GRFCodec Documentation
GRFCODEC: A suite of programs to decode and encode Transport Tycoon
Deluxe's GRF files. Copyright (C) 2000-2006 by [1]Josef Drexler.
These programs are distributed according to the terms of the GNU
General Public License, Version 2. For more information read the file
"COPYING".
The following three programs are part of GRFCODEC:
1. GRFCodec: Convert a GRF into an editable PCX file and vice versa
2. GRFDiff: Compare two GRF files for differences, and write only the
differences to a GRD file
3. GRFMerge: Take a GRD file and merge it back into the GRF file
GRFCODEC
* Copy it into your TTD directory
* to decode a GRF file:
grfcodec -d <grf-file>
This will put a pcx file in a subdirectory called "sprites". It
will also make a .NFO file that is needed to reconstruct the GRF
file.
* to encode a GRF file:
grfcodec -e <grf-file>
It will look in the sprites directory for both the PCX and the NFO
file and make a GRF file out of this.
Options
When decoding:
-w <width>
To set the width of the PCX file
-h <height>
To set the maximum height of a PCX file. With this
option, each GRF will be split into several PCX files.
Note that both width and height should be large enough to
accomodate the largest sprite in your GRF file, or you
will get strange results.
-b <boxsize>
GRFCodec organizes the sprites in boxes in the PCX file.
Use this option to choose the minimum size of these
boxes.
-p <palfile>
Choose a differenct colour palette for the PCX file, for
example when decoding TT Original or TT+World Builder
graphics. See -p ? for a list of possible values.
-x
-xx
Disable part or all of the Info version 7 format, reverting
to the Info version 6 format.
-X
Print the sprite numbers in the PCX (but NOT the NFO) in hex
Examples:
grfcodec -d trg1.grf
grfcodec -d -w 800 -h 600 trg1.grf
grfcodec -d -p 6 mars.grf
When encoding:
-u
To disable redundancy compression. This speeds up the
encoding process, but it also greatly increases the size
of the resulting .GRF file, and may reduce performance in
TTD because it can only cache fewer sprites.
-c
Enable sprite-shrinking optimizations. Note that these are
not necessarily safe. In particular, sprites that will share
their bounding box (as for some station sprites) must not
have their upper-right hand corner moved, and the sprite
defining the bounding box must not be shrunk smaller than any
that will share with it.
Sprites with bit 6 of their compression byte set will never
be shrunk.
-s Silences the progress output indicating which real sprite
currently is being worked on.
When doing either:
-M <mapping>
Map the colour palette from one type to another, for example
to convert DOS GRF files to the Windows version or vice
versa. See -m ? for a list of possible values.
-m <mapping>
As above, but do not map the colors of sprites that appear to
be character glyphs. Such sprites use only the first three
entries in the palette, regardless of what colors they may
actually represent.
Examples:
grfcodec -e trg1.grf
grfcodec -u -e trg1.grf
grfcodec -m 1 trg1.grf
What you can edit
You can change all the sprites in the PCX file. Note that the colour 0
(black) is the transparent colour. Any changes to the white background
around the sprites will be ignored.
It is possible to change the size of a sprite, but it is non-trivial.
You have to edit the .NFO file -- even though it says "do not edit".
For every sprite there's a line in the following format:
<pcx filename> <x> <y> <type> <y-size> <x-size> <x-ofs> <y-ofs>
In case you change anything, there are two things you must must MUST
make sure, which is that:
* The sprites remain in the correct order
Do not delete lines or rearrange them, in particular do not delete
or modify the strange block with a "*" as filename. These are
special data that aren't sprites but go in the GRF file
nonetheless.
The sizes are given in regular decimal notation. You need to change
these. Of course, you also have to make room for them in the PCX file.
Therefore, the best way to enlarge a sprite is to:
1. Decode the GRF file
2. Edit the NFO file, change the size
3. Encode the GRF file, even though you haven't edited anything in
the PCX file
4. Decode it again
5. Edit the PCX file
6. Encode it again
Steps 3 and 4 are there to ensure proper spacing in the PCX file.
GRFDIFF
Usage: grfdiff [options] Old-GRF-File New-GRF-File
GRFCodec makes a backup of your GRF file the first time it is changed,
so normally you would run GRFDiff like this:
grfdiff trg1.bak trg1.grf
This will generate the file trg1.grd, which contains only the sprites
which are new in trg1.grf.
Options
-l <numbers>
Instead of searching for the sprites which are new, you can
specify the numbers here, using a format like
-l 1-10,50,100-120
Note that the numbers must be in increasing order. If -l is
specified, you can omit the Old-GRF-File name.
-n
Instead of making the GRD file, only show which sprites are
new.
-o <filename>
Instead of making a GRD file of the same name, write to this
file.
-x
Make a self-extracting .exe file. Simply running that file will
automatically integrate the changes into the right .GRF file.
This self-extracting file is actually a copy of GRFMerge.
-y
Answer 'Y' to all questions.
You can also combine the differences between several sets of GRF files
into one GRD file (or one self-extracting .EXE) by adding more files
on the command line, separated by a plus. Example:
grfdiff file1.bak file1.grf + file2.bak file2.grf + file3.bak
file3.grf
This compares the three sets of GRF files and writes the differences
of all sets into file1.grd. When giving several sets of files like
this, only option -l can be specified multiple times, all other
options must be given for the first set:
grfdiff -x -o many.exe file1.bak file1.grf + -l 10-15 file2.grf +
-l 23 file3.grf
This can be useful when making diffs that should work for the DOS or
the Window version, because GRFMerge will just skip the files it can't
find. For example,
grfdiff -x -o bothver.exe trg1.bak trg1.grf + trg1r.bak trg1r.grf
will add the differences in both the DOS and Windows versions of the
main TTD sprite file to bothver.exe. When run, bothver.exe will patch
both files if they are present, or otherwise just patch the one that
exists.
GRFMERGE
Usage: grfmerge GRD-File [GRF-File]
This takes the GRD file and integrates the new sprites into the GRF
file. If no GRF file is specified, it uses the one which the GRD file
was made from.
Options
-l
Do not integrate the sprites, only show which ones are
contained in the GRD file
-y
Answer 'Y' to all questions.
If called as a self-extracting file (made by GRFDiff -x), the GRD file
cannot be specified, it is always built into the .exe file. The GRF
and all options can still be specified though. You can also specify a
self-extracting file instead of the GRD-File, though that is perhaps a
bit redundant.
______________________________________________________________________
Copyright © 1999-2003 by Josef Drexler.
Last changed on May 17 2003 15:37 EDT by [2]Josef Drexler
References
1. http://www.ttdpatch.net/email.php?GRFCodec%2CDocs
2. http://www.ttdpatch.net/email.php?TTDPatch%2CGRFCodec
