EA Pathfinder v5 Tool

This tool is designed to decompile and compile the Pathfinder files used for interactive music in EA Games.

Compatibility

This tool should work with any Pathfinder v5 file.

Some of the games are:

• Need for Speed Most Wanted (2005)

• Need for Speed Carbon

• Need for Speed Pro Street

• Need for Speed Undercover

• Need for Speed World

• Red Alert 3

Usage

Basic usage:

USAGE (decompile MPF to TXT): mpfmaster MPFfile [OutFile]
USAGE (compile TXT to MPF): mpfmaster -c sourceMapFile [MPFout]
USAGE (extract by sample num): mpfmaster -s MPFfile MusTrackFile SampleNumber [OutSampleFile]
USAGE (extract all samples): mpfmaster -sa MPFfile MusTrackFile [OutSampleFolder]
USAGE (update samples): mpfmaster -su MPFfile SampleFolder
USAGE (shift sample names): mpfmaster -ss SampleFolder shiftAmount
USAGE (append a new slot): mpfmaster -a sourceMapFile [TrackID] [SectionID]
USAGE (append a new slot (NFS Pro Street)): mpfmaster -ap sourceMapFile [TrackID] [SectionID]
USAGE (concat files): mpfmaster -t destinationMapFile sourceMapFile

For sample updating, the MUS file will be generated with the name of the MPF and placed next to it. You MUST have all files from the lowest to highest number!
If you omit the optional [out] name, it'll inherit the name of the input file.
The compiler is not very well written, so please follow the decompilation syntax closely!
Newly compiled files do not contain samples. Add them with the update samples command.

Example: you want to edit something in the existing track files...

• Make sure your MPF and MUS files are in the same folder!

• Decompile the MPF

  mpfmaster MW_Music.mpf

• Extract the samples (NOTE - for multi track files, you need to do this for each mus file separately)

  mpfmaster -sa MW_Music.mpf MW_Music.mus mySampleFolder

• Edit whatever you need to edit

• Recompile the MPF

  mpfmaster -c MW_Music_decomp.txt mynewMPF.mpf

• Update the samples (NOTE - for multi track files, all samples need to be in a single directory)

  mpfmaster -su mynewMPF.mpf mySampleFolder

TODO

This tool isn't perfect. It doesn't generate quite identical files to the originals, but they do work.

• Big endian support for consoles

• Try out compiling with gcc/clang -- currently works in macOS, still need to make a CMakeLists

• Figure out why some variable types don't get updates for certain actions (mostly fixed)

• Improve the parser - it's currently a hackjob working on a line-per-line basis

• Clean up the code - everything is jammed in the main cpp file!

• Documentation about the syntax and available commands!

• Test with other games!

Credits

• Nicknine - the initial mpftotext script from which this tool was based on and specific code from VGMStream
• VGMStream project - header parsing for GSTR / EA Layer 3