Talk:Catacomb Tileset Format

It looks like this is a duplicate of Cosmo Tileset Format. Perhaps we should just link to that page instead? -- Malvineous 07:29, 19 January 2011 (GMT)

I didn't know about that. But it seems like the Cosmo page only covers the EGA format, not CGA. So there's a little bit of a reason to keep this page. Even though there's not that much of a difference as long as you know how to read/interpret the raw CGA data. --K1n9 Duk3 13:17, 19 January 2011 (GMT)

That's true, I'm not aware of any other CGA versions. Maybe (eventually) we could move some of the EGA stuff off this page, onto Cosmo Tileset Format then rename that page to something like "Raw EGA tileset". Then we could rename *this* page to something like "Raw CGA tileset" and just have CGA info. Well anyway my point was to make sure you don't spend too much time on the EGA side of things if it's already a known format, but you've got some good explanations and things here we'll want to keep. -- Malvineous 11:23, 21 January 2011 (GMT)

I just had a look at the Cosmo format. All the Cosmo tile graphics (both masked and unmasked) are Row-planar EGA data, while the EGAChars are Graphic-planar EGA data. So I think we should leave this a stand-alone site. --K1n9 Duk3 15:29, 21 January 2011 (GMT)

Because the overall file structure is the same though (8x8 tiles) I'd like to combine that fact into a single "tileset" page, and then maybe link to Raw EGA data when the time comes to describing the format of each tile. Then your descriptions here could go onto the EGA data page instead of the tileset page (which would probably be more helpful, because there are other image/tileset formats which use different structures but have the same underlying EGA data format.) -- Malvineous 00:24, 22 January 2011 (GMT)

Now that I've had enough time to think about it (and worked on the Cosmo and Duke 1 files), it might be okay to merge it. My idea was to add almost everything you need to know to read the format to this page. But that would just end up in the creation of countless redundant pages. --K1n9 Duk3 23:30, 23 January 2011 (GMT)

Yes the focus of the wiki is less on implementation detail (to a point) and more on accurate descriptions of the data. The problem with having too much implementation detail is that it limits you to certain languages, and then algorithms which may not necessarily be the most efficient. Just having clear detail about the format leaves you free to think about the best way to solve the problem in your own situation. But of course it is a balance, as having some code examples can make the topic much easier to understand. If you want to add everything you need to know to read the format from scratch it's probably best writing an example program and linking to the heavily commented source code instead, so common/redundant info can be removed from the article without being lost entirely. I'll probably merge the pages once I start implementing the formats in the projects I am working on (so that I know what I'm doing is correct!) -- Malvineous 10:31, 24 January 2011 (GMT)

Where did the examples go that K1n9 Duk3 provided? Those examples were essential (atleast for me) in coding something to parse the format. I have some examples for the CGA tile format if we repost the old examples. -- Eros 12:31, 1 May 2012 (GMT)

I intend to move them to Raw EGA data where they can explain a bunch of different file formats, since many store the EGA graphics in the same way. Feel free to create Raw CGA data and post your descriptions there. I couldn't understand what he was getting at with the "FFFF EEEE" etc. though so I intend to rewrite them first. Maybe you can explain what those letters are meant to represent? -- Malvineous 20:49, 1 May 2012 (GMT)

The letters themselves didn't mean anything, really. I just used them as placeholders to illustrate the difference between 8x8 pixel tiles in EGACHARS versus the 8x8 pixel tiles found in the EGAPICS files. Basically graphic planar EGA vs. full planar EGA, nothing too important. I think the examples Eros was talking about are actually those on the Talk:DDiCI Graphics format page. I just dropped that stuff there and nobody bothered to merge it with the info on the actual format page. --K1n9 Duk3 (talk) 09:02, 18 October 2016 (UTC)