Albion graphics (PC/DOS)

Deniz Oezmen · Post by **Deniz Oezmen** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 11:16 am

Darkfox wrote:Well what is the alternative if the images don't ID their palettes? Trial and error matching (which can be greatly eased using Albion's Producer Mode) Or what?

As long as we cannot find that information elsewhere -- yes, probably.

Darkfox · Post by **Darkfox** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 6:27 pm

I say this because I'm afraid it might be hard coded somewhere or who knows what. It is not present in the libraries I've looked at so far. The game handles palettes somehow but I cannot tell how for certainty. They are not mentioned in the scripts as if it assumes that a matching palette is told by some other manner. Though is it possible that there is an assigned palette for each image library?

Deniz Oezmen · Post by **Deniz Oezmen** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 11:06 pm

Darkfox wrote:Though is it possible that there is an assigned palette for each image library?

Why, it's certainly possible, either by hard-coded values or some other (not yet discovered) means.

Darkfox · Post by **Darkfox** » Wed Aug 01, 2007 12:10 am

I don't know if it is accurate or not but looking within the MONGFX library I found several references to 18 which is the hex of 24 and stops short of the biggest portion of the library. Perhaps they are coded into the libraries. I dunno, could just be a part of an image but it would have at least once popped up again within the library if that were the case.

Deniz Oezmen · Post by **Deniz Oezmen** » Wed Aug 01, 2007 7:40 pm

This is an XLD library as well, right? As far as I can see, the XLD format is almost completely understood. Beside a two-byte header value at offset 4, all values and their purpose are clear.

So, if you have found certain bytes within an XLD library, they will either be part of a file contained within the library or part of the length table. (The file data starts at offset 8 + 4 * (uint16 at offset 6).)

Interesting fact: Some length values in the header of PALETTE0.XLD are actually 0. I suspect that palettes were removed, but their entries were kept (albeit with size zero) to keep the numbering intact.

Darkfox · Post by **Darkfox** » Wed Aug 01, 2007 9:41 pm

That is correct. The same for many other libraries. I think they might have later been removed and serve as null points. Btw, I can't seem to find anything about how the game assigns palettes to images yet. Unless there is another library that does it (for who knows why they would do this) I don't know what.

Darkfox · Post by **Darkfox** » Fri Aug 03, 2007 8:00 pm

Well here's the transparency table that "Fear 1" uses (#24) for possible information of any sort, otherwise I've found nothing else of possible use. There is no other libraries that tell which palettes to use and there is no mention in the scripts. *sigh* I'm totally out of ideas here.

Deniz Oezmen · Post by **Deniz Oezmen** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 12:57 am

Hm, no, sorry. I can't seem to identify any relevant structure in that data.

Darkfox · Post by **Darkfox** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 1:04 am

Didn't really think so. Though I have no clue why they are among the biggest if they just assign transparency. It was the only other thing used, sorry.

*sigh* Not sure what else to try, there seems to be no relevant information, though perhaps each image library uses a specific palette. I'll look through a couple more monsters and see if it continues to use palette 6/24. Then see if full body pictures follows this as well.

Edit: It is a working theory so far. Full body pictures seem to use palette #19
Monster and battle graphics seem to use palette #24, RPG style top view character graphics seem to use palette #6. First two assumptions seem to hold water, palette #6 I'm not 100% sure on.

Edit 2: If I was to give a wild guess the palette data is hard coded in the main executable (funny enough named Main.exe) however it may be a reach on my part.

Deniz Oezmen · Post by **Deniz Oezmen** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 4:04 pm

Darkfox wrote:If I was to give a wild guess the palette data is hard coded in the main executable (funny enough named Main.exe) however it may be a reach on my part.

You might be right there. There are a lot of (especially older) games which have some kind of hard-coded data. You could also try grabbing a disassembler and find out, but I'm not sure if the result is worth the hassle.

Darkfox · Post by **Darkfox** » Wed Aug 08, 2007 4:51 pm

You might be right there. There are a lot of (especially older) games which have some kind of hard-coded data. You could also try grabbing a disassembler and find out, but I'm not sure if the result is worth the hassle.

Thats what I'm thinking. I've managed to find out more about what image goes to what palette using the debug mode. Plus assembly is a bit difficult to read for me.

Darkfox · Post by **Darkfox** » Fri Aug 10, 2007 11:42 pm

Sorry for the bump but has the palettes been confirmed as RGB? Or is that something still to be figured out? Graphics are the main, if not only, falling part. Music was XMI and sounds were raw PCM I believe, I used an existing VOC to get the correct rate.

Deniz Oezmen · Post by **Deniz Oezmen** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 9:19 am

If the attached picture looks sensible to you, then it's RGB.

This is the first frame of "File 000361" with palette 024 for the first 192 colours and palette000.dat (which is probably the shared palette) for the upper 64 entries.

Darkfox · Post by **Darkfox** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 6:04 pm

This is a monster graphic yes?

Edit: Otherwise the skin looks right, if it was other than RGB the skin would have a blue or green tint to it. The other qualities such as the beard and etc also look well and in order.

Deniz Oezmen · Post by **Deniz Oezmen** » Sat Aug 11, 2007 7:41 pm

Darkfox wrote:This is a monster graphic yes?

I assume so.

I just copied the data from the "File 000361", which was in the very first data sample you have uploaded.

XeNTaX

XeNTaX

Albion graphics (PC/DOS)