Riveal 10.4.1

by Ron Hayter
mystriveal@mac.com

Riveal is a free Java application that extracts media (sounds, movies, and pictures) from the data files of the Myst series of games and from other games produced by Cyan Worlds and Presto Studios. It also extracts media from the unrelated but excellent games Alida and BioShock.

There are two versions of Riveal, one for Mac OS X and the other for Windows.

Download Riveal for Mac OS X.

Download Riveal for Windows.

Being a Java application, Riveal requires version 1.4 or later of the Java Runtime Environment. Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther), 10.4 (Tiger), 10.5 (Leopard), and 10.6 (Snow Leopard) have the JRE built in; Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) will offer to install the JRE, if needed. For Windows, you may need to download and install the JRE, which you can get from http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp. A Java 6 or later JRE is strongly recommended for Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Version History

Contents

• Introduction
• Running Riveal
• Using the Extracted Files
• Extracting from Myst [Original Mac version]
• Extracting from Myst [Original Windows version]
• Extracting from Myst: Masterpiece Edition
• Extracting from realMYST
• Extracting from Myst for iOS
• Extracting from Riven
• Extracting from Riven for iOS
• Extracting from Myst III: Exile
• Extracting from Myst IV: Revelation
• Extracting from Myst V: End of Ages
• Extracting from Uru: Ages Beyond Myst and Uru: Complete Chronicles
• Extracting from Myst Online: Uru Live
• Extracting from The Manhole: Masterpiece Edition
• Extracting from The Manhole: Masterpiece Edition for iOS
• Extracting from BioShock
• Extracting from BioShock 2

Introduction

Riveal extracts sounds, movies, and pictures from the data files of the games in the Myst series:

• Myst (sounds, movies, and pictures),
• Myst: Masterpiece Edition (sounds, movies, and pictures),
• realMYST, the real-time 3D remake of the original Myst (sounds, movies, and textures),
• Myst for iOS (sounds, movies, and pictures),
• Riven (sounds, movies, and pictures),
• Riven for iOS (sounds, movies, and pictures),
• Myst III: Exile (sounds, movies, pictures, and subtitles),
• Myst III: Exile for PlayStation 2 (sounds, pictures, and subtitles only),
• Myst IV: Revelation (sounds, movies, pictures, textures, subtitles, and journals),
• Myst V: End of Ages (sounds, movies, textures, and journals),
• Uru: Ages Beyond Myst and Uru: Complete Chronicles [Windows] (sounds, movies, textures, journals, and KI images), and
• Myst Online: Uru Live (sounds, movies, textures, KI images, and avatar portraits).

(If you only want the most interesting sounds, movies, pictures, textures, subtitles, and journals from Myst IV: Revelation, try Revelator, my other free extractor. Revelator is more selective than Riveal in what it extracts. Riveal is more comprehensive.)

Riveal also extracts sounds, movies, and pictures from other games created by Cyan Worlds, both before and after the Myst series, and by Presto Studios before Myst III.

• The Manhole [Mac] (sounds, movies, and pictures),
• The Manhole: Masterpiece Edition (sounds, movies, and pictures),
• The Manhole: Masterpiece Edition for iOS (sounds, movies, and pictures),
• Cosmic Osmo and the Worlds Beyond the Mackerel (sounds, movies, and pictures),
• Spelunx and the Caves of Mr. Seudo (sounds, movies, and pictures),
• Myst Screen Saver (sounds and pictures),
• Crowthistle - A Glimpse of Tir [Windows] (sounds and textures),
• Cosmic Osmo's Hex Isle (sounds and textures),
• MagiQuest Online [Windows] (sounds, movies, and textures),
• Stoneship: The Curse of a Thousand Islands [iOS] (sounds and pictures),
• The Journeyman Project Turbo (sounds, movies, and pictures),
• The Journeyman Project: Pegasus Prime [Mac] (sounds, movies, and pictures),
• The Journeyman Project 2: Buried in Time (sounds, movies, and pictures),
• The Journeyman Project 3: Legacy of Time (sounds, movies, and pictures),

Three other games are supported by Riveal, related to Myst only by their excellence.

• Alida, the Riven-esque game by Dejavu Worlds (sounds, movies, and pictures), and
• BioShock, the first-person shooter from 2K Games [Mac, Windows, PS3, Xbox 360] (sounds, movies, and textures).
• BioShock 2 [Windows, PS3, Xbox 360] (sounds, movies, and textures).

Riveal may also extract media from other games implemented using HyperCard and VideoWorks/Director.

Running Riveal

Mac OS X version:

• Double-click Riveal.
• It will ask you to point to a game's data files. For most games, choose a folder (or a folder of folders) containing:
  • Myst "MooV" and "Res" files,
  • Myst: Masterpiece Edition ".dat" or "pics" files,
  • realMYST ".dni" files,
  • Riven ".mhk" files, or
  • Myst III: Exile ".m3a" files.
  For Myst IV: Revelation or Myst V: End of Ages or Myst Online: Uru Live, you can choose the application file.
  For an iOS game (Myst, Riven, The Manhole: Masterpiece Edition, or Stoneship), you must choose the mobile application file on your Mac.
  For BioShock, be sure to first double-click "BioShockData.dmg" in your BioShock game folder to mount that disk image.
  If you have installed all of the game files to your hard disk, the folder/file to choose might be:
  • "/Applications/Myst",
  • "/Applications/Myst Masterpiece Edition",
  • "/Applications/realMYST",
  • "/Applications/Riven",
  • "/Applications/Myst III Exile",
  • "/Applications/Ubisoft/MystIV/Myst4.app",
  • "/Applications/Myst V End Of Ages.app",
  • "/Applications/Myst Online.app",
  • "/Users/yourID/Music/iTunes/Mobile Applications/Myst version #.ipa",
  • "/Users/yourID/Music/iTunes/Mobile Applications/Riven version #.ipa",
  • "/Users/yourID/Music/iTunes/Mobile Applications/Manhole version #.ipa",
  • "/Users/yourID/Music/iTunes/Mobile Applications/Stoneship version #.ipa", or
  • "/Volumes/BioShockData/Bioshock".
  Otherwise, put a game CD or DVD in the drive and choose it.
• Then, it will ask you where to save the extracted files.
• Next, you can choose whether to extract sounds, movies, or pictures.
• Click the Extract Files button. After a lot of disk activity, you should have many ".wav", ".aif", ".mp2", ".mp3", ".caf", ".ogg", ".mov", ".m4v", ".avi", ".bik", ".pict", ".bmp", ".png", ".jpeg", ".tga", ".icns", ".ico", ".cur", ".txt", and/or ".html" files.

Windows version:

• Install Java if you do not already have it.
• Make sure that "Riveal.jar" is downloaded intact and not split apart. WinRAR seems especially keen to expand ".jar" files.
• Check that Windows knows that ".jar" files should be opened with the Java Runtime Environment. The Windows Explorer should describe "Riveal.jar" as an Executable Jar File. If not, shift-right-click on "Riveal.jar" and choose the Open With... command. Pick "Java(TM) Platform SE binary" from the list of programs. (You may need to use the Choose Program... command and the Browse... button to find "javaw.exe". It will probably be in "c:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin\" or something close to that.) Be sure to check "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file", then press OK.
• If all goes well, double-clicking "Riveal.jar" will start Riveal.
• It will ask you to point to a folder containing data files (or a folder of folders):
  • Myst ".dat" files,
  • Myst: Masterpiece Edition ".dat" or "pics" files,
  • realMYST ".dni" files,
  • Riven ".mhk" files,
  • Myst III: Exile ".m3a" files,
  • Myst IV: Revelation ".m4b" and ".m4s" files,
  • Myst V: End of Ages ".prp" and ".dat" files,
  • Uru ".prp" files,
  • Myst Online: Uru Live ".prp" files,
  • MagiQuest Online ".prp" files,
  • BioShock ".bsm", ".u", ".blk", ".fsb", and ".swf" files, or
  • BioShock 2 ".bsm", ".u", ".pkg", ".blk", ".fsb", and ".swf" files.
  For an iOS game (Myst, Riven, The Manhole: Masterpiece Edition, or Stoneship), you must choose the mobile application file on your PC.
  If you have installed all of the game files to your hard disk, the folder to choose might be:
  • "c:\Program Files\Myst",
  • "c:\Program Files\Ubi Soft\Myst Masterpiece Edition",
  • "c:\Program Files\realMYST",
  • "c:\Program Files\Riven",
  • "c:\Program Files\Ubi Soft\Myst III Exile",
  • "c:\Program Files\UBISOFT\Myst IV - Revelation",
  • "c:\Program Files\Ubisoft\Cyan Worlds\Myst V End Of Ages",
  • "c:\Program Files\Ubi Soft\Cyan Worlds\Uru - Ages Beyond Myst" or
    "c:\Program Files\Ubi Soft\Cyan Worlds\Myst Uru Complete Chronicles",
  • "c:\Program Files\GameTap\games\140000150" (for Windows XP) or
    "c:\ProgramData\GameTap\games\140000150" (for Windows Vista and Windows 7) or
    "c:\Program Files\Uru Live" (for Myst Online: Uru Live Again),
  • "c:\Program Files\MagiQuest Online",
  • "c:\Program Files\2K Games\BioShock" (DVD version) or
    "c:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\bioshock" (Steam version),
  • "c:\Program Files\2K Games\BioShock 2" (DVD version) or
    "c:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\bioshock 2" (Steam version),
  • "c:\Documents and Settings\yourID\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\Mobile Applications\Myst version #.ipa" (for Windows XP) or
    "c:\Users\yourID\Music\iTunes\Mobile Applications\Myst version #.ipa" (for Windows Vista and Windows 7),
  • "c:\Documents and Settings\yourID\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\Mobile Applications\Riven version #.ipa" (for Windows XP) or
    "c:\Users\yourID\Music\iTunes\Mobile Applications\Riven version #.ipa" (for Windows Vista and Windows 7),
  • "c:\Documents and Settings\yourID\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\Mobile Applications\Manhole version #.ipa" (for Windows XP) or
    "c:\Users\yourID\Music\iTunes\Mobile Applications\Manhole version #.ipa" (for Windows Vista and Windows 7), or
  • "c:\Documents and Settings\yourID\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\Mobile Applications\Stoneship version #.ipa" (for Windows XP) or
    "c:\Users\yourID\Music\iTunes\Mobile Applications\Stoneship version #.ipa" (for Windows Vista and Windows 7).
  Otherwise, put a game CD or DVD in the drive and choose "d:\" or whatever letter corresponds to your drive.
• Then, it will ask you where to save the extracted files.
• Next, you can choose whether to extract sounds, movies, or pictures.
• Click the Extract Files button. After a lot of disk activity, you should have many ".wav", ".aif", ".mp2", ".mp3", ".caf", ".ogg", ".mov", ".m4v", ".avi", ".bik", ".pict", ".bmp", ".png", ".jpeg", ".tga", ".ico", ".cur", ".txt", and/or ".html" files.

Using the Extracted Files

To listen to, watch, and look at some of the sounds, movies, and pictures extracted by Riveal, you may need to install some additional software. There are many music players, movie players, and picture viewers available, so you may want to try a few until you find ones you like. Here are some that are known to work.

Any audio application should be able to play WAVE (".wav"), AIFF (".aif"), and MP3 files, including iTunes. iTunes can also play files in the MP2 format (i.e., layer 2 of MPEG-1 and MPEG-2), a precursor to MP3.

QuickTime Player can play CAF sound files.

To hear Ogg Vorbis (".ogg") sounds, you will need to use a music player that understands that format. If you install the Xiph QuickTime Components, all applications that use QuickTime (iTunes, for instance) should be able to play these sounds.

If you want to listen to the music extracted by Riveal on an iPod, you will need to use iTunes to convert MP2 and Ogg Vorbis files to AAC or MP3. You might want to also convert the WAVE and AIFF files to reduce their size.

You will need QuickTime Player to play the movies in MOV and M4V format. On Mac OS X, if you install Perian, QuickTime Player will be able to play many AVI movies. If you also install Flip4Mac WMV, QuickTime Player will also be able to play many WMV movies. On Windows, try Windows Media Player.

To play the Bink movies, you will need a special-purpose player. RAD Game Tools has players for Mac OS X and Windows at http://www.radgametools.com/bnkdown.htm.

All web browsers can display BMP, PNG, and JPEG pictures. QuickTime Player can also display these pictures and those in PICT and TGA formats, too.

Extracting from Myst [Original Mac version]

Riveal can extract sounds, movies, and pictures from the original Mac version of Myst. The extracted sounds are in WAVE format, the movies are QuickTime MOV files, and the pictures are in PICT format.

The WAVE files that start with "MU" are music. There is a WAVE file for almost every song from the official Myst soundtrack CD. Some are a bit shorter and a few are actually longer. Altogether, there are 36 minutes of low fidelity music (8-bit 11 kHz mono) in the Mac version of Myst, so I strongly recommend buying the soundtrack CD.

These are the music files from the original Myst and their corresponding names from the soundtrack CD:

There are a few "bonus" tracks, too:

The Myst linking sound is "Transport.wav".

Extracting from Myst [Original Windows version]

Riveal can extract sounds, movies, and pictures from the original Windows version of Myst. The extracted sounds are in WAVE format, the movies are in QuickTime MOV format, and the pictures are in BMP format.

The WAVE files that start with "MU" are music. There is a WAVE file for almost every song from the official Myst soundtrack CD, except they are lower sound quality and generally much shorter in length. Altogether, there are only 17 minutes of low fidelity music (8-bit 11 kHz mono) in the Windows version of Myst, so again, I strongly recommend buying the soundtrack CD.

These are the music files from the original Myst and their corresponding names from the soundtrack CD:

There are a few "bonus" tracks, too:

The Myst linking sound is "transprt1.wav".

Extracting from Myst: Masterpiece Edition

Riveal can extract sounds, movies, and pictures from the Myst: Masterpiece Edition CD or DVD. Depending on which version of the Myst: Masterpiece Edition you have (the Mac CD-ROM, the Windows CD-ROM, or the 10th Anniversary DVD Edition), the sounds are in AIFF format or in WAVE format or both. The movies are in QuickTime MOV format. The extracted pictures are mostly in JPEG format and a few are in PICT and BMP formats. QuickTime is needed to open the PICT files.

The AIFF and WAVE files that start with "MU" are music. There is a file for almost every song from the official Myst soundtrack CD, except they are lower sound quality and generally much shorter in length. Altogether, there are only 17 minutes of medium fidelity music (16-bit 22 kHz mono) in the Myst: Masterpiece Edition, so again, I recommend buying the soundtrack CD.

These are the music files from the Myst: Masterpiece Edition and their corresponding names from the soundtrack CD:

There are a few "bonus" tracks, too:

The Myst linking sound is "TRANSPRT.aif" or "transprt1.wav".

Extracting from realMYST

Riveal can extract realMYST's sounds and movies from the data files on your hard disk or on CD. The sounds are all in WAVE format. The movies are mostly in QuickTime MOV format and some are in Bink (".bik") format. It can also extract the textures used to "paint" the surfaces of the objects in the game. The extracted textures are all PNG files. If you do not have a full installation of realMYST on your hard disk, you will want to extract files from your realMYST CD so that you get everything.

Riveal can also extract the images that are displayed on the Rime crystal viewer, which are encrypted in the "huevo.avi" and "vika.avi" movies. The decrypted pictures are BMP files in the "scn/maps/huevo" and "scn/maps/vika" subfolders.

The extracted sound files are placed in folders that correspond to the original realMYST ".dni" data files. Most of the music and the speeches are in the "mara" folder but a few are in the "pera" folder. Both folders also contain sound effects.

Here are most of the music files from the game and their corresponding names from the Myst soundtrack CD:

I recommend buying the Myst soundtrack CD.

Several new songs were added for the Rime Age which was not in the original version of Myst:

There are a few more "bonus" tracks, too, but some are low fidelity (8-bit 11 kHz mono):

Altogether, there are 50 minutes of high fidelity music (16-bit 22 kHz stereo) in realMYST.

The realMYST linking sound is "TRANSPRT.wav".

Be sure to listen to "Atrus EE Sound.wav". :)

Extracting from Myst for iOS

Riveal can extract sounds, movies, and pictures from Myst for iOS. The extracted sounds are in WAVE format, the movies are M4V files, and the pictures are PNG and JPEG files.

The WAVE files that start with "MU" and "Fly" are music. There is a WAVE file for almost every song from the official Myst soundtrack CD. Altogether, there are 38 minutes of music in the iOS version of Myst, some of it a little noisy, so I strongly recommend buying the soundtrack CD.

These are the music files from Myst for iOS and their corresponding names from the soundtrack CD:

There are a couple of "bonus" tracks, too:

The Myst linking sound is "transprt1.wav".

Extracting from Riven

Riveal can extract Riven's sounds, movies, and pictures from the data files on your hard disk, on CDs, or on DVD. Unless you have a full installation of Riven on your hard disk, you will want to extract files from your Riven CDs or DVD so that you get everything.

The extracted files are placed in folders that correspond to the original Riven ".mhk" data files. For instance, you should see folders with names like "g_Sounds" and "p_Data". The folders and the files are almost always prefixed by a letter that identifies where in the game they are used:

All extracted sounds from the CDs and most from the DVD are in WAVE format. Many of the extracted sounds from the DVD are in MP2 format, MP3's predecessor.

Here are most of the music files from the game and their corresponding names from the Riven soundtrack CD:

Some of the music is only found in the soundtracks of movies, mixed with dialogue and sound effects, not as separate sound files. A shortened version of Atrus' Theme, for instance, is used in "159_tintro.mov". I recommend buying the soundtrack CD.

There are a few "bonus" tracks, too -- music that did not appear on the soundtrack CD:

The Riven linking sound is "1_atransport_1.wav" or "1_atransport_1.mp2".

Several people have put together lists of the particularly interesting movies. One such list is in the Riven Hint Guide. Unfortunately, I have not found a list that is based on Cyan's names of the movie files. If someone puts together a list of movies by name rather than number, I hope they will share it with the world.

The extracted pictures are in PNG format. I have not found a good guide to the pictures anywhere on the net. The pictures in the "b2_data" folder appear to be photos of the people who created the game.

Extracting from Riven for iOS

Riveal can extract the sounds, movies, and pictures from Riven for iOS. The extracted sounds are WAVE files, the movies are M4V files, and the pictures are PNG and JPEG files.

Most files are prefixed by a letter that identifies where in the game they are used:

Here are most of the music files from the game and their corresponding names from the Riven soundtrack CD:

The music in the game is only medium fidelity (16-bit 22 kHz mono) and often mixed with sound effects, so I recommend buying the soundtrack CD.

There are a few "bonus" tracks, too:

The Riven linking sound is "atransport.wav".

Extracting from Myst III: Exile

Riveal can extract Exile's sounds, movies, pictures, and subtitles from the data files on your hard disk or on a game CD or DVD. If you have the PlayStation 2 version of Exile, Riveal can only extract sounds, pictures, and subtitles from the game DVD.

The music files from the Mac and Windows versions of Exile are in MP3 format. Some other sounds are also in MP3 format but most are in WAVE format. Music and sounds from the PS2 version are in WAVE format.

The movies from the Mac and Windows version of Exile are in Bink (".bik") format. Most pictures are in JPEG format but a few are PNGs and BMPs. Subtitles are in text files.

Almost all extracted files have a two-letter prefix that identifies where in the game they are used:

Only a few of the music files directly correspond to the songs on the Myst III soundtrack CD:

Some of the other soundtrack music can be found in the movies, usually mixed with dialogue and sound effects. Again, I recommend buying the soundtrack CD.

The PlayStation 2 version of Exile includes quite a bit of music that is not on the soundtrack CD, almost two and a half extra hours to enjoy. In fact, most of the songs are 8 to 10 minutes long! If you like Jack Wall's ambient music for Exile, it is worthwhile buying the PS2 version of the game just to extract the songs. These are the best of them:

The Myst III linking sound is "COMM_Transport.wav" (Mac and Windows) or "Fix-0-1.wav" (PS2).

The Exile Movie Reference is a very useful guide to the extracted movies.

Most of the extracted movies and pictures are tagged with a node number, one of the hundreds of locations in the game. Each node is a cube and your eyes are at the center. There is a JPEG picture for the inside surface of each of the six faces of the cube (front, back, left, right, top, and bottom). The Myst III engine warps the faces of the cube mathematically into the interior of a sphere so that you can look around freely.

Riveal is not able to extract any of the movies nor most of the pictures from the PlayStation 2 version of Exile.

Extracting from Myst IV: Revelation

The sounds, movies, pictures, subtitles, and journals from Myst IV: Revelation can be extracted using either Riveal or a separate application, Revelator. Riveal is more comprehensive than Revelator in what it extracts. Revelator is more selective, extracting only the most interesting sounds, movies, and pictures from Myst IV. If you choose to extract everything, you will get more than 92,000 files with Revelator, over 7 GB of content. With Riveal, you will extract almost 300,000 files, more than 8 GB in total. The additional files extracted by Riveal are probably not interesting to most people: alpha masks, distance masks, light source textures and movies, and subtitles in all six supported languages, plus the Dutch subtitles that shipped with the game and were later replaced by the version 1.0.3 patch.

See the Revelator documentation for a description of the files extracted by Revelator and Riveal. Note that Revelator simplifies the often deep hierarchy of nested folders in the Myst IV data files. Riveal preserves that hierarchy, so files will often be extracted to different locations (and sometimes with different names!) by the two applications.

Extracting from Myst V: End of Ages

Riveal can extract the sound and movie files from Myst V: End of Ages on your hard disk but not from the game CDs or DVD. The sounds are in Ogg Vorbis (".ogg") format and the movies are in Bink (".bik") format. It can also extract the textures used to "paint" the surfaces of the objects in the game. The extracted textures are mostly PNG files but some are JPEGs and TGAs.

Riveal can also extract your player journal -- with the photos you have taken in the game and with the notes you have written. The extracted journal is an HTML file plus a collection of JPEG pictures.

All of the music files have "Music" or "Mx" in their names. Here are those music files from the game that correspond to the soundtrack CD:

Thanks to Eric and Maratanos for helping to compile this information!

I recommend buying the soundtrack CD.

The remaining music files are generally short: a minute long or less. They add up to another 15 minutes of music. Here are some of the best songs (thanks, again, to Maratanos):

The Myst V linking sound is "xLink.ogg" or "xLink-Stereo.ogg".

Extracting from Uru: Ages Beyond Myst and Uru: Complete Chronicles

Riveal can extract the sound and movie files from Uru: Ages Beyond Myst and its expansion packs or from Uru: Complete Chronicles on your hard disk but not from the game CDs. The sounds are in Ogg Vorbis (".ogg") format. The very few movies are in Bink (".bik") format. It can also extract the textures used to "paint" the surfaces of the objects in the game. The extracted textures are mostly PNG files but some are JPEGs.

Riveal can also extract your player journal (the notes you have written in the game) and your KI images (the photos you have taken). The extracted journal is an HTML file and the photos are JPEG pictures.

Only some of the music files directly correspond to the songs on the Uru soundtrack CD:

Thanks to Maratanos and Eric for helping to compile this information!

Again, I recommend buying the soundtrack CD.

Quite a bit of the Uru music is not on the soundtrack CD, particularly if you have the expansion packs or the Complete Chronicles. There is almost an extra hour of music to enjoy. Here are some of the best songs (thanks, again, to Maratanos):

The Uru linking sound is "xLink.ogg" or "xLink-Stereo.ogg".

Extracting from Myst Online: Uru Live

Riveal can extract the sound and movie files from Myst Online: Uru Live. The sounds are in Ogg Vorbis (".ogg") format. The very few movies are in Bink (".bik") format. It can also extract the textures used to "paint" the surfaces of the objects in the game. The extracted textures are mostly PNG files but some are JPEGs.

Riveal can also extract your KI images -- the photos you have taken in the game -- and your avatar portraits -- the photos you have taken of yourself in your Relto wardrobe. The extracted images are JPEG pictures.

Only some of the music files directly correspond to the songs on the Uru soundtrack CD:

Thanks to Maratanos and Eric for helping to compile this information!

Again, I recommend buying the soundtrack CD.

Quite a bit of the Myst Online music is not on the Uru soundtrack CD. There is almost an extra hour of music to enjoy. Here are some of the best songs (thanks, again, to Maratanos and also to Kaveman):

The Myst Online linking sound is "xLink.ogg" or "xLink-Stereo.ogg".

Extracting from The Manhole: Masterpiece Edition

Riveal can extract sounds, movies, and pictures from The Manhole: Masterpiece Edition. The extracted sounds are in WAVE format, the movies are QuickTime MOV files, and the pictures are mostly in PICT format (Mac version) or BMP format (Windows version).

Be sure to listen to "MystPhone.wav" or "!MYSTPHONE.wav". :)

Extracting from The Manhole: Masterpiece Edition for iOS

Riveal can extract sounds, movies, and pictures from The Manhole: Masterpiece Edition for iOS. The extracted sounds are in MP3, WAVE, and CAF format, the movies are M4V files, and the pictures are PNG and JPEG files.

Be sure to listen to "!MYSTPHO.NE.mp3". :)

Extracting from BioShock

Riveal can extract sounds, movies, and textures from the Mac, Windows, and PlayStation 3 versions of BioShock. Movies and textures can be extracted from the Xbox 360 version. The extracted sounds are MP3 and WAVE files, the movies are QuickTime MOV files (Mac version) or Bink files (Windows, PS3, and Xbox 360 versions), and the textures are in PNG format.

Music, dialogue, and sound effects can be found in the "Sounds_Windows" folder (Mac and Windows) or the "sounds_ps3" folder (PS3). The "Maps" folder also contains many sound effects and lots of dialogue, and there are a few more sounds in the "Builds" folder. More music and dialogue can be found in the audio tracks of the movies. Most textures are extracted to the "BulkContent", "FlashMovies", and "Maps" folders. The "Builds" folder contains some more textures.

With the Mac version of BioShock, be sure to first double-click "BioShockData.dmg" in your BioShock game folder to mount that disk image. You will want Riveal to extract from the "BioShock" folder on the disk image. A few files can also be extracted from the BioShock application on your hard disk.

It is important to select the "BioShock" folder and not a subfolder such as "Content" or "BulkContent" when extracting textures. The textures from the ".blk" files in the "BulkContent" folder can only be extracted correctly if Riveal is able to first examine the ".u" files in the "Builds" folder and the ".bsm" files in the "Maps" folder.

The orchestral score for the game, composed by Garry Schyman, was released as a free download.

Most of the other music, popular music of the 1920s through the 1950s, is extracted to the "streams_music_common_audio" folder:

Kevin Satori, a BioShock fan, has put together an unofficial soundtrack compilation that is highly recommended. He has tracked down clean and complete copies of many of the songs that, in the game, are artificially "aged".

There is much more information about the music of BioShock (and everything else) at the BioShock Wiki. The Rapture City Archives are another great source of information.

Extracting from BioShock 2

Riveal can extract sounds, movies, and textures from the Windows and PlayStation 3 versions of BioShock 2 and from the DLC (downloadable content) of the game. Movies and textures can be extracted from the Xbox 360 version and its DLC. Extracted sounds are MP3 and WAVE files, movies are Bink files, and textures are in PNG format.

Music, dialogue, and sound effects can be found in the "Sounds_Windows" or "sounds_ps3" folders. The "Maps" folders also contain many sound effects and lots of dialogue, and there are a few more sounds in the "Builds" folders. More music and dialogue can be found in the audio tracks of the movies. Most textures are extracted to the "BulkContent", "FlashMovies", and "Maps" folders. The "Builds" folders contain some more textures.

BioShock 2 is two games in one: a single-player game and a multiplayer game. On disk, these games are in separate subfolders within the BioShock 2 folder called "SP" and "MP" (Windows) or "singleplayer" and "multiplayer" (PS3), respectively. It is important to select a high-level BioShock 2 folder in Riveal when extracting textures. Riveal needs to examine both the ".u" files in a "Builds" folder and the ".bsm" files in a "Maps" folder in order to correctly extract textures from the ".blk" files in the corresponding "BulkContent" folder. So, if you want the textures from both games, select the BioShock 2 folder. Otherwise, select "SP" or "MP" (or "singleplayer" or "multiplayer") and not a lower subfolder.

The orchestral score for the game, Sounds From The Lighthouse, was composed by Garry Schyman. It came on a CD included with the BioShock 2 Special Edition.

There is also an official soundtrack for BioShock 2. It does not, however, correspond directly to the period music from the game. Some songs included in the soundtrack are not used in the game and vice versa. In one case, the version of the song included in the soundtrack is different from the one in the game.

These are the music files from BioShock 2 that correspond to the soundtrack:

These are all of the licensed music files from BioShock 2, both single-player (SP) and multiplayer (MP):

If you have Windows DLC, it can be found in the "c:\Documents and Settings\yourID\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\XLive\DLC\5454085C\00000002\" folder on Windows XP, or the "c:\Users\yourID\App Data\Local\Microsoft\Xlive\DLC\5454085C\00000002" folder on Windows Vista and Windows 7. Within that folder, each subfolder corresponds to a different BioShock 2 DLC add-on. It is best to extract from one DLC folder at a time rather than from all at once.

The BioShock Wiki has information about all aspects of BioShock 2. Another terrific resource is the Rapture City Archives.

Copyright (c) 2005-2011 Ron Hayter. All rights reserved.