ModdingWiki - User contributions [en-gb]

HSB Format (Halloween Harry)

2010-12-14T15:24:25Z

Duckthing: URL fix for GMF Format article

<tt>HARRY.HSB</tt> is the sprite file used by [[Halloween Harry]] and holds all of the sprites used by the game. Its format is trivial, being a collection of sprite chunks. Each sprite chunk has an 8 byte header followed by raw data.

== Sprite chunk format ==

As mentioned, sprite data chunks consist of an 8 byte header followed by raw data. The data is for 256 color sprites, meaning one byte of data per pixel of sprite.

0 2 ??? Unknown
2 2 ??? Unknown
4 2 Width Sprite width
6 2 Height Sprite height
8 W*H Data Raw VGA sprite data

=== Palette ===

Each map file (found in <tt>MAPS.-0</tt>) has its own palette data (see the article on the [[GMF Format (Halloween Harry)|GMF Format]] for information). This palette is used to draw both the tile art and the sprites for that level.

== Versions ==

At present only one version of the file is known of length 462,848 bytes containing 467 sprite images.

== Unresolved issues ==

It is still unknown how the game determines the placement of sprites. I suspect the 'unknown' bytes listed above are used in conjunction with the map file, but I haven't been able to verify that yet.

=== Content ===

I was able to extract 467 sprite images from HARRY.HSB. Some of these are 1 pixel high and 1 pixel wide. I don't know the purpose of these 1x1 images yet. These may separate different groups of sprites, or they may simply be slots unused or reserved by the developers.

[[Category:File Formats]]
[[Category:Halloween Harry]]

HSB Format (Halloween Harry)

2010-12-14T15:22:33Z

Duckthing: Added palette information

<tt>HARRY.HSB</tt> is the sprite file used by [[Halloween Harry]] and holds all of the sprites used by the game. Its format is trivial, being a collection of sprite chunks. Each sprite chunk has an 8 byte header followed by raw data.

== Sprite chunk format ==

As mentioned, sprite data chunks consist of an 8 byte header followed by raw data. The data is for 256 color sprites, meaning one byte of data per pixel of sprite.

0 2 ??? Unknown
2 2 ??? Unknown
4 2 Width Sprite width
6 2 Height Sprite height
8 W*H Data Raw VGA sprite data

=== Palette ===

Each map file (found in <tt>MAPS.-0</tt>) has its own palette data (see the article on the GMF format for information). This palette is used to draw both the tile art and the sprites for that level.

== Versions ==

At present only one version of the file is known of length 462,848 bytes containing 467 sprite images.

== Unresolved issues ==

It is still unknown how the game determines the placement of sprites. I suspect the 'unknown' bytes listed above are used in conjunction with the map file, but I haven't been able to verify that yet.

=== Content ===

I was able to extract 467 sprite images from HARRY.HSB. Some of these are 1 pixel high and 1 pixel wide. I don't know the purpose of these 1x1 images yet. These may separate different groups of sprites, or they may simply be slots unused or reserved by the developers.

[[Category:File Formats]]
[[Category:Halloween Harry]]

HSB Format (Halloween Harry)

2010-12-14T15:21:29Z

Duckthing: Palette information is now known -- removed from 'Unknown Issues'. Other minor changes.

<tt>HARRY.HSB</tt> is the sprite file used by [[Halloween Harry]] and holds all of the sprites used by the game. Its format is trivial, being a collection of sprite chunks. Each sprite chunk has an 8 byte header followed by raw data.

== Sprite chunk format ==

As mentioned, sprite data chunks consist of an 8 byte header followed by raw data. The data is for 256 color sprites, meaning one byte of data per pixel of sprite.

0 2 ??? Unknown
2 2 ??? Unknown
4 2 Width Sprite width
6 2 Height Sprite height
8 W*H Data Raw VGA sprite data

== Versions ==

At present only one version of the file is known of length 462,848 bytes containing 467 sprite images.

== Unresolved issues ==

It is still unknown how the game determines the placement of sprites. I suspect the 'unknown' bytes listed above are used in conjunction with the map file, but I haven't been able to verify that yet.

=== Content ===

I was able to extract 467 sprite images from HARRY.HSB. Some of these are 1 pixel high and 1 pixel wide. I don't know the purpose of these 1x1 images yet. These may separate different groups of sprites, or they may simply be slots unused or reserved by the developers.

[[Category:File Formats]]
[[Category:Halloween Harry]]

Talk:GMF Format (Halloween Harry)

2010-12-11T07:11:53Z

Duckthing: Response to notes

Just a couple of notes to help out:
* The plain-text strings you have spotted in the second unknown block are in "Pascal format" (because the game was written in Turbo Pascal.) The first byte is the length of the string. This is the same string format that the filenames are stored in, in the [[BNK Format (Halloween Harry)|.-0 files]].
* Don't be too worried about copyright, the game as been released as freeware and no company really cares about modding these games any more. However do bear in mind this isn't a blog so it would be better not to post screenshots about modding programs until they are completed! But if you want to post screenshots and get some feedback, it would be very welcome on the [http://forums.3drealms.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=19 3DRealms forums].
* You say you are not sure what the first unknown block is for - whether the 0/1 values are for solid tiles or something else. I tried changing this entire block to 0x00 bytes and putting it back into MAPS.-0 and when I loaded M1Z1 I could not fly up out of the first room - the tiles to fly through were solid. I then tried again changing all the values to 0x01 and it was like playing the game with no-clipping, I could fly through everything. Even the zombies were falling through the level and off the bottom! Interestingly when I flew off the side of the first level I ended up in the second level, though without any enemies. Flying further seemed to loop back to the first level. Flying off the top or bottom resulted in gibberish tiles. I will update the article page with this discovery.

:: Thanks for the additional info. I'd originally thought the string-length bytes were off by 1 in some files, which is why I thought something weird was going on there. Good find on the 0/1 values! With the compressed files I was working with, I had no way to edit the original game map files... now I'm working with the uncompressed version which should make things easier. Thanks again for the help! I'm working on a level-viewer this weekend and hope to have something to show on the forums pretty soon. -- [[User:Duckthing|Duckthing]] 07:11, 11 December 2010 (GMT)

User talk:Malvineous

2010-12-11T06:41:28Z

Duckthing: /* Halloween Harry/Alien Carnage */

== Wolfenstein 3D -> Wolfenstein 3-D ==
I've corrected the infamous 3D tyop in the names of several Wolf3D-related pages; can you please delete the following ones?

[[:Category:Wolfenstein 3D]] -> Superseded by [[:Category:Wolfenstein 3-D]]<br>
[[:Image:Wolfenstein_3D.png]] -> Superseded by [[:Image:Wolfenstein_3-D.png]]

Thanks :) --De Zeurkous (zeurkous@zeurcomp.nichten.info), Thu Nov 22 08:18:42 UTC 2007

:Haha, you've certainly been busy. Don't forget that this wiki isn't meant to be an encyclopaedia of the games, its main purpose is documenting the file formats and editing tools that can be used with the games, as opposed to how the games behave without any mods, or what they might be called if you forget to change the title screen :-) -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 11:14, 22 November 2007 (GMT)

::Nah, I haven't forgotten. As we're reinventing the wheel for a semi-virgin wiki, the naming and something static like the cheats seemed like a good place to start :) --De Zeurkous (zeurkous@nichten.info), Thu Nov 22 12:20:04 UTC 2007

== Jill of the Jungle palette ==

Hi, I'm currently working on a level viewer for [[Jill of the Jungle]] (maybe an editor later on). Some of the information I found here has been very useful, but there's one thing I'm a bit stuck on. On the [[SHA Format]] page it says:
:''Each array item contains 4 unsigned bytes, representing CGA, EGA and VGA, respectivley, and then a null value. [...] Each byte maps to the index of a colour in the palette. If there are no colours required, the tile set uses the default colours.''
However, it doesn't say anywhere where the palette can be found. Is it stored in the EXE file? I hope you can help me on this :)

Regards, [[User:Spinal|Spinal]] 13:00, 2 March 2008 (GMT)

:Unfortunately I didn't write the JotJ SHA page, and I haven't yet had the time to figure this out. For Xargon I've taken the quick and dirty route and used a screenshot from within DOSBox as the source of the palette, until I can figure out where the palette is located. If you find this out, don't forget to update the page! :-) -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 22:02, 2 March 2008 (GMT)

::Hey Spinal, sorry, I wrote the [[SHA Format]] page, so that was probably my bad. I wasn't able to find the palette either. I assume it's in the .EXE, however I spent a fair bit of time manually mapping it using a Wombat tool (http://www.szevvy.com/node/3). I was also writing a level viewer (initally in XHTML which turned out to be too slow, so then I moved to Flash 9). I tried to email you my findings, but the email bounced. I'm not sure if they were 100% accurat, which is why I never added them to the documentation.

::Hey Malvineous, it seems the Jill - [[DMA Format]] page has been removed. Do you have a log of what happened to it? I'm sure it existed at some point.

::- [[User:dheim|Daniel]] 20:00, 5 March 2008

:::I don't ever remember seeing a DMA page - certainly there's nothing in the wiki logs about it being deleted or renamed. Maybe you started working on it but never got around to saving it? Or is it one of the Xargon pages that shares the same format as Jill? (by the way, you can type <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> to automatically put in the signature in these messages.) -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 11:28, 5 March 2008 (GMT)

::::Sorry, it must have been the stuff in the [[SHA Format]] page that I was thinking of. I may have added the link to the [[DMA Format]] page, and never expanded on it. - [[User:Dheim|Daniel]] 02:46, 6 March 2008 (GMT)

:::::Hi guys. Sorry for the mistake, I mixed up the authors of the SHA and level formats. I've written a level viewer in PHP the last week, by using static images instead of getting them from the actual files. This causes some problems for episode 2, which uses a different palette, but besides that it works great :) When everything is done I'll upload the maps to my server and the tile/object lists to this wiki.
:::::@Daniel: strange that it bounced, I confirmed my address so it should be working fine... You can mail it to spinal -at- zanderz -dot- net. Also, I saw on your Wombat page that you "have a vague idea of how to do" [[Hocus Pocus]]. Could you share your findings on this wiki? I'd love to make maps, or even a level viewer/editor for that game :) -- [[User:Spinal|Spinal]] 00:32, 8 March 2008 (GMT)
:Okay, with help of [[User:Dheim|Daniel]] who send me the palette I found it! I'll put my findings on [[Jill of the Jungle palette]]. -- [[User:Spinal|Spinal]] 15:36, 13 March 2008 (GMT)

== Halloween Harry/Alien Carnage ==

Hi Malvineous. Thanks for your edits on the GMF article! I notice you mentioned there exist versions of the game which don't require exploding a BNK to get at the game data. What does the directory structure look like for the version you have? I'm working on a map viewer (which will become a map editor at some point) and would like it to be able to work on whatever versions are out there. Thanks for any info. -[[User:Duckthing|Duckthing]] 04:41, 11 December 2010 (GMT)

: Hi Duckthing - no worries, Halloween Harry has long been an interest of mine, but my map editor sadly needs a lot more work before I can begin reverse engineering more file formats so I'm glad you've made a start! AFAIK technically Halloween Harry has no compression, but for whatever reason (probably listed in the Apogee FAQ) they decided to swap episodes 1 and 3, compress the BNK file and then re-release it under the name Alien Carnage. You can download all available versions (including registered versions since the game was released as freeware in 2007) from [http://www.classicdosgames.com/game/Alien_Carnage.html RGB Classic Games]. BTW not sure if you noticed but I also posted a couple of things on the GMF article's talk/discussion page. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 06:08, 11 December 2010 (GMT)

:: Thank you! Working with the uncompressed version will keep things less complicated. I did notice the GMF discussion you added, but haven't had a chance to really go through it yet. -- [[User:Duckthing|Duckthing]] 06:41, 11 December 2010 (GMT)

User talk:Malvineous

2010-12-11T04:41:04Z

Duckthing: /* Halloween Harry/Alien Carnage */ new section

GMF Format (Halloween Harry)

2010-12-10T03:34:31Z

Duckthing: Preliminary information on the GMF (map file) format

=== Overview ===

The GMF files are compressed in <tt>MAPS.-0</tt> and can be extracted using ACXTRACT ([http://www.shikadi.net/files/4md2mod.zip ACXTRACT/4MD2MOD]). Thank you to Malvineous for making this tool available! Each of the 4 missions has 5 levels, and each level is stored in its own file. Filenames are in the form of <tt>MxZy.GMF</tt> where x is the mission and y is the level. There are a total of 20 GMF files stored in <tt>MAPS.-0</tt>. The GMF file contains a header, 256 colors of palette data, two layers of map data, and some other data that has not been decoded yet.

=== Layout ===

The file layout is as follows:

0x0 0x1C Header Bytes 0x16-0x1A vary from file to file; purpose of these is unknown
0x1D 0x31C Palette Three bytes each (R, G, B) for each of 256 colors in palette
0x31D 0x41C? Unknown Probably 256 bytes, see below for possible explanation
0x41D ??? Unknown Probably sprite location/behavior data; see below
??? ??? Map data Contains the actual map data

=== Palette ===

The palette is easy to decode. It is found in the same place in each GMF file: the 768 bytes from 0x1D to 0x31D. The first byte is the red value, the second byte is green, and the third is blue. The values are calibrated for the original VGA registers (with a range of 0-63), so each value should be multiplied by 4 to produce the correct colors.

Color entry 0 always represents a transparent pixel. Other values may also be transparent. This has not been determined yet.

=== 1st Unknown Block ===

Each byte in this block of 256 has a value of either 0 or 1. My initial guess was that this was a table that specified transparent color values in the palette, but using either value results in far too many transparent pixels. It may be a table that determines which blocks are "solid" (sprites can't move through them) and which are not -- there are 255 available tiles in each mission, so this seems like a reasonable guess. I haven't had time yet to check this guess, and I would certainly appreciate any ideas anybody might have.

=== 2nd Unknown Block ===

After the 1st unknown block come a large number of 128-byte blocks. I have yet to determine how the map reader determines how many of these blocks appear. Their purpose is not yet known, but it's likely they determine the location and behavior of sprites.

Plain-text strings are visible in many of these blocks (<tt>M3Z1.GMF</tt> contains quite a few), and the content of some of these correspond to text spoken by Diane when Harry touches a disk. The first byte before the text determines the length of the string -- though it may be either too high or too low by 1. Strings do not necessarily appear in contiguous blocks, but where they do, the spacing between the initial byte of each is exactly 128 bytes, which suggests that each block is 128 bytes.

=== Map Data ===

Unfortunately I don't yet have a way to determine the starting point of the map data at runtime. For now, it can be determined fairly easily for any given map by visual examination of the hex data. <tt>M3Z1.GMF</tt>'s data begins at 0x3629, for example. Once you've found the location, reading the data is extremely simple.

* The first four bytes are the width and height (in 16x16 tiles) of the map, each a UINT16LE. Data begins immediately afterward.

* Each map has two layers: a foreground and a background. The background layer is encoded first. Both have the same dimensions. (But note that, because the game uses parallax scrolling, just placing the foreground map image over the background image won't produce an image that exactly matches what you see when playing.)

* No encoding or compression is used. Each byte represents one 16x16 tile, indexed by the table from the <tt>MISSIONx.CHR</tt> file. For example, a value of 0 represents the 1st tile in the CHR file, a value of 0x10 represents the 17th tile in the CHR file, etc.

=== Progress and Issues ===

I have written a program which reads palette data from the GMF file and tile data from the CHR file, and then creates three PNG images: one for the background, one for the foreground, and one with the foreground overlaid on the background. Aside from the parallax issue mentioned above, and the fact that sprites are missing, this program produces the map as it appears in the game. (For copyright reasons I'm going to refrain from posting an example here, but rest assured it looks good!)

Of course, the sprites are a major issue. I'm reasonably sure the 128-byte blocks contain information on the sprite placement and behavior. However, I don't know if additional data from elsewhere is also needed to fully reconstruct the map.

[[Category:Map Files]]
[[Category:File Formats]]
[[Category:Halloween Harry]]

CHR Format (Halloween Harry)

2010-12-10T02:37:06Z

Duckthing: Created page with 'The CHR files are compressed in <tt>HARRY.-0</tt> and can be extracted using ACXTRACT ([http://www.shikadi.net/files/4md2mod.zip ACXTRACT/4MD2MOD]). Thank you to Malvineous for m…'

The CHR files are compressed in <tt>HARRY.-0</tt> and can be extracted using ACXTRACT ([http://www.shikadi.net/files/4md2mod.zip ACXTRACT/4MD2MOD]). Thank you to Malvineous for making this tool available!

<tt>MISSIONx.CHR</tt> (where x is a number from 1-4) are files containing the map graphics for [[Halloween Harry]] and [[Alien Carnage]]. They consist of a number of consecutive image chunks composed entirely of raw data. They are identical in format to the ICO files, with the exception that dimension data is omitted for images, since they are all 16x16 pixels.

The CHR file for each mission contains the image data used to draw the levels for that mission. Please see the article on the [[GMF Format (Halloween Harry)|GMF Format]] for details.

There is no palette stored in the *.CHR file, the data is merely palette indexes. Each file contains 255 images.

{|class="wikitable"
!Data type!!Description
|-
|BYTE cData[256]||Image data
|-
|}

== Credits ==

If you find this information helpful in a project you're working on, please give credit where credit is due. (A link back to this wiki would be nice too!)

[[Category:Halloween Harry]]
[[Category:File Formats]]
[[Category:Graphics Files]]

Halloween Harry

2010-12-10T02:17:51Z

Duckthing: /* File formats */

{{Stub}}

{{GamePage}}
== File formats ==

This section lists the major file formats used in the game.

* [[BNK Format (Halloween Harry)|BNK Format]] - group files storing most of the game data (<tt>HARRY.-0</tt> is also in this format.)
* [[FAT_Format_(Halloween_Harry)|FAT Format]] - file allocation table used by [[BNK Format (Halloween Harry)|BNK files]]
* [[4MD Format]] - a variation on the [[MOD Format]] used for game music
* [[TOP Format (Halloween Harry)|TOP Format]] - high scores
* [[ICO Format (Halloween Harry)|ICO Format]] - graphics
* [[CHR Format (Halloween Harry)|CHR Format]] - graphics
* [[HSB Format (Halloween Harry)|HSB Format]] - sprites graphics
* [[PCX Format]] - full screen graphics
* [[CFG Format (Halloween Harry)|CFG Format]] - game configuration
* [[GMF Format (Halloween Harry)|GMF Format]] - level and palette data
* [[SLOT Format (Halloween Harry)|SLOT Format]] - saved games (<tt>SLOT.1</tt>, <tt>SLOT.2</tt>, etc.)
* <tt>HARRY*.-0</tt> are all [[EXE Format|.exe files]], except for <tt>HARRY.-0</tt> mentioned above.

== Obtaining the game ==

The full version of this game [http://www.3drealms.com/news/2007/05/alien_carnage_freeware.html has been released as freeware]. One notable omission from the freeware release was the inclusion of STUDIO.EXE, a separate 'jukebox' program that could play all the music from the game.

* Four different versions are available from [http://www.classicdosgames.com/apogee.html Classic DOS Games] (listed under "Alien Carnage")

== Tools ==

* [http://www.shikadi.net/files/4md2mod.zip ACXTRACT/4MD2MOD] can decompress the BNK files and convert the 4MD files into MOD format.

[[Category:Apogee]]
[[Category:Sidescroller]]
[[Category:Freeware]]

Talk:ICO Format (Halloween Harry)

2010-12-05T19:20:47Z

Duckthing:

The palette entries here use the same palette as the HSB file does. With some corrections I was able to reproduce all 35 images in the ICO file faithfully (with the caveat that the palette I'm using has some RGB values which are close, but not exact, matches to the actual in-game values). -Duckthing
:This suggests that the executable has palette(s) in it that are applied to relevant game files. Tell me, is the PCX palette used for the fullscreen graphics (That is, changing the PCX file palette changes the palette displayed) or do PCX graphics use the same palette as everything else (Which would be further evidence for the executable holding the palette.) -[[User:Levellass|Endian? What are you on about?]] 09:51, 1 December 2010 (GMT)
::No idea, because I haven't been able to decompress any of the BNK files to look at the PCX files. I read something somewhere that suggested they're LZW compressed but I haven't had a chance to really play with it. I'll probably work on it over the weekend. -[[User:Duckthing|Duckthing]]

::: It looks like the files can be decompressed with PKware's "explode" algorithm. The [http://www.shikadi.net/files/4md2mod.zip ACXTRACT] program by Admiral Bob can decompress them. -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 03:01, 4 December 2010 (GMT)

:::: Thanks so much -- that helps enormously! I've made a lot of progress on several of the file formats (namely the map files, the tile art, and the cut-scene scripts) packed in the BNK files and will be posting articles for them once I get time to write and format them properly. Thanks again for the link! -[[User:Duckthing|Duckthing]] 19:20, 5 December 2010 (GMT)

User talk:Duckthing

2010-12-04T05:26:43Z

Duckthing:

Hi Duckthing - just a quick request - when you comment on talk pages, please sign your comments with <nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> which will be expanded to your name and the date/time. Thanks! -- [[User:Malvineous|Malvineous]] 03:02, 4 December 2010 (GMT)
:Sure thing. Thanks for the info! -- [[User:Duckthing|Duckthing]] 05:26, 4 December 2010 (GMT)

Talk:ICO Format (Halloween Harry)

2010-12-02T22:26:45Z

Duckthing:

Talk:ICO Format (Halloween Harry)

2010-11-26T18:14:39Z

Duckthing: Created page with 'The palette entries here use the same palette as the HSB file does. With some corrections I was able to reproduce all 35 images in the ICO file faithfully (with the caveat that t…'

User:Duckthing

2010-11-23T01:03:25Z

Duckthing: Created page with 'Hi. I'm currently working on pulling apart Halloween Harry/Alien Carnage files. I'm finally back coding after a couple years away from it, and thought this would be a fun project…'

Hi. I'm currently working on pulling apart Halloween Harry/Alien Carnage files. I'm finally back coding after a couple years away from it, and thought this would be a fun project. It may turn into a fan-game type of thing if there's any interest. Otherwise it's just keeping me busy until I get back to work in a few weeks!

HSB Format (Halloween Harry)

2010-11-23T00:50:26Z

Duckthing:

'''Data Layout'''

The HSB file contains sprite image data for the game. The version of HARRY.HSB I have is 462,848 bytes; I don't know what other versions exist, but they're probably encoded in the same way. There is no 'header' at the beginning of the file -- data begins at byte 0. Each sprite image 'block' encodes one image in the following format:

2 bytes - unknown

2 bytes - unknown

2 bytes - sprite width in pixels

2 bytes - sprite height in pixels

x bytes - sprite data

The number of bytes in the sprite data is equal to (sprite width)*(sprite height), e.g. a 32x36 sprite requires 1152 bytes in addition to the 8-byte prefix. Each byte represents one pixel in the sprite. The next sprite's data begins immediately after the previous sprite's. The first sprite's data begins at byte 0 of the file, the second at byte 1160, etc.

I haven't figured out the function of the first 4 bytes yet. They may just identify the sprite, or they may affect color indexing. They might also do something else entirely.

'''Palette'''

The game uses a 256-color table. There are two issues I've encountered at this point:

1.) I haven't been able to find the exact palette for this game yet. I've obtained one that's close enough to work with and produces reasonably accurate images, except as follows:

2.) As far as I can tell, the palette is altered at runtime by the executable. This means that if you use the actual byte value contained in the sprite 'block' (described above), you'll get the wrong color. Subtracting 4 from every byte value results in a *mostly* correct appearance. However, there are places where colors are still incorrect. I'm currently working on making ad-hoc adjustments to individual values to see if this fixes it. It's also possible that one or more of the first 4 bytes of the 'block' (currently labeled as unknown) determines how colors are adjusted at run-time. Yet another possibility is discussed in the 'Content' section.

'''Content'''

I was able to extract 467 sprite images from HARRY.HSB. Some of these are 1 pixel high and 1 pixel wide. I don't know the purpose of these 1x1 images yet. Because these tend to occur between groups of images (that is, 4 of them occur after the sprites of Harry, 8 of them occur after the sprites of the standard zombies, etc.) it's possible these determine color adjustments, as mentioned above.

[[Category:File Formats]]
[[Category:Halloween Harry]]

HSB Format (Halloween Harry)

2010-11-23T00:48:11Z

Duckthing: A description of the format of HARRY.HSB