Customize Sound Effects

You can customize character and game sound effects (such as changing Ryu's "Shoryuken!" to "oh snap!"). There's no real reason to do this, but hey here are the steps in case you want them. Note that this is slightly technical - these aren't quite normal WAV files, but it's not very hard. Note that this step is only applicable to MvC2, and not other Capcom games.

Note that the Collection uses a bugged sound effect for Sentinel's impact/death sounds. The Sentinel Bug part of the steps below addresses how to fix it. The Collection is using the subpar iOS audio files: it's on my radar to maybe just release a pack that restores the Dreamcast/arcade audio effects.

Steps:

1. Get Ready
2. Characters
3. SFX Layout
4. Convert your effects to WAV
5. Make your WAV game-compatible
6. Finish

Get Ready

This is MUCH easier than it used to be: thanks Capcom! The Collection simply uses specially modified WAV files, which most audio tools support. We will use Goldwave because it's been proven to work. We also will need a binary/hex editor since we will need to copy some data from the original file. HxD is a solid choice for a hex editor if you don't already have one.

Note that there is a visual guide to doing this for Megaman 11 here. That would be great to reference alongside of this document for anybody new to this. (There's also a Resident Evil-based guide here, but the Megaman one is easier to follow.) Once you get it going once, it should be very easy. I started with Ryu's Hadoken sound (sound\se\mvc2\snd_pl00\wav\mvc2_pl00_21) because that was a simple and easy starting point.

First, download all your voice clips/effects that you want to be in your mix.

Now we need to extract out the ARC file that contains the SFX/VFX files. These are actually not stored in the main game file: they are instead stored in game_5s.arc. So run CollectionTool.bat to extract those again: use the "Marvel vs Capcom Collection" option, use the "Marvel vs Capcom 2" option, use the "Sound Effects" option, then select Unpack. Or use Paxtez's Mod Manager and select "Extract Steam ARC Files" : "game_5s.arc : MARVEL vs. CAPCOM 2 New Age of Heroes (Sounds)". Or use ARCTool by hand, pointing ARCTool to game_5s.arc.

OK, now let's go to the "MVC\game_5s" folder that arctool just created for you. Make a copy of this folder so that you have a backup! We require these files for reference, so you must do this. And it's smart to do that anyways.

Now go to the "sound\se\mvc2" folder in there.

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Characters

We are now looking at the a bunch of folders. Each one maps to one sound file storage unit for the NAOMI/Dreamcast. (The sound files were identical on the NAOMI and Dreamcast with the exception of four unique Dreamcast menu sounds that we don't care about.) Here is the mapping of which character uses which folder.

Character	Folder name
Ryu	snd_pl00
Zangief	snd_pl01
Guile	snd_pl02
Morrigan	snd_pl03
Anakaris	snd_pl04
Strider	snd_pl05
Cyclops	snd_pl06
Wolverine	snd_pl07
Psylocke	snd_pl08
Iceman	snd_pl09
Rogue	snd_pl0A
Captain America	snd_pl0B
Spider-Man	snd_pl0C
Hulk	snd_pl0D
Venom	snd_pl0E
DrDoom	snd_pl0F
Tron	snd_pl10
Jill	snd_pl11
Hayato	snd_pl12
Ruby	snd_pl13
SonSon	snd_pl14
Amingo	snd_pl15
Marrow	snd_pl16
Cable	snd_pl17
Abyss1	snd_pl18
Abyss2	snd_pl19
Abyss3	snd_pl1A
Chun-Li	snd_pl1B
Megaman	snd_pl1C
Roll	snd_pl1D
Akuma	snd_pl1E
BBHood	snd_pl1F
Felicia	snd_pl20
Charlie	snd_pl21
Sakura	snd_pl22
Dan	snd_pl23
Cammy	snd_pl24
Dhalsim	snd_pl25
Bison	snd_pl26
Ken	snd_pl27
Gambit	snd_pl28
Juggernaut	snd_pl29
Storm	snd_pl2A
Sabretooth	snd_pl2B
Magneto	snd_pl2C
Shuma Gorath	snd_pl2D
War Machine	snd_pl2E
Silver Samurai	snd_pl2F
Omega Red	snd_pl30
Spiral	snd_pl31
Colossus	snd_pl32
Iron Man	snd_pl33
Sentinel	snd_pl34
Blackheart	snd_pl35
Thanos	snd_pl36
Jin	snd_pl37
Captain Commando	snd_pl38
Bonerine	snd_pl39
Kobun	snd_pl3A
(General match effects)	snd_COMN (sample reference)
(Intro screen effects)	snd_SYUK
(Credits voice-over)	snd_STAF

Figure out which character you're interested in. Go into that folder. In that folder will be two files we will ignore and the WAV folder that we care about. Go into the WAV folder now.

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SFX Layout

Now we are in business! All the mvc2*.724DF879 files we are looking at are the character SFX/VFX. If you rename one of these files to .WAV and inspect their properties, you can see that they are 48kHz Microsoft ADPCM compressed 4bit mono files. Except that they are slightly funky, so we need to take a couple quirky steps.

These ".724DF879" files are close to normal ".WAV" files, except with extra data in them. Rename the ones you are interested in from ".724DF879" to ".WAV". Note that you'll have to rename them back at the end. If you're in the command line, you can use ren *.724DF879 *.wav to change the "*.724DF879" to WAV files.

We can see their normal filenames. Those filenames will now look along the lines of "mvc2_pl00_00.wav". That form translates to "Game_Character_Event.wav". For example "mvc2_pl00_00.wav" is mvc2's event "00" for Ryu. Different characters have different actions and events, but the general logic for Capcom's MvC2 audio event layout is:

Event number	Event
00	Character death
01-02	Impact / getting hit
03-05	Attack / exertion
06-09	More exertion sounds
10-19	Quotes. 10 often match start, 15 often taunt.
20-29	Yelled move names
30-end	Sound effects

That's the general gist of how things are laid out. You can only use/modify existing character event SFX.

Sentinel Bug: Note that in the Collection they accidentally swapped Sentinel's "death" sound (00) with his "light impact" sound (01). In order to fix that, just swap the files "mvc2_pl34_00.724DF879" and "mvc2_pl34_01.724DF879": no editing is required.

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Convert your songs to WAV

Now we know where the files are and you've presumably found a file you want to update. Open up the specific sound effect/WAV file that you want to update/replace in Goldwave. (You will get a couple errors when doing so, since as noted these aren't technically correct WAV files: ignore those two errors.) Open up your new audio clip in that same instance of Goldwave: you will see each audio file in its own window.

Now we will blank/delete the audio from the file we are copying to. Click on the waveform data. Click CTRL+A to select all. Click Delete to watch it go away.

Now go to window for the replacement audio you're splicing in. Click on the waveform data. Click CTRL+A to select all. Click CTRL+C to copy it.

Go back to the target audio file. Click CTRL+V to paste it in.

That gets us the sweet sweet 48kHz MSADPCM mono waveform we want. (You may now also want to go to Effect : Change Volume and increase the volume if the sample clip you're splicing in is quiet.)

Click Save: we are now done with Goldwave.

Note that this file will currently NOT work in the game, and if you try to inject it the game will not run. Keep going.

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Make your WAV game-compatible

Capcom uses funky versions of WAV files, so we need to update our files to work like theirs do.

First, go back to the backup folder you made earlier. Open the unchanged ".724DF879" file in a binary editor. I use Visual Studio's Binary Editor because I'm lazy. Anything works, really.

Scroll to the end of the backup source file. You will see three critical RIFF (the WAV file format) chunks: "smpl", "tIME", and "ver.". Copy everything from the beginning of "smpl" to the end of the file (which will be eight bytes after the "ver." chunk header).

Now open up your target file.

Scroll to the end of this target file. There will be a "fact" RIFF chunk. Replace everything starting with "fact" until the end of the file with the data we just copied from the source file. You should now have a "smpl", "tIME", and "ver." chunk in your WAV file. If you don't, the game won't run, so you need to do this.

Save your file.

Now change the extension back to ".724DF879".

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Finishing Up

We now need to recompress the sound effects ARC file with our changes. Now run the CollectionTool.bat or the Mod Manager again, this time selecting the Repack option. (Or you can manually run: arctool -c -pc -txt -v 7 game_5s) That's it: you should be good to go now. Note that this area can be finicky, so start small and make backups. Go on to the next page in the guide now.

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