Actions

Dat Format

From Populous Wiki

Revision as of 21:19, 26 November 2016 by Rousfv (talk | contribs)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

Dat files are stored in the levels directory and contain the land structure and all the initial objects. These are kept in two blocks of data.

0x0 - 0x7FFF: Land Heights

The land data starts at 0x0. Each point of land is a signed word (two bytes) one after the other. 0 is the lowest point which is water. 1024 is considered to be the highest as braves lower the land to build anything higher than that. 900 is easier for players to see when their resolution is 640 x 480.

Max (walkable) land height is 1408.

0x8000 - 0xBFFF: Land Blocks

Unused, data is ignored

0xC000 - 0xFFFF: Land Orients

Unused, data is ignored

0x10000 - 0x13FFF: Land No-access Squares

One byte for each land block, non-zero value sets land block to no-access.

0x14000 - 0x1403F: Player Save Info

For saved games, the positions of all four players. Consists of four blocks of 16 bytes with the first two SWords being the coordinates.

0x14040 - 0x14042: Sunlight Info

First two bytes are unused/ignored, third is a UByte for sunlight inclination.

0x14043 - 0x2EDF2 Objects

Each object is 55 bytes containing the object's information. Most of the block is not used. The next object starts after the first object and so on. The maximum number of objects is 2000.

For more information visit Object Data

0x2EDF3 - 0x2EE88: End Padding

Unused, data is ignored