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PC Action 1996 May
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02960015
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readme.txt
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1995-11-03
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320 lines
╔════════════════════════════╗
║ TXB FILE UTILITIES ║
║ FOR DESCENT ║
╚════════════════════════════╝
────────────────────────────────────────────────
These utilities are FREEWARE and
may be freely distributed. This
software must not be sold or bundled
with any other software without my
consent.
In other words, you can give it away
but you can't make money off it.
────────────────────────────────────────────────
If you can't wait and want to try it out now:
Copy ROBOT.TXB, ROBOT.MSN, and SHORT.RDL to your descent directory
then run descent. Start a new mission and select !ROBOT.
Note: The levels are just a dummy level used to test the briefing
messages.
╔═══════════════════╗
║ TABLE of CONTENTS ║
╚═══════════════════╝
1. Version Changes
2. What is a TXB file?
3. Creating TXB files
4. TXB file format
╔════════════════════╗
║ 1. VERSION CHANGES ║
╚════════════════════╝
Version 1.0:
Note: Initial version.
Files included with this version:
FILE_ID.DIZ - Zip information file
TXT2TXB.EXE - Text to TXB converter
TXB2TXT.EXE - TXB to Text converter
README.TXT - This file
ROBOT.TXT - Sample briefing file which shows all the robots
ROBOT.TXB - Converted ROBOT.TXT file
ROBOT.MSN - Mission file which uses ROBOT.TXB
ROBOT.RDL - Very short mission file used for testing briefings
╔════════════════════════╗
║ 2. What is a TXB file? ║
╚════════════════════════╝
TXB files contain various text strings for the game Descent.
Several TXB files are stored in the DESCENT.HOG file. The release version
of Descent contains the following files:
DESCENT.TXB - Contains game messages, warning messages, etc..
BRIEFING.TXB - Contains briefing text
CREDITS.TXB - Lists the people who helped create Descent
ENDING.TXB - Contains the closing briefing text for the shareware
version of Descent
ENDREG.TXB - Contains the closing briefing text for the released
version of Descent
LEVELxx.TXB - (where xx = 01 to 27, S1, S2, and S3). Contains data
for each of the 27 levels plus the three secret levels
╔═══════════════════════╗
║ 3. Creating TXB files ║
╚═══════════════════════╝
The first thing you should do is convert the BREIFING.TXB file to a text
file as follows:
TXB2TXT briefing.txb briefing.txt
Now you can load the briefing.txt file into any text file editor. You will
notice commands which have a dollar sign in front of them followed by a
letter. These instruct DESCENT to preform certain actions as the TXB files
are being displayed (see TXB file format below). You will also see several
paragraphs of text. This is exactly what is displayed on the screen as you
begin a level.
If you want to change the briefing text when you start the game, all you have
to do is edit the BRIEFING.TXT file and convert it back to a TXB file.
Descent will do the rest.
Then you can put the following line in your MSN file:
BRIEFING = MYBRIEF
This will take file file MYBRIEF.TXB and use it in place of the standard
briefing file.
NOTE: This line should not be put between num_levels and the rdl file names
otherwise, Descent will think BRIEFING is the name of one of the levels.
You don't need to extract the TXB files from the HOG file unless you want
to see what they look like. Included in this zip is BRIEFING.TXB which
gives you the format necessary for creating your own briefing messages.
There are several HOG file extraction utilities available on Compuserve in
the Action Games forum.
╔════════════════════╗
║ 4. TXB file format ║
╚════════════════════╝
TXB codes are a rotated and bit flipped version of ASCII. The TXB2TXT
program reads in a code, rotates it by 2 bits and exclusive OR's it with
a constant. To convert back to TXB format, the program TXT2TXB does the
reverse.
The following is a list of commands used in TXB files:
$Sn - Sequence number (starting with $S1, these must be in order)
Page breaks are automatically added before each $S number.
Each sequence number has a particular background picture and
each level has one or more sequence numbers as follows:
Level Sequence Background Picture
───── ──────── ──────────────────
1 1 brief01.pcx
2 brief02.pcx
3 brief03.pcx
4 brief02.pcx
5 moon01.pcx
2 6 moon01.pcx
3 7 moon01.pcx
4 8 venus01.pcx
5 9 venus01.pcx
6 10 brief03.pcx
11 merc01.pcx
7 12 merc01.pcx
8 13 brief03.pcx
14 mars01.pcx
9 15 mars01.pcx
10 16 brief03.pcx
17 mars01.pcx
11 18 jup01.pcx
12 19 jup01.pcx
13 20 brief03.pcx
21 jup01.pcx
14 22 jup01.pcx
15 23 saturn01.pcx
16 24 brief03.pcx
25 saturn01.pcx
17 26 brief03.pcx
27 saturn01.pcx
18 28 uranus01.pcx
19 29 uranus01.pcx
20 30 uranus01.pcx
21 31 uranus01.pcx
22 32 neptun01.pcx
23 33 neptun01.pcx
24 34 neptun01.pcx
25 35 pluto01.pcx
26 36 pluto01.pcx
27 37 pluto01.pcx
Note: I haven't figured a way of changing the number of sequences
per level yet or how to change which *.pcx file is loaded. I
assume this must be hard coded in the game. Luckly, the first level
has a bunch of screens so you can create lots of interesting
briefings.
$Cn - Sets color
$C1 = Green (default)
$C2 = White
$Rn - Specifies a robot to display (use only on sequences which
have a background picture with the correct color palette
such as brief03.pcx $S3,10,13,16,20,24 and 26).
$R0 = medium hulk
$R1 = medium lifter
$R2 = spider
$R3 = class 1 drone
$R4 = class 2 drone
$R5 = invisible vulcan
$R6 = invisible hulk
$R7 = supervisor
$R8 = secondary lifter
$R9 = heavy driller
$R10 = gopher, laser
$R11 = platform, laser
$R12 = platform, missile
$R13 = red triangle
$R14 = baby spider
$R15 = miniboss
$R16 = heavy hulk
$R17 = big boss 1
$R18 = invisible lifter
$R19 = vulcan man
$R20 = light hulk
$R21 = advanced lifter
$R22 = defense proto
$R23 = big boss 2
$Bname - Specifies a brush to display on the screen
(these brushes look funny if the palette of the background
picture is not the same as the brush. In fact, the only
brushes that I have found that work are moon01 to moon04
for sequences that use the background picture brief03.pcx
($S3,10,13,16,20,24,26).
$Blev01ter - ???
$Bearth - earth #1
$Bearth2 - earth #2
$Bmoon01 - solid rectangle
$Bmoon02 - solid rectangle
$Bmoon03 - solid rectangle
$Bmoon04 - same as moon03.bbm
$Bempty - plane black
$Bsun - a sun
$Bendguy - same guy as in brief02.pcx except different palette
$Nanim - Specifies an animation to display. There are two problems with
animations:
1) Animations with less than 15 tweens will display
a blue rectangle with an X through it for the upper tweens.
2) Animations which use the transparent color will not update
on the screen correctly. Instead, you will see the left over
of the last tween when the new tween is drawn.
Because of these two limitations, it turns out that the only
animation which looks good is $Ndoor13 which is the exit door.
Oh, well....
$Narw01 - red wall panel <<<<<<
$Nmisc17 - energy
$Nfan01 - rotating fan
$Nmntr04 - monitor
$Nmisc09 - green wall
$Nmisc11 - red wall
$Nctrl04 - vertical red on gray wall
$Nctrl02 - red veins on gray wall
$Nctrl03 - red cross on gray wall
$Nmisc14 - purple veins
$Nmisc16 - purple wall
$Nmisc049 - quarter circle
$Nmisc060 - monitor
$Nmisc061 - dual monitors
$Nmisc062 - bargraph on monitor
$Nmisc065 - rolling monitor
$Nmisc066 - large monitor
$Nmisc067 - monitor with spider robot
$Nmisc068 - monitor with world
$Nmisc069 - monitor with planet
$Nmisc073 - lava fall
$Neye01 - robot eye #1
$Nglow02 - glowing red wall
$Nlava02 - lava
$Nflare - yellow wall
$Nmisc060b - broken monitor
$Nmisc061b - broken dual monitor
$Nmisc065b - broken computer
$Nmisc066b - medium broken monitor
$Nmisc068b - large broken monitor
$Nmntr04b - small broken monitor
$Nmisc062b - broken bargraph monitor
$Nmisc060d - warning
$Nmisc061d - warning and snow on monitor
$Nmisc062d - danger
$Nmisc065d - snow on computer
$Nmisc066d - evacuate
$Nmisc068d - large warning
$Nmntr04d - small monitor with snow
$Neye02 - robot eye #2
$Nrmap01 - map #1
$Nrmap02 - map #2
$Nrmap04 - map #4
$Nboss02 - boss robot eye
$Neye03 - robot eye #3
$Nwall01 - stone wall
$Ndoor04 - metel door
$Ndoor10 - metel door
$Ndoor08 - metel door
$Ndoor12 - metel door
$Ndoor14 - metel door
$Ndoor11 - stone door
$Ndoor17 - stone door
$Ndoor18 - stone door
$Ndoor19 - stone door
$Ndoor20 - stone door
$Ndoor21 - stone door
$Ndoor22 - stone door
$Ndoor23 - stone door
$Ndoor25 - stone door
$Ndoor26 - stone door
$Ndoor29 - stone door
$Ndoor30 - stone door
$Ndoor31 - stone door
$Ndoor05 - iris metal door
$Ndoor28 - iris metel door
$Ndoor24 - prisioner door
$Ndoor13 - exit door
$P - Page break (not needed if the next line is a $Sn)
$F - Cursor Flash (at the end of the text). Default is no flash.
$T nn - Haven't been able to figure this one out yet. I've tried various
numbers but they don't seem to do anything???
T 30 = used for text only
T 70 = used when there is animation to display
T 90 = used for the ending sequence
-End of file-
