jnm2 / MystIVAssetExplorer

Browse and extract Myst IV game assets, view 360° imagery, and play audio assets in-app with gapless looping, and open video assets, in a high-performance app.

Myst IV Asset Explorer

Browse and extract Myst IV game assets, view 360° imagery, and play audio assets in-app with gapless looping, and open video assets, in a high-performance app built with .NET 8 and Avalonia UI.

How to use

Make sure Myst IV is installed somewhere under your Program Files (x86) directory (or on a 32-bit operating system, Program Files). Myst IV Asset Explorer will autodetect the path to the data\*.m4b files.

Download and run the .exe file from the latest release of Myst IV Asset Explorer from https://github.com/jnm2/MystIVAssetExplorer/releases and run it. If .NET 8 or newer is not installed, the app will take you to the download page for .NET 8.

360° viewer

To explore the layers of the nodes for the game, expand the data.m4b/global/w#/z## folders and click on various n### folders which define the nodes of the game.

Click anywhere in the viewer to stop the initial rotation. Click and drag to look up, down, left, and right. After clicking in the viewer, type f to switch to the front face, b to the back, l to the left, r to the right, t to the top, and B (Shift+b) to the bottom. The mouse wheel can also be used to change the zoom (field of view). By default, the zoom perfectly matches a face image to the viewport width or height.

Some nodes are not rotatable in the game, so there is only one face and rotating is disabled in the 360° viewer for these nodes. Rarely, some nodes don't contain their own imagery and there is nothing to see with the 360° viewer.

Clicking a node folder chooses the cube/layer_default.m4b/set_default subfolder by default, but you can view other specialized layers by expanding the cube folder and picking other leaf folders:

Audio

To explore the audio for the game, expand the sound.m4b/data folder and click on various .sb0 files which define the audio streams for the game. For language-specific audio files, expand the top-level language folder and its contained sound.m4b/data.

Myst IV stores audio in three audio formats: uncompressed PCM, a proprietary Ubisoft format based on IMA ADPCM, and Ogg Vorbis. All three can be played back and exported. The ADPCM format is converted to uncompressed PCM (*.wav) before exporting.

The game's music is contained in mu_music.sb0, music_personality_test.sb0, and the sequence_*.sp0 files. See Music not included in the soundtrack and Soundtrack music and variants for overviews of the music in the game.

Video

The game's video is contained in .bik files. These use the Bink Video format. The video files contain no audio.

To view the video files, they can be exported and played with ffmpeg (ffplay) or VLC. You can also preview them from the app by double-clicking or clicking Play, if ffmpeg or VLC are installed on your system.

Music not included in the soundtrack

• Dream sequence (Peter Gabriel): mu_music.sb0 stream 1
  • A different version was released 15 years later as https://petergabriel.bandcamp.com/track/curtains
• Same thing, but instrumental (used for credits?): sequence_sa_3_instrumental.sb0 stream Instrumental_MU_SA_03_PG_Instrumental
• Tomahna: sequence_to_2b_full.sb0 stream FULL_Play_MU_TO_02B_FULL
• Spire: sequence_sp_2a.sb0 stream 47
• Spire, taking ship to other island: sfx_sirrus_w3_z02_n500.sb0 stream 633
• Haven: sequence_hn_1d_full.sb0 stream FULL_Play_MU_HN_01D_full
• Serenia "personality test" vocals: music_personality_test.sb0 streams 0-5
• Cyan logo tune: logo_cyan.sb0
• Intro video audio, speech on top of the Main Theme track (the menu background music): <language>/sound.m4b/data/<language>/video_w6_stream.sb0 stream 7
• Others?

Not music, but Myst IV's version of the linking sound is transition_sfx_gl_travelling_effect.sb0 stream SFX_GL_Travelling_Effect.IMA.

Soundtrack music and variants

The official game soundtrack can be streamed from a few places:

• https://open.spotify.com/album/6ZbbGQubzXHkZlIVawPUxl
• https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_k1Hi0PhoDFAspaPYcIhhCUILfpsmomqoE
• https://music.amazon.com/albums/B0BKCHXS9G

For entries denoted with †, the file is language-specific and is found in the <language>/sound.m4b/data/<language> folder.

Soundtrack title	sound.m4b/data file	Stream
1. Main Theme (4:29)	mu_music.sb0	0 (4:29)
2. Yeesha's Joyride (1:03)	video_w5_stream.sb0†	311 (1:08, speech over it)
3. Enter Tomahna (6:37)	sequence_to_1a_full.sb0	FULL_play_MU_TO_01A_full (3:13, part 1)
	sequence_to_1b_full.sb0	FULL_play_MU_TO_01B_full (3:31, part 2)
4. Darkness (2:59)	sequence_to_2a.sb0	PAD_Play_MU_TO_02A_pad (2:53), with dozens of other short sounds from the same .sb0 file overlaid—also, the game asset is oddly present in the first 25 seconds of https://cosmosis.bandcamp.com/track/spanish-gypsy??
5. Achenar's Prelude (0:13)	video_w4_stream.sb0†	258 (0:13, game sounds over it)
	video_w1_stream.sb0†	87 (0:15, similar, game sounds over it)
6. Jungle Landing (3:40)	sfx_achenar_w2_z02_n190.sb0	107 (0:44, game sounds over it)
	sequence_hn_1a_full.sb0	FULL_Play_MU_HN_01A_full (3:14, part 2)
	sequence_hn_1_full.sb0	FULL_Play_MU_HN_01_full (3:08, part 2 alternate)
7. The Swamp (2:25)	sequence_hn_1b_full.sb0	FULL_Play_MU_HN_01B_full (3:38)
8. The Predator (3:59)	sequence_hn_1c_full.sb0	FULL_Play_MU_HN_01C_full (4:20)
	sequence_hn_1c_instr.sb0	INSTR_Play_MU_HN_01C_instr (4:17, alternate)
9. Lakeside (2:36)	sequence_hn_2_full.sb0	FULLSEQ_Play_MU_HN_02_full (2:34)
10. Achenar Meeting (1:53)	video_w4_stream.sb0†	222 (1:56, speech over it)
11. Welcome (3:00)	sequence_hn_3_full.sb0	FULL_Play_MU_HN_03_full (2:57)
12. Enter Spire (3:30)	sequence_sp_1.sb0	FULLSEQ_Play_MU_SP_01_full (3:28)
	sequence_sp_1_synth.sb0	FULLSEQ_MU_SP_01_synth (3:28, alternate)
	sequence_sp_1_orch.sb0	FULLSEQ_MU_SP_01_orch (2:47, alternate)
13. Prison Level (4:56)	sequence_sp_2_full.sb0	FULL_Play_MU_SP_02_full (4:54)
14. Sirrus Defends/Sirrus' rage (2:31)	video_w4_stream.sb0†	234 (1:30, part 1, speech over it)
	video_w3_stream.sb0†	22 (1:05, part 2, speech over it)
15. Nearest Island (2:52)	sequence_sp_3_full.sb0	FULL_Play_MU_SP_03_full (3:08)
16. Leaving Spire (1:00)	sfx_sirrus_w3_z06_n070.sb0	97 (0:59, game sounds over it)
17. Enter Serenia (3:11)	sequence_sa_1_full.sb0	FULL_Play_MU_SA_01_full (3:10)
	sequence_sa_1_instrument.sb0	INSTRUMENT_Play_MU_SA_01_instr (3:10, alternate)
18. The Monastery (2:12)	sequence_sa_2_full.sb0	FULL_Play_MU_SA_02_full (2:10)
19. Dream (0:59)	sequence_sa_3a.sb0	CHOIR_Play_MU_SA_03A_choir1 (0:28, part 1)
	sequence_sa_3a.sb0	CHOIR_Play_MU_SA_03A_choir2 (0:40, part 2)
20. Hall of Spirits (2:32)	sequence_sa_2_full.sb0	FULL_Play_MU_SA_02A_full (2:30)
21. The Serenians (2:04)	sequence_serenians_a.sb0	CHOIR_Play_MU_SERENIANS_A (0:46, part 1)
	sequence_serenians_b.sb0	CHOIR_Play_MU_SERENIANS_B (0:47, part 2)
	sequence_serenians_c.sb0	CHOIR_Play_MU_SERENIANS_C (0:44, part 3)
22. The Revelation/The Sacrifice (2:24)	?	?
23. End Game (2:07)	video_w4_stream.sb0†	232 (2:05, alternate ending 1 speech over it)
	video_w4_stream.sb0†	233 (2:05, alternate ending 2 speech over it)
24. Atrus' speech (1:45)	video_w1_stream.sb0†	65 (1:43, speech over it)