cncff.txt

                 COMMAND & CONQUER FILE FORMATS

Revision 4

by Vladan Bato (bat22@geocities.com)

This document explains the file formats used by Command & Conquer.

Command & Conquer is a tradmark of Westwood Studios, Inc.
Command & Conquer is Copyright (C)1995 Westwood Studios, Inc.

The information provided here is meant for programmers that want to make
editor and utilites for Command & Conquer. My explanation might not be
the best one, but it should be enough.

I can't guarantee that the information in here is correct. If you find any
errors, please report them to me.

In this document I'll use Pascal notation, and any code samples will be in
Pascal....
I wanted to rewrite them in C, but I don't have the time to test the code.
So, to avoid any risks, I'll use the code from Mix Manager.

In case you don't know, the information contained here has been used to
make the program Mix Manager, which contains a lot of conversion utilities
for the various formats. For more info, check my homepage (see the end of 
the document).

===================
 1. THE .MIX FILES
===================

You probably already know the format of these files, but I will add a
description here for completeness.

The MIX file consists of two parts :
-A header including the index of all the files contained within
-A body containing all the files

It's format is :

 Header : record
            NumFiles : word;    {Number of files in MIX}
            DataSize : longint; {Size of body}
            Index    : array [1..NumFiles] of
              record
                ID    : longint;  {File ID}
                Start : longint;  {Offset of file from the start of the 
body}
                Size  : longint;  {file size}
              end;
          end;

The ID field is computed from the original filename, which is not stored in
the MIX.
The records are always sorted by the ID field (the numbers are signed
longints).
Note that the offsets are relative to the start of the body so to find the 
actual offset in the MIX you have to add the size of the header which is  
NumFiles*12+6

===================
 2. THE .PAL FILES
===================

The most easiest files....
These files contain the palette in the same format used by VGA cards.

 Palette : array [0..255] of record
                               red,green,blue:byte;
                             end;

Note that only the first 6 bits of each number are used, giving a total of
262144 possible colors (as opposed to the 8 bits used by .PCX files for
example).

=================================
 3. THE TEMPLATE AND .BIN FILES
=================================

The Template files contain the map graphics, and can be found in the
theater specific MIX files (TEMPERAT.MIX, WINTER.MIX, DESERT.MIX).
The .BIN files contain the maps for the missions and are used in conjunction
with the .INI files.

I won't explain them here. They are explained with great detail in the
document titled "Command & Conquer maps" I wrote some time ago.
The said document can be found on my homepage.

===================
 5. THE .SHP FILES
===================

The .SHP files contain almost all the graphics : units, structures, 
trees,...
The header has the following structure :

  Header : record
             NumImages : word;    {Number of images}
             A,B       : word;    {Unknown}
             Width,
             Height    : word;    {Width and Height of the images}
             C         : longint; {Unknown}
           end;

If you know something about those unknown fields, please e-mail me.
Following that there's an array of records, one for each image :

  Offsets : array [0..NumImages+1] of
              record
                Offset  : longint;  {Offset and format of image in file}
                RefOffs : longint;  {Offset and format of image on
                                     which it is based}
              end;

The most significant byte (last) of the Offset and RefOffs fields
contains the format, while the lower three are used for the offset.
The format byte can have one of the three values : 80h, 40h, 20h.
I will call the three image formats Format80, Format40 and Format20.

The Format80 images are compressed with a compression method I'll explain
later.

The Format40 images must be xor-ed with a Format80 image. That's what the
RefOffs field is used for. It tells which Format80 image they are
based upon. The Format40 will be explained in detail later.

The Format20 images use the same format as the Format40, the difference is
that they are xor-ed with the image that precedes them in the file. That can
be either in Format20 or in Format40.
The offset part of the RefOffs field contains the number of the first
Format40 image in the chain, and the format field is always 48h.

Here's an example :

0) Off0(three bytes) 80h 000000h 00h
1) Off1(three bytes) 80h 000000h 00h
2) Off2(three bytes) 40h Off1    80h
3) Off3(three bytes) 80h 000000h 00h
4) Off4(three bytes) 40h Off1    80h
5) Off5(three bytes) 20h 000400h 48h
6) Off6(three bytes) 20h 000400h 48h
7) Off7(three bytes) 40h Off3    80h

For example to draw image 7, you have to draw the image 3 first (whose 
offset
and format are given) and then xor image 7 over it.

To draw image 6, you have to xor it over the previous image, i.e. 5, which
is format20 again, that means that it has to be xor-ed over image 4, which
is in format40, i.e. it must be xor-ed over the image in format80 it has a
reference to. In this case it's image 1. Thus the chain is 1,4,5,6.
This is one way to see it, the other could be :
Image 6 is in Format20, the RefOffs field contains the number of the first
Format40 image in the chain, in this case image 4. To draw Image 4, the
Image 1 has to be drawn first, next is image 4, and then all the images
from the 4th to the 6th have to be xor-ed over the previous.

I made some experiments and found out that you don't have to use the
Format40 and Format20 images. I tried converting all of them into Format80
and it worked.

Also, when changing graphics, note that all the unit and structure graphics
should be drawn using the GDI colors, which will be automatically converted
for the other sides. 
The palette you should use is one of those found in DESERT.MIX, WINTER.MIX
and TEMPERAT.MIX. The GDI colors are colors 0B0h-0BFh. The other colors 
won't be converted and will remain the same for all the sides (be sure to
use only the colors that are the same all three palettes).

The above applies only to the graphics that appear in all three theaters
(the .SHP file found in CONQUER.MIX). The graphics for the structures and
overlays that appear in a single theater (found inside the theater specific
MIX) can use the palette entries that are unique for that theater (and will
be shown with garbled colors in the others).

Also a special color is used for shadows. It's color 04h. In the palettes
it's bright green, but C&C puts a shadow instead of it. I don't know how
the shadows are calculated however.

You should've noticed that the array has NumImages+2 elements when only
NumImages elements are needed. The last one contains zeros, and the one 
before
that points to the end of the file. These two can be used to identify the 
file as a .SHP.

Here's the description of the compression formats : Format80 and Format40.

----------
 Format80
----------

There are several different commands, with different sizes : form 1 to 5
bytes.
The positions mentioned below always refer to the destination buffer (i.e.
the uncompressed image). The relative positions are relative to the current
position in the destination buffer, which is one byte beyond the last 
written
byte.

I will give some sample code at the end.

(1) 1 byte
      +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
      | 1 | 0 |   |   |   |   |   |   |
      +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
              \_______________________/
                         |
                       Count

      This one means : copy next Count bytes as is from Source to Dest.

(2) 2 bytes
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
  | 0 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+   +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
      \___________/\__________________________________________________/
            |                             |
         Count-3                    Relative Pos.

  This means copy Count bytes from Dest at Current Pos.-Rel. Pos. to
  Current position.
  Note that you have to add 3 to the number you find in the bits 4-6 of the
  first byte to obtain the Count.
  Note that if the Rel. Pos. is 1, that means repeat Count times the 
previous
  byte.

(3) 3 bytes
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+   +---------------+---------------+
  | 1 | 1 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |               |               |
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+   +---------------+---------------+
          \_______________________/                  Pos
                     |
                 Count-3

  Copy Count bytes from Pos, where Pos is absolute from the start of the
  destination buffer. (Pos is a word, that means that the images can't be
  larger than 64K)

(4) 4 bytes
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+   +-------+-------+  +-------+
  | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |   |       |       |  |       |
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+   +-------+-------+  +-------+
                                            Count          Color

  Write Color Count times.
  (Count is a word, color is a byte)

(5) 5 bytes
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+   +-------+-------+  +-------+-------+
  | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |   |       |       |  |       |       |
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+   +-------+-------+  +-------+-------+
                                            Count               Pos

  Copy Count bytes from Dest. starting at Pos. Pos is absolute from the 
start of the Destination buffer.
  Both Count and Pos are words.

These are all the commands I found out. Maybe there are other ones, but I
haven't seen them yet.

All the images end with a 80h command.

To make things more clearer here's a piece of code that will uncompress the
image.

  DP = destination pointer
  SP = source pointer
  Source and Dest are the two buffers


  SP:=0;
  DP:=0;
  repeat
    Com:=Source[SP];
    inc(SP);
    b7:=Com shr 7;  {b7 is bit 7 of Com}
    case b7 of
      0 : begin  {copy command (2)}
            {Count is bits 4-6 + 3}
            Count:=(Com and $7F) shr 4 + 3;
            {Position is bits 0-3, with bits 0-7 of next byte}
            Posit:=(Com and $0F) shl 8+Source[SP];
            Inc(SP);
            {Starting pos=Cur pos. - calculated value}
            Posit:=DP-Posit;
            for i:=Posit to Posit+Count-1 do
            begin
              Dest[DP]:=Dest[i];
              Inc(DP);
            end;
          end;
      1 : begin
            {Check bit 6 of Com}
            b6:=(Com and $40) shr 6;
            case b6 of
              0 : begin  {Copy as is command (1)}
                    Count:=Com and $3F;  {mask 2 topmost bits}
                    if Count=0 then break; {EOF marker}
                    for i:=1 to Count do
                    begin
                      Dest[DP]:=Source[SP];
                      Inc(DP);
                      Inc(SP);
                    end;
                  end;
              1 : begin  {large copy, very large copy and fill commands}
                    {Count = (bits 0-5 of Com) +3}
                    {if Com=FEh then fill, if Com=FFh then very large copy}
                    Count:=Com and $3F;
                    if Count<$3E then {large copy (3)}
                    begin
                      Inc(Count,3);
                      {Next word = pos. from start of image}
                      Posit:=Word(Source[SP]);
                      Inc(SP,2);
                      for i:=Posit to Posit+Count-1 do
                      begin
                        Dest[DP]:=Dest[i];
                        Inc(DP);
                      end;
                    end
                    else if Count=$3F then   {very large copy (5)}
                    begin
                      {next 2 words are Count and Pos}
                      Count:=Word(Source[SP]);
                      Posit:=Word(Source[SP+2]);
                      Inc(SP,4);
                      for i:=Posit to Posit+Count-1 do
                      begin
                        Dest[DP]:=Dest[i];
                        Inc(DP);
                      end;
                    end else
                    begin   {Count=$3E, fill (4)}
                      {Next word is count, the byte after is color}
                      Count:=Word(Source[SP]);
                      Inc(SP,2);
                      b:=Source[SP];
                      Inc(SP);
                      for i:=0 to Count-1 do
                      begin
                        Dest[DP]:=b;
                        inc(DP);
                      end;
                    end;
                  end;
            end;
          end;
    end;
  until false;

Note that you won't be able to compile this code, because the typecasting
won't work. (But I'm sure you'll be able to fix it).


----------
 Format40
----------

As I said before the images in Format40 must be xor-ed over a previous 
image, or against a black screen (as in the .WSA format).
It is used when there are only minor changes between an image and a 
following one.

Here I'll assume that the old image is in Dest, and that the Dest pointer is
set to the beginning of that buffer.

As for the Format80, there are many commands :


(1) 1 byte
               byte
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
  | 1 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
      \___________________________/
                   |
                 Count

  Skip count bytes in Dest (move the pointer forward).

(2) 3 bytes
              byte                           word
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+  +---+-----+-------+
  | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |  | 0 | ... |       |
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+  +---+-----+-------+
                                         \_____________/
                                                |
                                              Count

  Skip count bytes.

(3) 3 bytes
                byte                              word
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+  +---+---+-----+-------+
  | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |  | 1 | 0 | ... |       |
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+  +---+---+-----+-------+
                                             \_____________/
                                                   |
                                                 Count

 Xor next count bytes. That means xor count bytes from Source with bytes
 in Dest.

(4) 4 bytes
              byte                               word           byte
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+  +---+---+-----+-------+  +-------+
  | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |  | 1 | 1 | ... |       |  |       |
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+  +---+---+-----+-------+  +-------+
                                             \_____________/    value
                                                   |
                                                 Count

  Xor next count bytes in Dest with value.

5) 1 byte
               byte
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
  | 0 |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
      \___________________________/
                   |
                 Count

  Xor next count bytes from source with dest.

6) 3 bytes
              byte                     byte       byte
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+  +-------+  +-------+
  | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |  |       |  |       |
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+  +-------+  +-------+
                                       Count      Value

  Xor next count bytes with value.


All images end with a 80h 00h 00h command.

I think these are all the commands, but there might be some other.
If you find anything new, please e-mail me.

As before here's some code :

  DP = destination pointer
  SP = source pointer
  Source is buffer containing the Format40 data
  Dest   is the buffer containing the image over which the second has
         to be xor-ed


  SP:=0;
  DP:=0;
  repeat
    Com:=Source[SP];
    Inc(SP);

    if (Com and $80)<>0 then {if bit 7 set}
    begin
      if Com<>$80 then  {small skip command (1)}
      begin
        Count:=Com and $7F;
        Inc(DP,Count);
      end
      else  {Big commands}
      begin
        Count:=Word(Source[SP]);
        if Count=0 then break;
        Inc(SP,2);

        Tc:=(Count and $C000) shr 14;  {Tc=two topmost bits of count}

        case Tc of
          0,1 : begin  {Big skip (2)}
                  Inc(DP,Count);
                end;
          2 : begin {big xor (3)}
                Count:=Count and $3FFF;
                for i:=1 to Count do
                begin
                  Dest[DP]:=Dest[DP] xor Source[SP];
                  Inc(DP);
                  Inc(SP);
                end;
              end;
          3 : begin  {big repeated xor (4)}
                Count:=Count and $3FFF;
                b:=Source[SP];
                Inc(SP);
                for i:=1 to Count do
                begin
                  Dest[DP]:=Dest[DP] xor b;
                  Inc(DP);
                end;
              end;
        end;
      end;
    end else  {xor command}
    begin
      Count:=Com;
      if Count=0 then
      begin {repeated xor (6)}
        Count:=Source[SP];
        Inc(SP);
        b:=Source[SP];
        Inc(SP);
        for i:=1 to Count do
        begin
          Dest[DP]:=Dest[DP] xor b;
          Inc(DP);
        end;
      end else  {copy xor (5)}
        for i:=1 to Count do
        begin
          Dest[DP]:=Dest[DP] xor Source[SP];
          Inc(DP);
          Inc(SP);
        end;
    end;
  until false;



===================
 6. THE .CPS FILES
===================

The .CPS files contain 320x200x256 images. The images are compressed with 
the Format80 compression method. They may or may not contain a palette.

The header has the following structure :

  Header : record
             Size    : word;  {File size - 2}
             Unknown : word;  {Always 0004h}
             ImSize  : word;  {Size of uncompressed image (always 0FA00h)}
             Palette : longint; {Is there a palette ?}
           end;

If Palette is 03000000h then there's a palette after the header, otherwise
the image follows.  CPS file without palette can be found in the SETUP.MIX 
file, and they all use the Palette that can be found inside the same .MIX.

The image that follows the palette (or the Header) is in Format80 which is
explained above.

===================
 7. THE .WSA FILES
===================


WSA files contain short animations and can be found in the GENERAL.MIX 
files.
They are basically a series of Format40 images, that are then compressed 
with
Format80.

The header is :

  Header : record
             NumFrames : word;  {Number of frames}
             X,Y       : word;  {Position on screen of the upper left 
corner}
             W,H       : word;  {Width and height of the images}
             Delta     : longint; {Frames/Sec = Delta/(2^10)}
           end;

Following that there's an array of offsets :

  Offsets : array [0..NumFrames+1] of longint;

The obtain the actual offset, you have to add 300h. That is the size of the
palette that follows the Offsets array.
As for .SHP files the two last offsets have a special meaning.
If the last offset is 0 then the one before it points to the end of file
(after you added 300h of course).
If the last one is <>0 then it points to the end of the file, and the
one before it points to a special frame that gives you the difference 
between the last and the first frame. This is used when you have to loop the
animation.

As I said before, the images are in Format40 but are then compressed with
Format80. That means that you first have to uncompress the Format80 and then
decode the Format40 image you obtain.
The first frame should be xor-ed over a black image (filled with zeros), all
the other are xor-ed over the previous one.

There is a variant of the file without the palette that can be found in
SETUP.MIX but I wasn't able to decode it (maybe there are some commands I
don't know about)...

=====================
 8. ADDITIONAL NOTES
=====================

The VQA files (that contain movies) have been decoded by Aaron Glover
(arn@ibm.net), and are explained in a document he wrote up.
You can find the document on my homepage (or ask him directly).

What is still missing are the .AUD files.
It seems that the AUD files use some kind of lossy sound compression,
which means that it is almost impossible to decode them.
However if someone manages to work them out, I'd really appreciate some
info.

I know my explanations are not very good, but you'll have to bear them,
unless someone else wants to rewrite this.

============
 9. CREDITS
============

I wish to thank the following people :

-Andrew Griffin (buggy@adam.com.au) for starting it all.
-Aaron Glover (arn@ibm.net) and
 Denis Moeller (d.moeller@rendsburg.netsurf.de) for their work on .SHP 
files.
-Aaron Glover for decoding the VQA files.
-Carl Kenner (andrew.kenner@unisa.edu.au) for the info on .CPS files.


Vladan Bato (bat22@geocities.com)
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/8682