texHeaders.bin File Format

intro

TextHeaders.bin is created by Binpbo personal edition 2.5 and greater, or, mikero's dos tools.

It was introduced as of the arrowhead engine and builds an internal structure that was previously done by the engine at exe load time. It's basic use is to have an immediate index (in memory) of all mipmaps of all pax files in the game.

This internal structure is used in multiple ways, not just for pax files directly. Some of the settings therefore are constant and have no direct meaning to the pax file being analysed.

The file itself is placed in the primary folder of the addon.pbo, and comprises information from all pax files encountered in that addon. Unlike all other file\references in bis, the ones used here are relative to the location of the texheaders.bin, not, the beginning if the 'P' drive.

creation

is simple

• BIS: some\where\binarise -texheaders project_folder project_folder
• MIKERO: detex -C project_folder

Conventions

see Generic FileFormat Data Types

File Structure

struct TexHeader.bin
{
 MimeType "0DHT" ;    // NOT asciiz. '0' = 0x30. This is mimetype "TexHeaDer0"
 ulong    version;    // 1
 ulong    nTextures;  // 
 TexBody  TexBodies[nTextures];
};

TexBody

TexBody
{
 ulong          nColorPallets;      //always 1
 ulong          Pallet_ptr;         //Always0 (there are none)
 floats         AverageColor[r,g,b,a];//AVGCTAGG floating-point equivalent.
 bytes          AverageColor[b,g,r,a];//AVGCTAGG in PAx file 
 bytes          MaxColor[b,g,r,a];    //MAXCTAGG in PAx file
 ulong          clampflags;         // always 0
 ulong          transparentColor;   // always 0xFFFFFFFF
 byteBool       has_maxCtagg;       // the MaxColor was set by the paa
                isAlpha;	     // set if FLAGTAG=1: 'basic transparency'
                isTransparent;	     // set if FLAGTAG=2: 'alpha channel is not interpolated'
                isAlphaNonOpaque;   // set if isalpha, AND AverageColor alpha <0x80
 ulong          nMipmaps;           // always same as nMipmapsCopy below
 ulong          pax_format;         // see below Dxt1,2,3 etc
 byteBool       littleEndian;       // Always true;
 byte           isPaa; 	     //file was a .paa not .pac
 Asciiz         PaaFile[];          // Relative to the file location of the texheader itself.
                                    //"data\icons\m4a3_cco_ca.paa"
                                    //"fnfal\data\fnfal_smdi.paa"
 ulong          pax_suffix_type;    // _co, _ca, smdi, etc
 ulong          nMipmapsCopy;       // same as nMipmaps above
 MipMap         MipMaps[nMipmaps];  // see below
 ulong          SizeOfPaxFile;      //
};

===pax_format===(not all values found in a pax file)

0 Index Pallet (P8),

1. Greyscale (AI88),
2. RGB565,
3. ARGB1555,
4. ARGB4444,
5. ARGB8888,
6. DXT1
7. DXT2
8. DXT3,
9. DXT4,
10. DXT5

The same value is also repeated in each mipmap

===pax_suffix_type=== (not all values found in a pax file)

0 diffuse color, SRGB color space. the default for anything else

1. diffuse color, linear color space: (_sky, _lco)
2. detail texture, linear color space:(_detail,_cdt,_dt,_mco)
3. normal map: (_nXXX)
4. irradiance map
5. Map with random values from interval <0.5, 1>
6. tree crown calculation texture
7. 'macro' object color, SRGB color space: (_mc)
8. ambient shadow layer: (_as)
9. Specular: amount of layer: (_sm, _smdi)
10. dithering: texture
11. detail specular: (_dtsmdi) amount of layer
12. mask: (_mask) used for texture selection in the multi-shader
13. Thermal Image: (_ti_ca) texture

Color float

anyfloat= anybyte/255.0;

• note the order of floats is reverse to the rgba equivalent

mipmap

MipMap
{
 ushort width,height;            //as per same mipmap in the pax
 ushort Always0;
 byte   pax_format;              //same value as above
 byte   Always3;
 ulong  dataOffset;              //OFFSTAGG in PAx file. position of mipmap data in pax file
};