **Sounds**: the voice lines of that language, plus the sounds every language shares (music, ambience,
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effects). The game has voices in English (INT), French, Italian, German and Spanish; for the other languages
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(Latin American Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Korean) it plays the English voices, so the
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editor shows those and says *voices: INT* next to the list.
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- **Edit**: the sounds of the edit list in that language (sounds of another language stay on the list, hidden).
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- **Subtitles** and **Menu text**: the texts of that language.
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Changing it reloads the lists; the next start is again in the game's language.
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Some voice lines sound English in every language: the game itself ships the English recording for most
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efforts and grunts, many cinematics and a few other lines, and some in-memory lines exist only once for all
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languages. The editor shows what each language's game files contain.
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## Names
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Every voice line has one name in every language, taken from the game itself (e.g. `Speech_TAPE_JOKER_1_04`, the
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same as in the Subtitles tab): the line `Speech_X` in English is the same line `Speech_X` in French, Italian,
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German and Spanish. Inside a WAD entry the game stores the variations of a line in a different order in each
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language, so the position-based name is kept only as a second name (`Speech_TAPE_JOKER_1#4` = the 4th WEM of
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that entry in this language; search finds both). When the game plays one of two versions of a line, the
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second is shown as `NAME#2`. About 6 % of the lines are named by no game event; they take the name of their
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English recording in every language. A few recordings are stored twice in the game files: both rows belong to
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the same line and are changed and reverted together.
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## Find a sound
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- Type in the **search box** (Ctrl+F): words can be parts of the name, a category, a character, your own
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notes or tags, or an ID like `b49cdf48`. All words must match.
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- Narrow down with **Group** (Speech, Music, Ambience, SFX), **Category** (e.g. *Interview tapes*,
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*Combat barks*, *Cinematics*), **Character**, **Archive** (speech language, SFX or BANK), **Tag**, **Modified
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only** and **Favorites only**. Combine them freely; results update instantly.
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- **Character** is the verified speaker from the curated catalog. Grey `~` names are only *mentioned* in the
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sound's name (useful hints for the many unlabelled lines); tick *Include characters mentioned in names*
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to filter on them too.
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- Click a column header to sort (length, size, status, ...). Ctrl/Shift-click selects several rows.
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- Archive **BANK** holds the short sounds stored inside soundbanks (footsteps, foley, combat,
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weapons, menu sounds, grunts). Many are named after the game event that plays them (`Play_...`), the
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rest after their bank (`CHR_BatclawGrapple_3`). The Edit tab shows the bank and how many copies the game keeps
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of the sound; a replacement is written into every copy.
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## Listen
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The **Sounds** tab is for finding and listening; it does not change anything. Below the list, the selected sound
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is shown with its details and subtitle (left), a player (middle) and the way into the Edit tab (right).
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**Play original** (or Space, or double-click the row), **Play installed** (what the game has now, if you
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replaced it) and **Stop** (Esc) sit together above the waveforms; click on a waveform to play from that point.
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To change sounds, select them (Ctrl/Shift-click for several) and press **Edit** (or Enter, or right-click >
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**Edit**): they go onto the **edit list** and the **Edit** tab opens on the first. **Add to edit list** puts them
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there without leaving the list, e.g. to collect all the lines of a character or all the sounds of a weapon
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first.
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## Edit
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The **Edit** tab is where sounds are replaced: voice lines, music, ambience, sound effects. Everything fits in
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the window: left the **edit list**, middle the sound you are working on, right its effects.
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- **Edit list**: filter it, **Remove** sounds you are done with, or **Remove applied**. Columns: a dot = a
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replacement is saved, FX = number of effects on, a tick = applied to the game. **Previous** / **Next**
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(Alt+Left / Alt+Right) walk the list.
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1. **Subtitle** (voice lines only): shown large, with the game's original (and the English line when you edit
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another language) under it. You can rewrite it there and **Apply** it (see *Subtitles*).
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2. **Listen**: **Original**, **Installed** and **Replacement** each have a play button and a waveform; **A/B**
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switches between the original and the replacement at the same position; **Loop**, **Volume**, **Stop**
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(Esc).
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3. **Replacement**: **Record** (choose the input in the list next to it; press again to stop) or **Load file…**
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(Ctrl+O: WAV, FLAC, OGG, OPUS, MP3 or AIFF; M4A/WMA only if ffmpeg is installed), as often as you like.
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**Keep … to** trims (or right-drag on the replacement's waveform), **Trim silence**, **Gain**,
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**Normalize**, **Match loudness** (to the original; on by default for voice lines). The replacement is saved
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at once in your user data folder (`edits`), with its trim, level and effect settings, so you can come back
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to it any time; nothing is written to the game until you apply it.
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4. **Apply to game** (Ctrl+S). The audio (with its effects) is converted to the original's format and written
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into the game files; the list shows a tick and the Sounds tab *Modified*.
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Size rule: voice lines and sound effects must fit into the original's size (the *Max size* column), because
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the game reads exactly that many bytes. Longer audio is encoded at lower quality to fit; if it still does not
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fit you are asked to shorten it. Music (`Music_…`) can be any length. A warning appears when your audio is
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longer than the original, since the game may cut it off.
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### Effects
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Many sounds are not dry in the game (radios, phones, announcements, speakers, Mr. Freeze's suit...); the
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replacement gets the effects you turn on, and **Replacement** plays it with them.
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- **Start from a preset…** sets several effects at once: Radio, Phone, Tape / phone mic, TV in a room, PA
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announcement, Mr. Freeze, Clayface, Riddler broadcast, Giant (Ra's al Ghul), Car radio.
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- The **effect chain** lists every effect in the order it runs: tick an effect to turn it on, click its name to
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see its settings below. Each effect has preset buttons that set its sliders; then adjust by ear. Moving a
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slider turns its effect on; double-click a slider to put it back.
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| effect | in the game, for example |
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|--------|--------------------------|
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| **Pitch** (shift, formant, drift = pitch over time) | Clayface (shift down), Mr. Freeze (drift) |
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| **Octave layers** | Ra's al Ghul, Poison Ivy (octaves below the voice) |
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| **Robot** (ring modulator, metallic comb) | Mr. Freeze's suit |
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| **Glitch** (pieces repeated, at another pitch) | the Riddler's hacked broadcasts |
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| **Band-pass EQ** (low/high cut, mid boost) | radio, phone, phone microphone, TV and small speakers |
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| **Distortion** (drive, clip, bits, phone codec) | speakers, radios, the car radio |
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| **Noise** (level, colour, crackle) | radio static |
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| **Echo** | Hugo Strange, the Mayor, Joker and Harley over the city speakers (the *PA announcement* preset: 160 ms) |
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| **Reverb** (decay, mix, pre-delay, reflections, damping; reverse swells before phrases) | rooms, TV, halls; reverse: the Riddler, Poison Ivy |
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| **Channels** (sounds with 2-5 channels) | stereo width, pan over time, the PA layout: dry sound in the centre, echo in the surrounds |
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**Copy** / **Paste** move settings between sounds; **Use these effects for the selected** gives every selected
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sound of the edit list the same settings (e.g. all of Mr. Freeze's lines), keeping their replacements.
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**Reset** turns everything off.
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Some effects are added by the game itself while it plays, not stored in the sound (the radio sound of many
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thugs and street conversations, the reverb of rooms and areas): if the original sounds clean here but not in
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the game, keep your replacement clean too, or the effect is applied twice. Glitch, echo and reverb make a sound
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longer, which counts for the size rule.
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## Undo
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- **Revert** in the Edit tab puts that sound back exactly (the replacement stays saved for later).
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- Right-click rows → **Revert selected**; toolbar **Revert all** puts every original back: all sounds,
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subtitles and menu texts you changed, in every language.
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- Originals are kept in your user data folder (`%APPDATA%\UnheardCity` on Windows,
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`~/.local/share/unheardcity` on Linux), so reverting works after updating or reinstalling the app too.
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Uninstalling keeps this folder; use **Revert all** before uninstalling if you want the game back to original.
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Before the first change to a game file, a full copy of it is kept there too: optional for the WAD archives
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(Settings), always for soundbanks, packages and text files (they are rebuilt from that copy). Only files the
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game ships unchanged are copied; a file another tool (or another originals store) has changed is reported as
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*changed outside this tool* first.
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- The originals of your changes are only in the store that made them, so the store folder (Settings) cannot be
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changed while changes are applied: use **Revert all** first.
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- If Steam "Verify integrity of game files" or an update undoes your changes, a bar offers **Re-apply my
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changes** or **Forget them**. Do not use "verify" to undo mods; use Revert all.
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- If the store folder itself is damaged, the full copies can still be put back with the command-line toolkit
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that Unheard City is built on (`ackit restore-backup`, see the project README; not part of the editor
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download).
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## Subtitles
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The **Subtitles** tab lists the subtitle of every speech line in the selected language (see *Language*).
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- Search by text or line name, filter by **Character** and **Category** (taken from the linked speech sound),
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or show **Modified only**. Select a row to edit its text below and press **Apply** (or Enter).
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- Each subtitle replaces the original *in place*, so it can be at most as long as the original (the counter
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shows *used / room* characters). Most subtitles are stored in the Western European character set
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(Windows-1252: accents are fine, other scripts are not); those stored as Unicode (almost all Russian,
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Japanese and Korean ones, most Polish ones) accept any character. The editor says so when a character does
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not fit.
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- **Go to the sound** selects the speech line in the Sounds tab (its subtitle shows in the preview). In the
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Edit tab, a voice line's **Subtitle** is shown large above the audio: edit it there, **Apply** / **Revert**
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it, or **Show in list** to jump back to the Subtitles tab.
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- **Find and replace…** works on the rows the filters show (texts that would not fit are listed and skipped).
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- **Revert** / **Revert all texts here** put the original text back (every copy in every game file).
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- About 30 subtitles per language have no sound in the game (texts such as the Arkham City Stories, unused
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radio reports); they have no linked sound. A subtitle of a line the game plays in two versions belongs to
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both. The game itself has no subtitles for efforts and grunts and for most combat barks and cutscene lines.
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## Menu text
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The **Menu text** tab lists every menu, HUD, bio, riddle and credits string of the selected language (about
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7,000), grouped by **File** (e.g. `FRONTEND`, `GFxUI`, `Bios`). Search, edit, apply and revert work like
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subtitles; menu texts can be of any length but cannot contain line breaks (keep the game's own markers such
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as `\n` as they are).
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## Notes, tags, favorites
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Right-click → **Notes & tags…** (F2): free text and comma-separated tags, searchable and filterable.
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Click the **★** column to mark favorites. These are stored in your user data folder, not in the game.
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## Share your changes (mods)
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- **Export mod…**: choose which changed sounds and texts to include and save a `.acmod` file (the exact game
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data plus the audio, so it also works for another language whose original has a different size).
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- **Import mod…**: shows which sounds match this game, then installs them. You can revert them like any change.
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If a sound or text the mod replaces was changed outside the editor, you are asked before it is overwritten.
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- Changed subtitles and menu texts are exported and imported with the sounds (listed as *Text*); a text stays
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in its language (a French subtitle edit changes the French subtitle).
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- In another language, voice lines are matched by the game's own identity of the line, so the same line is
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replaced even where its position differs. Voice lines from packages made with versions before 3.1 carry no
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such identity: the import lists them instead of guessing (export the mod again with this version).
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## Settings
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Game folder, where originals are kept (changeable only while nothing is modified), the full-backup option and
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the playback device. The recording device
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is chosen next to the Record button. **Background**: show or hide the Arkham City wallpaper behind the filter
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panel; **Background strength**: how visible it is (10 % by default).
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Drag the dividers to resize: the preview under the sound list, and the edit list, editor and effects columns of the Edit tab.
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## Troubleshooting
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| message | what to do |
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| "Cannot write … close the game" | quit Arkham City (and anything else using the file) and try again |
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| "not a Batman: Arkham City folder" | pick the folder that contains `BmGame` and `Binaries` |
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| "audio is too long for this sound" | shorten the audio (see the original's length) |
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| "the text is … characters long but this subtitle has room for …" | shorten the subtitle (the counter shows the room) |
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| "Cannot read … Supported: WAV, FLAC, …" | convert the file to WAV/MP3/FLAC, or install ffmpeg |
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| "changed outside this tool" | the game files were changed by an update or another tool; revert or confirm to overwrite |
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| no sound when playing | choose another playback device in Settings |
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