Z Tileset Format
| Format type | Tileset |
|---|---|
| Hardware | VGA |
| Max tile count | 512 |
| Palette | External |
| Tile names? | No |
| Minimum tile size (pixels) | 16×16 |
| Maximum tile size (pixels) | 16×16 |
| Plane count | 1 |
| Plane arrangement | Linear |
| Transparent pixels? | No |
| Hitmap pixels? | No |
| Metadata? | None |
| Supports sub-tilesets? | No |
| Compressed tiles? | No |
| Hidden data? | No |
| Games |
The terrain tiles in Z are stored in .BLK files and coloured with the corresponding PAL file.
File format
A decompressed BLK is 131072 bytes: 512 consecutive tiles of 16×16 pixels. There is no header. Each pixel is an unsigned byte indexing the palette. Pixels are row-major within each tile.
offset = tile * 256 + y * 16 + x
The five observed basenames are ARCTIC, CITY, DESERT, VOLCAN and JUNGLE. Maps select the graphic index using both map planes; see Z Map Format.
Notes
The archive wrapper is compressed; the extracted BLK payload is not. A viewer atlas layout is not an on-disk field.
Source code
From re-z, the open-source browser port:
- src/viewer/catalog.js – tile and map rendering
- src/render/terrain.js – terrain rendering
- docs/re/NOTES.md – reverse-engineering notes and evidence status
Credits
This file format was reverse engineered by VorticonCmdr. 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!)