RLE & RLC format research

Okay, so I had success in contacting r_ex, programmer behind the fantastic CommDevToolkit (Commandos Development Toolkit), which I use quite a lot today to do my modding efforts, to ask him if he's aware of how RLE & RLC files work within BCOD.

As of now the toolkit doesnt support those and some other BEL/BCOD image formats.

 

Hello.

It looks like that RLC files contain several sections of data, where the last one seems encoded by some sort of run-length encoding, and the others are encoded in some unknown encoding, or encrypted.

Do you have more info on RLC format?

 

Best regards,

Rex

Perhaps most of you guys know I've never did programming nor I know how it works. Yeah, shame I never studied that to be able to do things myself.

Though, does someone has an understanding of those two image formats that might help r_ex add support for them? I told him about the forums, never seen him posting here before. BCOD is quite old already, thus reverse engineering must be the only way to do things?

I have a RLE<>BMP converter here:

https://sites.google...osmod/downloads

A quick description of the RLC format:

byte[4] "rlc "
int width
int height
byte[512] color palette (RGB565)

for (height) {
  short numBytesToFollow
  { // while(line not full)
    byte numTransparentPixels
    byte numOpaquePixels
    for (numOpaquePixels) {
      byte colorIndex
    }
  }
}

Wonderful. Appreciated again! I know about the RLE converter, however I was more interested in the RLC stuff. I'll send that code block to r_ex (and give credit, of course...).

I was surprised I could even get in touch with the guy (he's chinese, yep), at first. Hopefully he decides to make himself an account here, sometime. Having an all-in-one toolkit to mod the games is like the best thing. Also because its easier.

Edited by Zakxaev68, 05 May 2019 - 08:09 AM.

Yeah, Rex is an awesome guy! Actually he already has an account here: https://forums.revor...ser/20194-r-ex/

Indeed he has good knowledge of how stuff works .

That leads to the point of having those formats done already.,Whoever needs to work with RLE and RLC images can do so by downloading the just updated build of CommDevToolkit... r_ex has included support for them thanks both to his research and you, herb.

You peeps are MVP's (most valuable players). Considering almost nobody takes care of the series, you're the keepers of it, ey!

Or you can move into the 21st century and try e.g. this:

convert CARR0000.BMP CARR0000.MASK.BMP -compose CopyOpacity -composite CARR0000.png

But now you need to program a new C:BEL yourself. (Which is what I've been trying to do for years. Progress is slooooooow.)