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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
- Dream sequence (Peter Gabriel):
mu_music.sb0stream 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.sb0streamInstrumental_MU_SA_03_PG_Instrumental - Tomahna:
sequence_to_2b_full.sb0streamFULL_Play_MU_TO_02B_FULL - Spire:
sequence_sp_2a.sb0stream 47 - Haven:
sequence_hn_1d_full.sb0streamFULL_Play_MU_HN_01D_full - Serenia "personality test" vocals:
music_personality_test.sb0streams 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.sb0stream 7 - Others?
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) | ? | ? |
| 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 othershort 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, has game sounds over it) |
video_w1_stream.sb0† |
87 (0:15, similar, has game sounds over it) | |
| 6. Jungle Landing (3:40) | ? | ? |
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, has 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, has speech over it) |
video_w3_stream.sb0† |
22 (1:05, part 2, has 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) | ? | ? |
| 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, has alternate ending 1 speech over it) |
video_w4_stream.sb0† |
233 (2:05, has alternate ending 2 speech over it) | |
| 24. Atrus' speech (1:45) | video_w1_stream.sb0† |
65 (1:43, has speech over it) |