Wacky Wheels Graphics Formats
This page describes the formats and files used to display graphics in Wacky Wheels.
PCX graphics
Many of the graphics in Wacky Wheels are in PCX Format. The uses of most PCX files are self-explanatory.The files a_f*.pcx, ma_f*.pcx and beach.pcx are described below. PCX graphics can be edited in many image editors, but you need to pay attention to the color palettes used. Details are in the color palettes section below.
Tile appearance and properties
- a_f*.pcx: Tile graphics
- a_ma*.pcx: Selects tile properties for each pixel in each tile of the tile graphics files
- n.gam: Chooses the primary and secondary tile graphics files and property files (among other things) for track n
- n.sin: Sets tile properties 0 and 1 for each tile in track n
For each track, there are 108 possible tiles to use. The graphics for these tiles are contained in the tile graphics files (a_f*.pcx) (see also Color palettes). Each tile graphics file contains 54 tiles, each 32×32 pixels. The primary graphics file contains tiles 0–53 and the secondary graphics file contains 54–107. The first tile is in the top left, and they are in order left to right and top to bottom. Tile #1 is the one used outside the track.
The tile properties files (a_ma*.pcx) are laid out in the same way as the graphics files. The colors in any tile must be in the first two positions of the color palette. (The colors assigned to the color palette are not used—only the indices.) In track n, any pixel in tile m that is color #0 will have property #0 specified in struct m of the file n.sin; similarly for color #1.
See Wacky Wheels Track Format for the format of the *.gam and *.sin files.
Color palettes
The color palette used in each race is mostly the one set in the primary tile graphics file a_f*.pcx. This palette is also used when showing the preview map before the race. The palettes set in the other PCX files are not used. However, if color cycling is enabled in *.gam, some color indices are assigned to color cycles. An example is the shoreline in regular bronze wheels track 2. Along the shore, the colors cycle between various shades of blue and sometimes brown. These color cycles are selected with their corresponding color index. For a_f3.pcx, these indices are 148, 161–164 and 168–175. The colors set in the palette for these indices are used when displaying the preview map, or when color cycles are disabled in the *.gam file.
The color palette used in the color cycles is colors 0–76 in the palette of beach.pcx. The progression of color indices assigned to each color cycle of a_f*.pcx may be hard-coded into the program. The image in beach.pcx doesn’t seem to be used. There are two 32x32 squares in the image that contain a pattern of color indices from 166–175, although if you blank the entire image, the color cycles work the same as ever. (Change the colors assigned to indices 166–175 to see the pattern.)
Looking at the existing a_f*.pcx files, colors 0, 3–4, 10–111, 127–128 and 255 are always the same or nearly the same. You can safely edit any other colors in the palette without affecting the display of the sprites or screen overlays. You can probably find some other colors that are unused, or change the palette colors used in the sprites if you need more colors than that.
Note that the Gimp doesn’t like having the same color assigned to multiple indices in the palette. For example, if you open a_f3.pcx in the Gimp, and copy and paste the deep water tile (tile #27) to tile #0 (grass), the Gimp will copy the colors over and select the first index in the palette that matches each color. This is definitely not what you want, since some indices are animated. To work around this, I slightly changed the values of some of the colors, so that the Gimp would see them as being unique.
Sprites
sprite.atr
The file sprite.atr is the index of all of the sprites that can be used as objects in the game maps. The first two bytes of this file are an INT16LE giving the number of structs that follow. Each struct is 40 bytes long and has this format:
| Data type | Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| INT16LE | type | Type of item pickup. See table. |
| INT16LE | unknown | No apparent use. Always 0x0a. |
| INT16LE | width1 | Sprite width in pixels |
| INT16LE | height1 | Sprite height in pixels |
| INT16LE | width2 | Always equal to width1. |
| INT16LE | height2 | Always equal to height2. |
| INT16LE | size_index | 1 if size is 28×28; 2 if size is 14×28; 3 if size is 32×24. Other values are unknown. |
| INT16LE | frames | Number of frames in sprite file (for animation) |
| char[24] | filename | Name of the file containing the sprite |
| Index | Item pickup type |
|---|---|
| 0 | None (not an item pickup) |
| 1 | Tires (used when you run over a stack of tires) |
| 2 | Four hedgehogs |
| 3 | Fireballs |
| 4 | Devil pups |
| 5 | Bomb |
| 6 | Oil slick |
| 7 | Upside down hog |
| 8 | Ice cube |
Setting size_index = 4 appears to work but I haven’t figured out what size it selects or how high the size index goes.
Changing width2 and height2 doesn’t appear to have any effect.
The file name will be no more than 12 characters long (an 8.3 character DOS file name). The remaining bytes in the string are filled with zeros. Sprites are placed on the map using their index in the sprite.atr file. The first sprite file listed has index 0. See Where objects are placed – *.spw.
The default sprite.atr file lists 36 files. The tables below list what sprites are in each *.sp file listed, and their index in sprite.atr. The files h3.sp and h13.sp do not exist, so are skipped in sprite.atr.
| Index | File name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | h1.sp | Matchbox |
| 1 | h2.sp | Newspaper hedgehog |
| 2 | h4.sp | Sweeping hedgehog |
| 3 | h5.sp | Demolition hedgehog |
| 4 | h6.sp | Toilet hedgehog |
| 5 | h7.sp | Jackhammer hedgehog |
| 6 | h8.sp | Dancing hedgehog |
| 7 | h9.sp | Yo yo hedgehog |
| 8 | h10.sp | Machine gun hedgehog |
| 9 | h11.sp | Jumping jacks hedgehog |
| 10 | h12.sp | Bomb |
| 11 | h14.sp | Rock pick hedgehog |
| 12 | h15.sp | Devil pups |
| 13 | h16.sp | Oil can |
| 14 | h17.sp | Guard hedgehog |
| 15 | h18.sp | Bouncing ball hedgehog |
| 16 | h19.sp | Golfing hedgehog |
| 17 | h20.sp | Upside down hog (item pickup) |
| 18 | h21.sp | Dice hedgehog |
| 19 | h22.sp | Weightlifting hedgehog |
| 20 | h23.sp | Backflip hedgehog |
| 21 | h24.sp | Trench coat hedgehog |
| 22 | h25.sp | Pool hedgehog |
| Index | File name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 23 | ob1.sp | Stack of tires |
| 24 | ob2.sp | One cattail plant |
| 25 | ob3.sp | Wooden pole with white and red stripes |
| 26 | ob4.sp | Cactus |
| 27 | ob5.sp | Red barrel |
| 28 | ob6.sp | Yellow barrel |
| 29 | ob7.sp | Green barrel |
| 30 | ob8.sp | Tires stacked over wooden pole |
| 31 | ob9.sp | Three cattail plants |
| 32 | ob10.sp | Yellow and gray striped pole |
| 33 | ob11.sp | Yellow and red striped pole |
| 34 | ob12.sp | Bush |
| 35 | ob13.sp | Wooden pole |
*.sp
The *.sp sprite files are raw image data (8bpp, no header or image size). Each byte is a pixel, and the value of the byte gives the index to use in the track’s palette.
If your image editor supports reading raw image data, you can open the *.sp files by specifying the width and height, 8 bits per pixel, indexed colors, and then applying the appropriate color palette. Then rotate the image 90° clockwise and flip the image horizontally. Some *.sp files have multiple sprites of varying widths, so you’ll need to specify a file offset and length along with the width and height.
To use a sprite file as an object on the track, it needs to be listed in sprite.atr.
Horizon graphics – *.par
The *.par files contain the graphics to draw on the horizon (such as buildings or mountains). Like the *.sp files, they are raw image data, where each byte is a pixel and specifies which color palette index to use. The color palette used is the main track color palette. Each *.par file is 640×40 pixels. Unlike the *.sp files, they do not require rotation or flipping when opening them as raw image data in an image editor.