Tiles · bei.pm
The file formats described on this page are based on the technical analysis of intellectual property by Dynamix, Inc. and Sierra Entertainment.
The intellectual property is now part of the Activision Publishing, Inc. / Activision Blizzard, Inc. estate and is currently owned by Microsoft Corp..
The information has been gathered through Reverse Engineering and Data Analysis for the purposes of archiving and interoperability with historical data.
No proprietary or confidential specifications were used.
The game is currently available for purchase as a download at gog.com.
| Addr | x0 | x1 | x2 | x3 | x4 | x5 | x6 | x7 | x8 | x9 | xA | xB | xC | xD | xE | xF | char | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0x0000 | 50 | 42 | 4d | 50 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | P | B | M | P | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . |
| Offset | Data type | Designation | Explanation |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0x0000 | uint(32) | Magic Bytes | |
| 0x0004 | uint(24) | Block length | |
| 0x0007 | uint(8) | Flags |
The tiles are a Bitmap graphic format specific to Outpost-2. They span 13 tilesets, referred to as "wells" (well0000.bmp to well0012.bmp), which are located within the volume maps.vol.
The tilesets / wells contain the following:
| File Name | Content |
|---|---|
| well0000.bmp | A 32x32px blue graphic - ideal for testing whether your image loader works |
| well0001.bmp | Contains light rock, mountain ranges on light rock, and countless variants of impact craters in light rock |
| well0002.bmp | Contains light rock 'doodads' - elements that can be placed on light rock for decoration (or intentionally as structures, such as walls), including vegetation |
| well0003.bmp | Contains a crust-like structure on light rock |
| well0004.bmp | Contains dark rock, mountain ranges on dark rock, and countless variants of impact craters in dark rock |
| well0005.bmp | Contains dark rock 'doodads' - elements that can be placed on dark rock for decoration (or intentionally as structures, such as walls) |
| well0006.bmp | Contains a crust-like structure on dark rock, as well as transitions between light and dark rock |
| well0007.bmp | Contains lava including 4-5 frames of animation for it |
| well0008.bmp | Contains sand and countless variants of impact craters in sand |
| well0009.bmp | Contains sand 'doodads' - elements that can be placed on sand for decoration (or intentionally as structures, such as walls) |
| well0010.bmp | Contains 48 transitions from sand to light and dark rock |
| well0011.bmp | Contains the polar caps of the map, with dark rock as the base |
| well0012.bmp | Contains the polar caps of the map, with light rock as the base |
It is advisable for an accurate implementation not to render the tiles in advance for caching purposes, as the data for the day/night cycle still needs to be processed - and an enormous amount of data would accumulate.
The tiles are 8bpp graphics with an indexed palette, each with a resolution of 32x32 pixels, which are arranged in a grid. However, a tileset created in this way can accommodate far more.
The main container consists of 2 sections: head and data.
Tiles Header
| Addr | x0 | x1 | x2 | x3 | x4 | x5 | x6 | x7 | x8 | x9 | xA | xB | xC | xD | xE | xF | char | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0x0000 | 68 | 65 | 61 | 64 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | h | e | a | d | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . |
| 0x0010 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . |
| Offset | Data type | Designation | Explanation |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0x0000 | uint(32) | Magic Bytes | |
| 0x0004 | uint(24) | Block length | |
| 0x0007 | uint(8) | Flags | |
| 0x0008 | uint(32) | Version / Flags? | This could be a version indication of the file format; in all the files I have, the value |
| 0x000c | uint(32) | Width (Horizontal Resolution) | Indicates how wide the image file is (in pixels). For all wells in Outpost 2, the value |
| 0x0010 | uint(32) | Height (Vertical Resolution) | Indicates the height of the image file (in pixels). For all wells in Outpost 2, the value |
| 0x0014 | uint(32) | Colour depth? | The significance of this value is unknown. As it contains the value |
| 0x0018 | uint(32) | Colour depth 2? | The meaning of this value is unknown. It may refer to a 'target' colour depth. |
Following this information, there will be a palette file available in the standardised RIFF format. The exact specification can be found - as the palettes appear elsewhere as well - under Palettes.
Tiles Data
| Addr | x0 | x1 | x2 | x3 | x4 | x5 | x6 | x7 | x8 | x9 | xA | xB | xC | xD | xE | xF | char | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0x0000 | 64 | 61 | 74 | 61 | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | -- | d | a | t | a | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . |
| Offset | Data type | Designation | Explanation |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0x0000 | uint(32) | Magic Bytes | |
| 0x0004 | uint(24) | Block length | |
| 0x0007 | uint(8) | Flags |
Finally, the raw pixel data follows, line by line from the top left to the bottom right.
The data value for graphics, which are usually in 8bpp bitmap format, corresponds to the index of the colour in the colour palette.
Pixel data begins at the top left and ends at the bottom right.
The game engine likely renders the tiles *on demand*.
This seems to be partly due to the day-night cycle, which has 32 gradations of individual tiles. It appears that a 'little' is subtracted from the brightness value. Exact values have not yet been determined; I am working on the calculation basis
v *= (daylight / 48) + 0.25;
using the HSV data of the pixels, where daylight is a value from 0-31 and v is a value between 0-1. Furthermore, it should be noted that there is an additional margin of 16 tiles on each side of the map (which serves the invisible spawning of units).
Additionally, the day-night cycle only updates one column of the map per game cycle.
A sped-up day-night cycle therefore looks as follows:
Visualisation of the day-night cycle