Solar Winds Sprites
| Format type | Image |
|---|---|
| Hardware | VGA |
| Colour depth | 6-bit |
| Minimum size (pixels) | 0×0 |
| Maximum size (pixels) | 256×256 |
| Palette | External |
| Plane count | |
| Transparent pixels? | |
| Hitmap pixels? | No |
| Games |
The Solar Winds Sprites format is an image format used by Solar Winds. It contains several VGA images concatenated together in a single file. This format only appears to be used in the bh_expl.dat file, the explosion animation used when your ship is destroyed. The format is probably used by other graphic files in the game, but the others are encoded.
Header
Each image contains a width and height.
| Data type | Description |
|---|---|
| UINT8 width | The sprite's width, 0-255. |
| UINT8 height | The sprite's height, 0-255. |
Image Data
Image data comes after the header. Its size is the product of the width and height.
| Data type | Description |
|---|---|
| UINT8 pixel | A series of pixel data. |
Once you finish reading the sprite data, another sprite may follow. Since the header doesn't include the number of sprites in the file, you must use an end of file check to determine when you've reached the last sprite.
Source Code
Free BASIC
This code will display each of the sprites in the specified file with the palette of your choice.
ScreenRes 640, 480, 8
Dim C As UShort
Dim R As UByte, G As UByte, B As UByte
Open "H:\DOS\Solar Winds\bh_mp1.dat" For Binary As #1
For C = 0 to 255
Get #1, , R
Get #1, , G
Get #1, , B
R = R * 4
G = G * 4
B = B * 4
Palette C, R, G, B
Line (C, 470)-(C, 479), C
Next C
Close #1
Dim X As UByte, Y As UByte, Z As UByte
Dim W As UByte, H As UByte
Dim Pixel As UByte
Open "H:\DOS\Solar Winds\bh_expl.dat" For Binary As #1
Do While Not EOF(1)
Get #1, , W
Get #1, , H
Color 255
Locate 58, 1: Print W & ", " & H
For Y = 0 To (H - 1)
For X = 0 To (W - 1)
Get #1, , Pixel
PSet(X, Y), Pixel
Next X
Next Y
Sleep
Line (0,0)-(319, 199), 0, BF
Loop
Close #1
Credits
This graphic format was reverse engineered by TheAlmightyGuru. 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!)