Whoa...hidden commentary names??

[herbert]

OK, @Dottegeo I have done some home work over the night. The results may not be as hoped, but I think it sheds some light on how stuff works internally. Here's what I did for the technically interested. Others may want to ignore it because it may be kind of hard to follow.

What I did, roughly, was a brute-force experiment. From the original FIP400 database, using DBMaster, I extracted the commentarynames table into a file. Then I wrote a C program allowing me to read it, detect which IDs from a given range were missing, add them with unique auto-generated names and then create a new file that can then be imported into DBMaster again. Hence I replaced the original commentarynames table by an "extended version" containing lots of more IDs now.

In order to not overload the game I created two files:

1. commentary-900001-940000.txt
2. commentary-940001-980000.txt

For each of them I then did the following:

1. Click the button with the green arrow for importing a single table into DBMaster
2. Select the respective file above
3. Save the DB
4. Run the game to see whether there's any new comment names showing up in the Create Player screen

As far as my setup (Martin Tyler commentary) is concerned, I can confirm that there are no hidden commentary names if running the original FIP4000 database (the one with original leagues, but this should not make any difference).

If I haven't found anything, why am I so sure? Of course I ran a positive test

For this, I created a file commentary-900001-940000-reference-924154.txt in which I specifically included ID 924154 (Levan Kenia) of which I knew that it was in the original DB. After importing it I deleted the entry for "Levan Kenia" from the table in DBMaster before saving. Now, when running the game, in the Create Player screen, I would find my auto generated name, and when previewing, I'd hear the "Levan Kenia" audio.

So no mistakes here, and, sorry, but it looks like in the ID range from 900000 to 980000 there is no hidden commentary name for Martin Tyler. And since 980000 is already well beyond the highest exsisting ID value present in the DB I don't expect that increasing that value will yield any other result.

On the way I also found out what should really be obvious (stupid me), but just in case for who is interested: the column commentarystartingletter in the table contains numbers from 1-26 controlling under which starting letter the commentary name will be shown in the Create Player screen. Hence I always generate my new lines with "1", so that everything would pop up under "A" (only with Martin Tyler there isn't anything to show as written above).

For those interested and using different commentators there actually may be hidden commentary names, as some here have already pointed out. So there's a good point in repeating my experiment on systems with different audio installed. Hence I have zipped what I have done and put the archive for download on my google drive: commentarynames.zip

This file contains several folders:

1. 900001-940000-reference-924154 my reference data set (file to import and also the DB with it imported) with a duplicate Levan Kenia (if using the file to import, the original, with name "Levan Kenia", needs to be deleted in DBMaster before saving), to see that it works.
2. 900001-940000 the first ID range (file to import and also the DB with it imported)
3. 940001-980000 the second ID range (file to import and also the DB with it imported)
4. orig-fip400 the original DB from which I started (the above import files will not work with any other D
5. src my source code (don't expect any support on this, but some may be interested)

Anyone who wants to try this out, be sure to backup your current database (in Game/data/db/) first.

If there are indeed hidden commentary names in other languages / with other commentators, then the above should help you to find them without endlessly having to edit and start over the game. Setting up a shared document with what you found may be of interest to the community.

Ultimately I am putting my hopes on somebody decoding the audio file format (and how it is organised) in both, FIFA 14 and subsequent versions of the game, so that audio added in later versions and not yet present in FIFA 14 could be imported into FIFA 14.

@Harry BullZak mentioned that some folks are working on this (though there doesn't seem to be any breakthrough in sight), and I really think that this is the way to go - it would help us getting far more new commentary names than by uncovering some hidden ones already in the game.

 

[Dottegeo]

@herbert Did you test deleting the two files
FIFA 14\Game\eng_us.bh --Martin Tyler
FIFA 14\Game\eng_us.big --Martin Tyler as saidby Harry? Maybe could change something or give useful info?
Some little considerations,don't know if useful.
I don't know anything about programming,neither about editing games,I've only learned editing Fifa14 most of all with this forum. But for audio files I'm quite sure it's a very difficult thing editing without a good knowledge of games developing. So maybe we should find an alternative way,for example find specific id callnames and change them in generic. About this,how can CM14 assign a generic callnames to a player? If CM14 can add/read a nee id (specific or generic),could be possible use specifica id also for generic with CM14 in some way?or using also other programs?
I searched a lot these weeks,I would contact someone who worked in EA, because they're audio files connected to other animated elements of the game. To make it simple it's Ignite program til 15,after should be Frostbite,if I'm not wrong.
So find a simple tool to do only an id change would be the best,but could be affect a lot the game I guess. Rinaldo did a tool for audio till fifa 10 I think, I tried but didn't read anything for 14.
Programs like Audacity,based on my experience so don't know if I did mistakes, and others aren't useful. I even tried Unreal Engine, din't know how to use it but din't seem an east and right way. I found some text files with an extractor,but nothing useful, searching in .big files.
The only thing intersting I found was with Fifa Master, a description of part of big7 file. Extracted with Jenkey's tool,it contains a part named demo.sbr_debug in a folder named speechdata, the descriptions were different id players of other fifa (07,08 and so on till 13,eveb fifa street) with the difference in low or high intensity. There are other things like this in other big files. I think the key should be in ita.big file (or the other languages) that should contain a bank of audio files,don't know how to open it however.
The other thing I would do it's ti search a tool to read part extracted from big files to see if there'e something useful,or something that could edit the name of an audio file in order to change the id. A long way,and I don't have,again,muche time,so for now I'm happy with my edits.

 

[herbert]

@herbert Did you test deleting the two files
FIFA 14\Game\eng_us.bh --Martin Tyler
FIFA 14\Game\eng_us.big --Martin Tyler as saidby Harry? Maybe could change something or give useful info?

I did not, just because I want to keep Martin Tyler. If I delete the two files, I get a different commentator, but I decided to stick to Martin Tyler.

And after last night's experiment I now know that there won't be any more commentary names unless somebody finds a way to extract them from later FIFA versions and import them into FIFA 14.

From what others here have mentioned I assume the biggest problem is the way the audio is kept: the audio format and how all the various player names are organised, so that they are found when the commentator "wants" to mention a player.

EA has made decoding this more and more difficult over the years, and this seems to indicate that they really don't want us to do this: rather we should buy the more recent FIFA versions, which seems perfectly understandable to me.

Hence it is really a question of some serious research. Not sure how much progress people have made by now. And we need to understand that this will be required for each FIFA version as they will all - potentially - use different file formats and obfuscation methods.

As far as I know people haven't succeded in this yet. We can edit DBs, and since (in FIFA 14) the DB also contains information about commentary names we can assign them relatively easily. That's what we've got for now.

So, if somebody wants to explore commentary names for other languages / commentators I hope my work can be a little help in doing this.

 

[Harry BullZak]

@herbert
Good work. I probably could have saved you a lot of effort by explaining that there is no way you would find any extra commentary for MT in FIP DB as I have already added them all.

To answer some other queries.

• English commentary has the most call names. I believe MT has the most.
• There definitely exists commentary for some languages that may not be available in other languages. This is also true between MT & CT.
• There are some different call names between languages. For example, MT = Hansson (901336) but under CT it is pronounced as Warner. So in some cases, it is not a great idea to use these IDs.
• 928978 appears to be the highest ID with call names in any language.

For me, the only option left available is to be able to modify the soundbank files. At this moment the best I have is these lines of IDs that show what audio files are available in the MT commentary soundbanks. It isn't complete. This is useful for me personally to tidy up my existing commentary tables but may not be useful for anyone else.

FIFA 14 Commentary

mt commentary ID,PLAYERNAME,SOUND BANK,FILENAME 27,Joe Cole,eng_us_bank,final_assets\NG_SOURCE\NG07\FIFA_NG07_Players\P01.27.a.aif 34,Ugo Ehiogu,eng_us_bank,final_assets\NG_SOURCE\NG08\FIFA_NG08_Players\P01.34.a.aif 41,Iniesta,demo,final_assets\NG_SOURCE\NG11\F11_Main_Stitch_Player_Lo_Player_Lo_...

docs.google.com

It takes literally hours to match up and check IDs. So without being able to import new audio I have to admit this subject is now dead for me.

 

[herbert]

Good work. I probably could have saved you a lot of effort by explaining that there is no way you would find any extra commentary for MT in FIP DB as I have already added them all.

Yup, could have had a few hours more sleep last night. But it was fun anyway

It takes literally hours to match up and check IDs. So without being able to import new audio I have to admit this subject is now dead for me.

Not sure if I understand this correctly: is it because modifying the sound banks isn't possible, or because there is nothing to import yet? I will most likely not be able to be of help here, but the engineer in me is getting curious...

 

[Harry BullZak]

Not sure if I understand this correctly: is it because modifying the sound banks isn't possible, or because there is nothing to import yet? I will most likely not be able to be of help here, but the engineer in me is getting curious here...

At the moment I do not know of any method of modifying the soundbank files. Also importing new files would require an understanding of the different formats EA uses between games. I don't know a lot about it but I think F14 uses something called EALayer3 and F16 uses EALayer4. Something like that anyway.

One simple thing that may work is to update the soundbank xml file to point to a new soundbank file, but again if the format isn't compatible it won't work. Another option could be to write a script or maybe update the xml (maybe a combination of both) that points to a folder that contains .wav audio files for new commentary. I am 99% sure that this last option would work.

 

[Mahmoud94younis]

hey guys . can you please tell me how to export fifa commentary files to convert it to mp3 or wav ^^
i'm creating FIFA commentary to PES , and now i recored matches then cut the sounds and convert to wav then to adx , it takes a lot of time , so can you help me with that and show me how to export fifa sound files and convert it ♥

 

[Dee23]

hey guys, is it possible to change commentators in career mode, pls assist if the is a way?

 

[Giyo]

Hi everybody. I would like to ask you about new Updated English commentary for Fifa 14 .... I have some bh and big format files from 2018 years but they only say some of the players like KDB, THIAGO, CR7, Cross, Messi and so on.... but I had another Files before installing Fip v.500 Beta where the commentators said M.Rashford, Martial, Silva, Robertson almost everyones names including any team in Fip v.400 but now it doesn’t

please help