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List:       xine-codec-devel
Subject:    [codec-devel] Game Media Report
From:       Mike Melanson <melanson () pcisys ! net>
Date:       2002-11-17 5:48:32
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Hi,
	I knew this media hacking thing had crossed the line from hobby ->
obsession the day I started walking into used video game and software
shops and purchasing armloads of used software strictly for the purpose of
studying the media formats. What follows are brief analyses of the media
found on a variety of video games. You may find it interesting. I welcome
your feedback.


PC Games:

* Quake II: Id Cinematic format. We already have this format down, I
just wanted to enjoy the fruits of my labor and watch the rest of the
movies. Watching the rest of the movies for this game brought me to the
conclusion that this is the single most esoteric media format I have
studied to date (i.e., this game is the only game for which Id CIN
support is good for, and there are not even very many movies to watch).


* Mad Dog McCree: Old West-themed shooting game, mostly FMV
Mad Dog McCree is spec'd to be able to run on at least a 16 MHz 286 PC
(386 recommended). There are only a handful of files on the CD-ROM,
but one is a 114 MB file called maddog.lib. If I were a guessing man, I
would say that the first 0x2E bytes of the file are some sort of header
followed immediately by a bunch of 8-bit unsigned PCM data. The manual
states in the credits that the game runs with the help of PhotoMotion
which is a trademark of IBM. Sure enough, the fourcc list specifies
'PHMO' as belonging to IBM PhotoMotion.

        There are also 9 small (300-1000 bytes each) files with the
extension .ani:
/mnt/cdrom/ammo.ani     /mnt/cdrom/gun.ani   /mnt/cdrom/knife.ani
/mnt/cdrom/bullet.ani   /mnt/cdrom/hat.ani   /mnt/cdrom/numbers.ani
/mnt/cdrom/clip.ani     /mnt/cdrom/hole.ani  /mnt/cdrom/shootout.ani
I'm developing a theory that these have information about how to play
data inside the maddog.lib file. It's interesting to note that the
credits only list 2 people: 1 for programming and 1 for artwork.


* The Daedalus Encounter: Mostly FMV
This game has 3 CD-ROMs. First disc contains the setup for both Windows
and Mac. The discs have lots of WAV and MOV files on them. The MOV files
are just Cinepak video/PCM audio. The peculiar thing about this game is
that I have the worst time reading the CD-ROMs in Linux. Using Windows
on the same machine and same CD-ROM drive, I can see all of the files
on any of the 3 discs. But when I mount the discs in Linux I cannot any
of the media files (the rest of the files are still there).


* Descent II: Standard Interplay MVE files packed in MVL resource
container files (simple format).


* Waterworld: Based of the smash-hit (heh) Kevin Costner film, was also
produced by Interplay and it has over 20 large Interplay MVE files in a
movies/ directory at the top level of the CD-ROM.


* 7th Guest: Mostly FMV, as I recall. This game packs its files with the
extension .gjd. No discernible format details jump out at me right away.
I have read an article that discusses the detail that when The 7th Guest
was produced, there were no acceptable 3D tools available and all of the
modeling and rendering resources had to be developed in-house by the
game's developer. It is reasonable to think they took the same route
with the video.


Selected Console Games:

Revolution X/Sega Saturn: The Sega Saturn adaptation of a rather
bad game:
  http://www.seanbaby.com/nes/egm10.htm
but that was the SNES version. Honestly, I think this one must be
better, if only because this has a bunch of CD tracks for audio. Except
that the last several tracks contain atrocious voice acting by Aerosmith
band members. On to the hackable media: I was rather disappointed. There
is a gfx/movies directory that contains several files from 130K-200K
with .ANM extensions. Format does not look familiar. And judging by the
filenames, they correspond to the brief voice tracks on the CD.

Kingdom: The Far Reaches/3DO: I thought I would investigate a 3DO game.
This game touts, "Over 57,000 hand painted animation cels captured in
full-motion video..." So far, the disc cannot be mounted as an ISO-9660
filesystem. I will have to check for utilities for examining the disc (I
know it's possible because of the Lemmings FILM files).

Beauty & The Beast/CD-I: I also decided to investigate a Philips CD
Interactive title. I remember from looking through the Linux kernel
cdrom.h header file that there is a slightly different sector format for
CD-I discs. So I can't get anywhere with this game right now. Actually,
it's not a game. Rather, it's an interactive storybook adventure, or so
the store clerk warned me. Perfect. Sure to have plenty of FMV.


Sega CD:

I became curious about Sega CD games. Sega CD was released in the
1991-1992 timeframe and was a add-on to the Sega Genesis. Since it was
such an early CD-ROM system, I reasoned that the discs were probably
just ISO-9660 discs and that they would contain a lot of full motion
video.

Sega CD FAQ:
  http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/segacd/file/sega_cd.txt

What I have found with many Sega CD games is that there are a bunch
which claim to be "Sega TruVideo Productions". Note that there is a
video codec technology company named TruVideo @ www.truvideo.com. I have
written to them and they disavow any association with Sega.

Many of the games also claim to use a technology named Cinepak for Sega
(TM). Okay, that is something else to go on. As an aside, a Google
search for "cinepak for sega" produces my FILM document. Big help. The
Sega CD had very limited graphics capabilities in terms of video
resolution and maximum number of simultaneous on-screen colors (I'm
still trying to figure out if it's 31, 64, or 128). Plus, the Sega CD
only had a 12 MHz Motorola 68000 CPU. The Cinepak for Sega data is
definitely not the same as the Cinepak data we all know and love. It
looks to be an entirely intra-coded codec (i.e., every frame is a
keyframe).

As for file formats, many of the games use files with the .SGA
extension. I have yet to come up with a definite format description for
these files. One interesting characteristic is their filesizes always
line up on 256-byte boundaries.

Certain Sega CD games have early FILM files. "Early" is how I have
re-categorized what was previously known as "deviant" for those who are
familiar with my FILM document:
  http://www.pcisys.net/~melanson/codecs/film-format.txt
The "deviant" FILM files from the Lemmings 3DO game were just early
version FILM files. Some interesting items about these files:

* They list either 'sega' or 'SEGA' as the video fourcc (rather than
'cvid' which was used to indicate almost-standard Cinepak video on the
Sega Saturn games). I imagine this fourcc stands for Cinepak for Sega.

* They have sign/magnitude PCM as discussed elsewhere on this list.

* Sometimes the STAB chunks have extra data at the end. It takes some
weird forms (at least one game had STAB chunks which appears to contain
QT-like 'mdia' atoms).

Here is a rundown of individual games I have studied:

* Double Switch, by Digital Pictures, apparently the "sequel" to Night
Trap:
  http://www.seanbaby.com/nes/egm12.htm
This game has .sga files.

* Dracula Unleashed, another TruVideo Product, like Double Switch. This
one specifically mentions Cinepak for Sega on the back. This game uses
the early FILM files.

* Ecco: The Tides of Time, a game based on Sega's dolphin video game
character. It has several early FILM files.

* Bram Stoker's Dracula: This game is published by Sony Imagesoft and
developed by Psygnosis. It has a bunch of clearly marked video files
(/video/video??). The files start with these 16 bytes:
 46 4F 52 4D  50 53 59 47  78 78 78 78  53 41 4E 4D  FORMPSYGxxxxSANM
From there, it's a chunked format with chunk names like SANM, SPAL, SAUD,
and SBIT. I think the SAUD chunk might be raw PCM audio, not sure if it
would be signed or unsigned-- obviously these files do not begin with
silence. The audio might also be sign/magnitude.

* The Colors of Modern Rock: Not actually a game, but a "VirtualVCR"
disc. It has 6 music videos on it, all in .SGA format. I have only heard
of 1 of the 6 acts.

* Make My Video: Marky Mark: I guess this is similar to the Kriss Kross
"game":
  http://www.seanbaby.com/nes/egm18.htm
Lots of .SGA media.

* Ground Zero: Texas: TruVideo title from Sony ImageSoft and Digital
Pictures. 2 discs with lots and lots of .SGA files.

* Midnight Raiders: TruVideo title from Sega. "All live video action!"
shouts the cover. The CD is loaded with media files. Each movie is split
into 2 files, a .joe file (big) and a .cmd file (always 2048 bytes).
Both file types begin with their own filenames.

* Tomcat Alley: You guessed it, a TruVideo(TM) Production. First, here's
the copy that was in the ad for this game in the manual for Midnight
Raiders: "Tomcat's active matrix software creates each video dogfight
with millions of possible outcomes." I guess that means that there are
lots of little video clips that are branched to in real-time. But the
disc layout is very curious: 3 game files: maincode.prg (61440 bytes),
subcode.prg (40960 bytes), and tca.bin (493299712 bytes). The latter
file you have to see to believe. It starts off with an early FILM
header. There is the abbreviated FDSC chunk followed by a very short
STAB chunk. At the end of the STAB chunk is a Quicktime 'mdia' atom! The
pattern repeats further down.

* Ecco The Dolphin: Precursor to the other Sega CD Ecco title I have.
This one does not boast any video and I can't find any discernible media
files on the disc. Though there are 2 files in the neighborhood of 22-23
MB but with no recognizable format. But I would be remiss if I didn't
note that the manual has lots of informative facts about dolphins as
well as resources where you can learn more about these marvelous marine
mammals.

* Prize Fighter: TruVideo. More .SGA files. 'Nuff said.

* Jurassic Park: Box copy mentions Cinepak for Sega and QSound. Disc
contains many, many .MVD files that have an early FILM header. They also
have extra info at the end of the STAB chunk.

* Power Factory Featuring C + C Music Factory: Another "Make My Video"
style game, only by Sony (didn't realize C + C Music Factory was a Sony
act). Lots of .SGA files.

* The Masked Rider: Kamen Rider ZO: A trusty Sega TruVideo Production.
All of the video files are .bin files with no discernible header. This
game might be a keeper because some of the program files may be useful.

* Mad Dog McCree: I wanted to be able to compare and contrast this with
the PC version. It has a few .BIN files and then one 136MB maddog.lib
file. The format of the big file is definitely different than the PC
version, and I might be able to take this format apart. No idea whether
this uses IBM PhotoMotion or the Cinepak for Sega format specially tuned
for Sega CD system. I figure if PhotoMotion can run on a 16 MHz 286,
12.5 MHz 68K doesn't sound like too much of a stretch.

* Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: Just a horribly scratched-up CD-ROM with
no box. But it is by Sony ImageSoft and has tons of .BFC files. I saw
markers such as 'PALL', 'FRME', and 'FEND'. Lots of well-organized
program files, too.

--
	-Mike Melanson



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