Riveal 5.0

by Ron Hayter
mystriveal@mac.com

Introduction

Riveal is a free Java application that extracts sounds, movies, and pictures from the data files of most games in the Myst series:

• Myst [Original Mac version] (sounds, movies, and pictures),
• Myst [Original Windows version] (sounds and pictures only),
• Myst Masterpiece Edition (sounds and pictures only),
• realMYST, the real-time 3D remake of the original Myst (sounds only),
• Riven (sounds, movies, and pictures), and
• Myst III: Exile (sounds, movies and pictures).

As a bonus, Riveal also extracts sounds, movies, and pictures from the Mac version of The Manhole CD-ROM Masterpiece Edition, an enhanced remake of one of Cyan's pre-Myst games.

Although Riveal is not needed to extract them, this document describes how to find the sounds and movies in Myst V: End of Ages and Uru.

There are two versions of Riveal, one for Mac OS X and the other for Windows. Being a Java application, it requires version 1.4 or later of the Java Runtime Environment. Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther), 10.4 (Tiger), and 10.5 (Leopard) have the JRE built in. For Windows, you may need to download and install the JRE, which you can get from http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp.

Download Riveal for Mac OS X.

Download Riveal for Windows.

Running Riveal

Mac OS X version:

• Double-click Riveal.
• It will ask you to point to a folder containing data files (or a folder of folders):
  • Manhole "MooV" and "Res" files,
  • Myst "MooV" and "Res" files,
  • Myst Masterpiece ".dat" or "pics" files,
  • realMYST ".dni" files,
  • Riven ".mhk" files, or
  • Exile ".m3a" files.
  If you have copied all of the game files to your hard disk, the folder to choose might be:
  • "/Applications/The Manhole",
  • "/Applications/Myst",
  • "/Applications/Myst Masterpiece Edition",
  • "/Applications/realMYST",
  • "/Applications/Riven", or
  • "/Applications/Myst III Exile".
  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 and, after a lot of disk activity, you should have many ".wav", ".mp2", ".mov", ".bik", ".pict", ".bmp", ".png", and/or ".jpeg" files.

Windows version:

• First, install Java if you do not already have it.
• Second, make sure that "Riveal.jar" is downloaded intact and not split apart. WinRAR seems especially keen to expand ".jar" files.
• Third, 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 "javaw" from the list of programs. (You may need to use the Other... button to find "javaw.exe". It will probably be in "c:\Program Files\Java\jdk 1.5.0\jre\bin\" or something close to that.) Be sure to check "Always use this program to open these files", 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 ".dat" or "pics" files,
  • realMYST ".dni" files,
  • Riven ".mhk" files, or
  • Exile ".m3a" files.
  If you have copied 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", or
  • "c:\Program Files\Ubi Soft\Myst III Exile".
  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 and, after a lot of disk activity, you should have many ".wav", ".mp2", ".mov", ".bik", ".pict", ".bmp", ".png", and/or ".jpeg" files.

The Manhole CD-ROM Masterpiece Edition [Mac version]

Riveal can extract sounds, movies, and pictures from the Mac version of The Manhole CD-ROM Masterpiece Edition. The extracted sounds are in WAV format, the movies are QuickTime MOV files, and the pictures are in PICT format.

Be sure to listen to "MystPhone.wav". :)

Myst [Original Mac version]

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

The WAV files that start with "MU" are music. There is a WAV 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:

Myst [Original Windows version]

Riveal can extract sounds and pictures from the original Windows version of Myst. The extracted sounds are in WAV format and the pictures are in BMP format.

Riveal is not needed to extract the movies from the Windows version of Myst. The movies are in QuickTime format (".mov" extension) on the CD, in subfolders of the "QTW" folder. You can watch them with QuicktTime Player.

The WAV files that start with "MU" are music. There is a WAV 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:

Myst Masterpiece Edition

Riveal can extract pictures from the Myst Masterpiece Edition CD or DVD. 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.

Riveal is not needed to extract the movies from the Myst Masterpiece Edition. The movies are in QuickTime format (".mov" extension) on the CD or DVD. You can watch them with QuickTime Player.

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 (".aif" extension) or in WAV format or both. The AIFF files (if any) may be in the "Myst ME Data" folder on your hard disk or on the CD or DVD. AIFF can be played by many music programs including iTunes. The WAV files (if any) will be extracted by Riveal to your hard disk.

The AIFF and WAV 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:

realMYST

Riveal can also extract realMYST's sounds from the data files on your hard disk or on CD. 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.

The extracted sound files are all in WAV format and they 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.

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

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 WAV format. Any audio application should be able to play them. Many of the extracted sounds from the DVD are in MP2 format (i.e., layer 2 of MPEG-1 and -2), a precursor to MP3. One music player that can play MP2 files is iTunes and no doubt there are others. To listen to the MP2 files on an iPod, you will need to use iTunes to convert the MP2 files to AAC or MP3. You might want to also convert the WAV files to AAC or MP3 to reduce their size.

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:

To play the movies, you will need the QuickTime Player. 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 and any browser or image viewer should be able to display them. 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.

Myst III: Exile

Some of the sound files for Myst III: Exile can be easily found on the game CDs or DVD or on your hard disk in the "Music" and "M3Data" folders. The music files are in MP3 format and so are some of the other sounds. Most sounds, though, are in WAV format. Riveal can also extract many other sounds. They are mostly sound effects and they are all in WAV format.

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.

Riveal can extract Exile's movies and pictures from the data files on your hard disk or on a game CD or DVD. The movies are in Bink (".bik") format and the pictures are in JPEG format. To play the Bink movies, you will need a player. RAD Game Tools has players for Mac OS X and Windows at http://www.radgametools.com/bnkdown.htm. Any browser or image viewer should be able to display the pictures.

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

Myst IV: Revelation

The sounds, movies, and pictures from Myst IV: Revelation can be extracted using a separate application, Revelator.

Myst V: End of Ages

Riveal is not needed to extract the sound and movie files from Myst V: End of Ages since the files can be easily found on your hard disk. On Mac OS X, in the folder where Myst V is installed, select the Myst V application. If you have a multi-button mouse, right-click on the application; otherwise, hold the Control key down and click on the application. Choose Show Package Contents from the pop-up menu. Open the Contents folder, then the Resources folder. The sound files are in the "sfx" folder and the movie files are in the "avi" folder. On Windows, the "sfx" and "avi" folders are in the folder where Myst V is installed, which is probably "c:\Program Files\Ubisoft\Cyan Worlds\Myst V End Of Ages".

The sound files are in Ogg Vorbis format. To hear the Ogg Vorbis sounds, you will need to use a music player that understands that format. If you install the Xiph QuickTime Components available at http://www.xiph.org/quicktime/download.html, all applications that use QuickTime (iTunes, for instance) should be able to play these sound files. To listen to the music on an iPod, you will need to use iTunes to convert the files to AAC or MP3.

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 movies in the "avi" folder are in Bink (".bik") format. To play the Bink movies, you will need a player. RAD Game Tools has players for Mac OS X and Windows at http://www.radgametools.com/bnkdown.htm.

Your player journal -- with the photos you have taken in the game and with the notes you have written -- can also be found on your hard disk. On Mac OS X, look for "/Users/username/Library/Application Support/Myst V End of Ages/sav/Store#/Journal/Journal.html", where # is a player number from 1 to 5. On Windows, the file is "c:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Myst V End of Ages\sav\Store#\Journal\Journal.html".

Uru

Riveal is not needed to extract the sound and movie files from Uru. These files can be easily found on your hard disk in the "sfx" and "avi" folders, respectively, where Uru is installed. Depending on whether you have the original Uru: Ages Beyond Myst (and its expansion packs) or Uru: Complete Chronicles, the game is probably installed in "c:\Program Files\Ubi Soft\Cyan Worlds\Uru - Ages Beyond Myst" or "c:\Program Files\Ubi Soft\Cyan Worlds\Myst Uru Complete Chronicles". The expansion packs are usually installed in "c:\Program Files\Ubi Soft\Cyan Worlds\Uru - To D'ni" and "c:\Program Files\Ubi Soft\Cyan Worlds\Myst Uru - Path of the Shell".

The sound files are in Ogg Vorbis format. The Xiph QuickTime Components at http://www.xiph.org/quicktime/download.html enable applications that use QuickTime to play these files.

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

Thanks to Maratanos 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 very few movies in the "avi" folder are in Bink (".bik") format. RAD Game Tools has Bink movie players for Mac OS X and Windows at http://www.radgametools.com/bnkdown.htm.

Your KI images and your journal entries can also be found on your hard disk. Look for the "KIimages" and "MyJournal" folders, respectively, where Uru is installed.

Copyright (c) 2005-6 Ron Hayter. All rights reserved.