Westwood

xFlasH · Post by **xFlasH** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 10:07 am

Hi all.

I had been searching such a tool for a long time. What a great one!
However, I would appreciate the Westwood .PAK format file would be included by your software.
It's mainly used in the good old from the 90's : Lands of Lore, Kyrandia 1,2, 3, C&C, RedAlert....
I know there are some differences in the format between the games.
But I don't know more

Thanks a lot for your help.

xFlasH

Post by **Mr.Mouse** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 11:54 am

Noted. I will see if I can get hold of a plugin that will enable access to those. There are, I guess, already quite a few extractors for those.

xFlash · Post by **xFlash** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 2:06 pm

Mr.Mouse wrote:Noted. I will see if I can get hold of a plugin that will enable access to those. There are, I guess, already quite a few extractors for those.

Yes.

It's a pity.
I've just found one of them (Dragon Unpacker), but it doesn't do the complete extraction job.
And more, the picture it extract are in a specific westwood format that it couldn't parse.

Do you need some sample file ?

Thanks for your help.

xf

friendsofwatto · Post by **friendsofwatto** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 2:26 pm

Hey,

Yes, if you could supply us with some archives it will help us out.

Thanks.

WATTO
watto@watto.org
http://www.watto.org

Post by **Mr.Mouse** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:04 pm

Yes, that would be great. Some nice, juicy sample files.

Post by **Mr.Mouse** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 3:23 pm

Also:

check

http://xccu.sourceforge.net/

This may just be what you are looking for.

xFlash · Post by **xFlash** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 10:59 pm

Thanks for your fast answers ^_^
I already knew XCCMixer. It can do some extraction, but not all, and some of the files include aren't extractable. And some other make the soft crash ....
XCCMixer has be done for softwares as the C&C series C&C 1, 2 RA 1, 2 ... but not for the older ones as "Lands of Lore" or "Kyrandia"

You can download here a .PAK file sample. You can easily extract its contents with XCC. But some of the results files are unreadible and it's where your science could greatly help me ;p

xf

PS: xcuses for my poor english. I'am french :-'

Post by **Mr.Mouse** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 11:13 pm

I have no problem with the French, two Frenchmen play in my band (bass and solo-guitar).

Just make sure you forget about party-politics and still vote a 'Yes' for Europe, in the coming referendum.

Thanks for the file.

And here's a BMS script you can use to extract the contents of that PAK file.

Just "Use Custom BMS" in MultiEx Commander.

The script itself:

Code: Select all

Set D Long 0 ;
SavePos ST 0 ;
GoTo EOF 0 ;
SavePos E 0 ;
Math E += 1 ;
GoTo ST 0 ;
Do ;
SavePos FOO 0 ;
Get FO Long 0 ;
Get FN String 0 ;
SavePos NE 0 ;
Get FE Long 0 ;
Set D Long FE ;
Math FE -= FO ;
Log FN FO FE FOO 0 ;
GoTo NE 0 ;
While D <> E ;

xFlash · Post by **xFlash** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 12:45 am

OK The PAK extraction part has been done, but what about the gfx/sfx files read?
My goal is to grab from those .PAK file some of the original GFX files.
In this .PAK (chap1) you can find :
CPS : Apparently a GFX format. XCCMixer is able to read them.
FRE : French string table. XCCMixer is able to read it but in a compressed way. How to inflate it ?
SHP: GFX File, but i've never find a software which can read it

WSA: Animation GFX File. XCC Mixer is sometimes able to read it
ADL : ???
C55/TIM : ??? Always begin with a "FORM" string in hexa
DAT : ???
DAT : ???
C55 : ???
VCN : ???
VMP : ???
XMI : ??? Musics ?
XXX : ???
INF : ???
...

A great "Merci" for your help so !!!

xf

xFlash · Post by **xFlash** » Wed Apr 27, 2005 6:30 pm

Hi

Any idea how to read the
SHP and WSA files. I think it's here where the GFX are stored

xFlasH

friendsofwatto · Post by **friendsofwatto** » Thu Apr 28, 2005 3:48 am

Um, not really, I did take a bit of a look at them but didn't notice anything that would suggest any compression or whatever was used. There is a good chance though that the SHP files used in these older games are the same or similar to the SHP files in more recent games such as Simcity4 - I will try to take a look at it.

WATTO
watto@watto.org
http://www.watto.org

Post by **Mr.Mouse** » Thu Apr 28, 2005 7:10 am

They are different from the standard RA2+ SHPs used by Westwood.

Are compressed pictures. But not like the others.

DK · Post by DK » Mon Jul 04, 2005 3:47 pm

Hello,
interesting forum,
lot of informations here,
hope to give my little contribute

For now, you can try my "test" version of a tool to explore (edit? maybe in the future...) the old Westwood games (EoB, LoL, Kyrandia, Dune)
http://www.pollodigomma.net/iagtg/westpak2.exe

I've other specs (VCN, EMC, INF, ecc.) but need more work.

See ya,
DK

Post by **Mr.Mouse** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 3:51 pm

DK wrote:Hello,
interesting forum,
lot of informations here,
hope to give my little contribute

For now, you can try my "test" version of a tool to explore (edit? maybe in the future...) the old Westwood games (EoB, LoL, Kyrandia, Dune)
http://www.pollodigomma.net/iagtg/westpak2.exe

I've other specs (VCN, EMC, INF, ecc.) but need more work.

See ya,
DK

Nice! You know, why not include it at the WIKI? We can also host the file for you.

http://wiki.xentax.com/index.php/Game_Tools

You can edit those pages, as it's a WIKI. If you need a host, just let me know and I will update any link you put in there to the tool.

PS. Love the Blue Tentacle avatar

DK · Post by DK » Mon Jul 04, 2005 9:14 pm

Nice! You know, why not include it at the WIKI? We can also host the file for you.

Thanks, but the tool isn't ready yet; I must fix/change something and write some little help/docs

Hope to add it soon to the WIKI, and maybe add some files spec I have.

For the hosting, I already have it and prefer to put a link here, so I can update only in one place

Bye,
DK

XeNTaX

XeNTaX

Westwood

Westwood