Documentation for Blitz Basic SaveShapes (and SaveSprites etc) format?

[earok]

Is there any documentation available for the SaveShapes format? eg, something similar to the documentation available online for AMOS Sprites

If not, I'll spend a little time reverse engineering it.

[Joe Maroni]

I don't know if this might help you...it is just the structure of a shape..

[Daedalus]

Yeah, there's a bit of information in some versions of the manuals on internal data structures. These are available in the bb2objtypes.res resident file, the source code of which might be of help too.

the same information is also available on AmigaCoding.com.

[earok]

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks guys!

I'm assuming that the cookie pointer is always zero (since SaveShapes doesn't save cookies?) and the data pointer is a pointer to the bitplane data within the file?

[MickGyver]

Originally Posted by earok

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks guys!

I'm assuming that the cookie pointer is always zero (since SaveShapes doesn't save cookies?) and the data pointer is a pointer to the bitplane data within the file?

I don't know about the cookie counter but you are probably right. This is the comment for _data.l : "pointer to graphic data - Plane1, Plane2...", so I guess you assume correctly.

[Joe Maroni]

I would try this:

Create a 2 bitplane shape and save it with command "SaveShape".
Create a second 2 bitplane shape and save both shapes with "SaveShapes".
Now look inside both creates files with a hexeditor and see what changed from file1 to file2.
Just compare them.
With enough knowledge i think you can then see how command "Saveshape" save the shapes in one file.

[idrougge]

I have an ARexx script for decoding and analysing shapes files: https://github.com/idrougge/ShapesInfo

[earok]

Thanks guys!

I uh, ended up writing my own format of sorts.

It's a bit rough, currently hardcoded to 5BP and I'm not totally sure the EBWIDTH and BLTSIZE calculations are totally correct, but it seems to work.

    ShapeID=0
    for i = 0 to *Project\FrameCount-1

        *f.Scorpion_Frame = *Project\FrameList[i]
        *s.shape = Addr Shape(ShapeID)

        FullWidth = (*f\Width / 16)*16
        if *f\Width mod 16
            FullWidth + 16
        endif

        *s\_ebwidth = FullWidth/8
        *s\_pixwidth = *f\Width
        *s\_pixheight = *f\Height
        *s\_depth = 5    
        *s\_bltsize = ((*f\Height) lsl 6) or ((*s\_ebwidth / 2) + 1)

        *s\_xhandle = 0
        *s\_yhandle = 0
        *s\_data = Address
        *s\_onebpmem = (FullWidth * *f\Height) / 8
        *s\_onebpmemx = *s\_onebpmem + (2 * *f\Height)
        *s\_allbpmem = *s\_onebpmem * *s\_depth
        *s\_allbpmemx = *s\_onebpmemx * *s\_depth

        Address + *s\_allbpmem
        *s\_cookie = Address
        Address + *s\_onebpmem

        HandleX(ShapeID) = -*f\HandleX
        HandleY(ShapeID) = -*f\HandleY

        ShapeID+ 1

    next