WWISER

A Wwise .bnk parser, to assist in ripping audio from games using the Wwise engine.

Simply open wwiser without arguments to start the GUI. From there you can load and view banks, dump contents or make TXTP (wwiser can't modify banks). It reads and shows all .bnk chunks, including HIRC (audio scripting) data, and properly identifies all fields.

Or from the command line: wwiser [options] (files)

• wwiser bgm.bnk (dumps bgm.bnk info to bgm.bnk.xml)
• wwiser -d txt init.bnk bgm.bnk -o banks.txt (loads multiple .bnk, like Wwise does, and dumps to banks.txt)
• wwiser *.bnk -v (loads all .bnk in the dir and starts the viewer)
• wwiser -g bgm.bnk (generates TXTP files from banks to use with vgmstream)
• wwiser -h (shows all available actions)

Loaded banks can be explored using the viewer, a web browser-based tool (if you'd prefer a native GUI, please understand there are multiple reasons behind this), or dumped to a file. For best results load init.bnk then one or more related banks, since banks can point to data in other banks.

If companion files like SoundbankInfo.xml or (bank name).txt are found in the .bnk dir they'll be automatically used to show names. wwiser also supports some artificial ways to add reversed names (wwnames.txt and wwnames.db3).

Be aware that depending on the bank size loading may be slow, memory usage high, dump output big, and txtp generation slow.

wwiser requires Python installed (tested with python3, recent python2 versions will probably/partially work). The viewer also needs a modern-ish browser.

See doc/WWISER.md for full info about various details. CLI also has a few extra options for advanced users too, also see https://github.com/bnnm/wwiser-utils for some extra stuff. If you need help try asking on hcs64.com forums or discord.

WWISE ENGINE AND WWISER USAGE

TL;DR: Wwise never plays .wem directly and always uses events inside .bnk that play one or many .wem indirectly. You want to open main .bnk (leaving companion xml and txt files together to get names) with wwiser, maybe explore a bit, and automatically generate TXTP for events, to use with vgmstream to play music (https://github.com/vgmstream/vgmstream).

Wwise has two "modes", a sound engine that plays single sfx or tracks capable of simple looping (some games loop like this), and a music engine that dynamically plays multiple audio stems mixed in realtime (other games loop by using multiple separate files). You want TXTP to handle the later, but they also give consistency and (sometimes) original names to the former. In short, for games using Wwise audio don't play .wem but use wwiser's generated .txtp.

WWISER OUTPUT

Web view or dumped .xml shows what is stored in .bnk, trying to follow original (Audiokinetic's) names. Since Wwise is a complex engine it can be a bit hard to understand at first. Most concepts are explained in doc/WWISER.md, though to get most of it install Wwise (free) and play around with the editor.

TXTP GENERATION

You can generate .txtp files from .bnk that allow vgmstream to (mostly) play audio simulating Wwise. Make sure .wem go to the /txtp/wem folder and open .txtp with a player like foobar2000 or Winamp with the vgmstream plugin installed (or use CLI). Language-specific .wem can be configured to go to /txtp/wem/(language name). Older games may use other extensions like .wav/xma/ogg, this is ok and taken into account.

Pay attention to WARNINGs in the log, as you may need to manually fix some issues that can't be automated (usually loading multiple banks at once and re-generating). But sometimes there is no way to fix and can be ignored, since .bnk may contain garbage.

If log complains about unused audio set an option to generation those, but only after trying to load other banks, as results will be better that way (some banks could contain audio while others contain "events", and you should load both to properly make .txtp). Unused audio may end up generating nothing (leftover empty or repeated data that doesn't play anything).

Main Wwise features missing in generated TXTP at the moment are:

• overlaps: when a songs changes section or loops, Wwise allows to play "post-exit" and "pre-entry" audio simultaneously, but .txtp just ignores those for now, making some transitions sound less smooth
• different sample rates: Wwise can freely combine sample rates, but vgmstream needs to be updated to support this (some parts of the song will sound too fast)
• switch transitions: songs can dynamically change sections in real time via passed parameters in Wwise, but the generator only uses pre-set parameters
• auto parameters: generator automatically makes combinations of parameters to create most possible songs, but some combos that play multiple songs simultaneously aren't created at the moment (made as separate songs, can be created by passing all parameters manually).
• songs with random files/variations: selected from a list and may change dynamically in Wwise (like on every loop), can only play pre-selected values (editable).
• multi-loops: Wwise can loop each element independently (since it's just "repeating" parts rather than "looping"), but .txtp doesn't (can be manually simulated).
• effects: Wwise can apply effects like pitch, panning and so on, none are simulated
• songs with unusual features like midis/sfx plugins can't play (too complex)
• silences: Wwise games sometimes silence or crossfade files while playing the rest, that isn't autodetected.
• volumes: Wwise can alter final volume outside bank parameters, so some songs may sound a bit quiet (try setting 3.0dB or 6.0dB in the master volume option).

Watch out for filenames with:

• {r}: has random parts marked like R3>1 ("from 3 items select first")
  • open .txtp and change to R3>2 to select 2nd part manually and so on
  • may set extra options to auto-generate multiple .txtp per "outer" random
• {s}: has crossfading parts marked like ##fade
  • open .txtp and silence those by put ? in front of .wem (or #v 0 before ##fade)
  • may set extra options to auto-silence parts
• {m}: uses multi-loops where multiple places set #@loop
  • cannot make true loops ATM, but may extend #@loop times manually to a fixed time
• {e}: uses "external IDs" set by game at runtime so can't guess file, usually voices
  • may supply a externals.txt file, with a Wwise external ID followed by N lines pointing to files, repeat per ID ex. 12345(line)vo/vo_char01_001.wem(line)vo/vo_char01_002.wem(line)23456(line)vo/vo_char02_001.wem(line)...
  • external ID is printed inside the (...) {e}.txtp as ##external (number) ...
• {!}: missing audio that usually needs more .bnk or uses unsupported audio plugins
  • missing parts are marked as ?
• {l=(lang)}: when flag to handle languages is set, use when multiple songs/sfx per language need to coexist coexist in same dir

Generator has a bunch of options to tweak how files are created.

It's a good idea to keep the .bnk and companion files around in case .txtp need to be generated again when more features are added.

.txtp names are taken from loaded banks's companion files if found. Load related banks (like init.bnk) too to ensure all needed names are loaded. You can also manually make an extra name list in a wwnames.txt file, see https://github.com/bnnm/wwiser-utils for some examples and tips.

TXTP filters and name order

By default wwiser generates all .txtp that are considered "usable". This mainly means events (CAkEvent), prioritizing those with known names.

You can use add a list of "filters" to alter this, passing multiple (id) (class name) (name) (bank name) to generate .txtp that match those. Add a - or / before to generate defaults excluding those. Wildcards are allowed too. Examples:

• 123456: object with that ID (could be an ID of a "music segment" and similar objects)
• CAkMusicSegment: .txtp only from "music segment" objects (by default only events are considered)
• play_bgm_001: only event .txtp that are named like that
• music.bnk: only event .txtp in said bank.
• play_bgm_*: only event .txtp that start with play_bgm_
• -play_sfx_*: all event .txtp except those that play sfx
• /play_sfx_*: same (alt since command line gets confused by -)

Some tricks you can do with filters:

• testing: if you have a big .txtp with lots of groups, you can pass a single ID and output just the part you want.
• ignore sfx: maybe you have common.bnk with lots of sfx but a handful of jingles. Pass jingle_* (if named) or an event ID list to ignore sfx events.
• load many banks: sometimes games separate and load .bnk in non-obvious ways. You could just load everything then filter by music.bnk to get music but ensure all needed banks are there (ignoring sfx or voice banks).
• Alter .txtp order: some games have several events that do the same thing. For example jukebox01 then music01_fields in that order may be clones. By default .txtp order is as found, meaning you get jukebox01 and music01_fields is ignored (dupe). But the later name is more descriptive and would be preferable. To fix this, you can filter by music* and pass the option to "generate rest of files after filtering". This reorders so music01_fields goes first, then jukebox01 (now a dupe = ignored).

LIMITATIONS

This tool is not, and will never be, a .bnk editor (can't replace files). It's only meant to show bank data and generate TXTP. But feel free to use info here to make other programs.

Almost all .bnk versions should work, except the first two, used in Shadowrun (X360) and Too Human (X360), report if you get errors or incorrect behavior. All fields should be correctly identified and named, save a few bit flags in some versions and some lesser objects like plugins.

LEGAL STUFF

Everything from wwiser was researched and reverse-engineered by studying public SDKs, executables and files, by bnnm.