.IFF or .iff?

Brick Nash · 17 March 2015, 11:07

Hi folks,

If I'm in the wrong section please feel free for any mods to move my post.

I'm messing about in Winuae and I'm looking at a few games I know don't have copy protection on them and loading the sound effects and such in protracker just for laughs like I did when I was 13.

I decided to see if the graphics were available so I fired up Dpaint IV and looked at the game disk image and there were lots of files with the .iff name but when I tried to load them up I get the message -

cannot load file, something.iff is not a valid IFF file.

I know it probably wouldn't be that easy and I'm not fussed but I'm curious as to what the difference is between lower and upper case versions of .iff files as they appear to be different formats.....unless my image of Dpaint is goosed???

Thanks!

Codetapper · 17 March 2015, 11:59

Just because they have IFF as the extension, doesn't mean they are uncompressed image files. IFF is just a container format that can hold any kind of data, but is mainly used for images.

In saying that, the IFF files might be compressed. They might be sound files. They might be ACBM images. They might have the headers removed. There are an infinite number of possibilities.

What game are you looking at?

Steve · 17 March 2015, 12:08

They is no difference between naming something iff or IFF. Usually the lowercase version is preferred. IFF stand for Interchange File Format and covers not only ILBM images but also hundreds of other types like ANIM (animation files), LWOB (Lightwave object files), 8SVX (sound files).

Load the file into a hex editor and check to see what IFF 'type' you have. The first 4 bytes contain the word 'FORM', the second 4 bytes contain the file's length and the next next 4 bytes contain the file's type (ILBM,ANIM etc). It might not be an image file at all in which case it won't load up in DPaint.

Other reasons for the failure is that the file has been encrypted in a format DPaint doesn't know. This was common with Amiga game files as companies don't want their sprite data and background graphics to be used and modified etc.

17 March 2015, 11:07	#1
Brick Nash Prototron Join Date: Mar 2015 Location: Glasgow, Scotland Posts: 411	.IFF or .iff? Hi folks, If I'm in the wrong section please feel free for any mods to move my post. I'm messing about in Winuae and I'm looking at a few games I know don't have copy protection on them and loading the sound effects and such in protracker just for laughs like I did when I was 13. I decided to see if the graphics were available so I fired up Dpaint IV and looked at the game disk image and there were lots of files with the .iff name but when I tried to load them up I get the message - cannot load file, something.iff is not a valid IFF file. I know it probably wouldn't be that easy and I'm not fussed but I'm curious as to what the difference is between lower and upper case versions of .iff files as they appear to be different formats.....unless my image of Dpaint is goosed??? Thanks!

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17 March 2015, 11:59	#2
Codetapper 2 contact me: email only! Join Date: May 2001 Location: Auckland / New Zealand Posts: 3,182	Just because they have IFF as the extension, doesn't mean they are uncompressed image files. IFF is just a container format that can hold any kind of data, but is mainly used for images. In saying that, the IFF files might be compressed. They might be sound files. They might be ACBM images. They might have the headers removed. There are an infinite number of possibilities. What game are you looking at?

17 March 2015, 12:08	#3
Steve I Identify as an Ewok Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: North Lincolnshire Age: 45 Posts: 2,356	They is no difference between naming something iff or IFF. Usually the lowercase version is preferred. IFF stand for Interchange File Format and covers not only ILBM images but also hundreds of other types like ANIM (animation files), LWOB (Lightwave object files), 8SVX (sound files). Load the file into a hex editor and check to see what IFF 'type' you have. The first 4 bytes contain the word 'FORM', the second 4 bytes contain the file's length and the next next 4 bytes contain the file's type (ILBM,ANIM etc). It might not be an image file at all in which case it won't load up in DPaint. Other reasons for the failure is that the file has been encrypted in a format DPaint doesn't know. This was common with Amiga game files as companies don't want their sprite data and background graphics to be used and modified etc.

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