The data starts in byte 0x0009
(old Duke Nukem 3D),
0x0018
(new Duke Nukem 3D) or
0x021F
(Redneck Rampage) of the DMO file and is organized in
several blocks.
Each block consists of a header with some organizational information and the compressed data.
A block header is:
address
0x0000
word
0x0002
word
0x0004
word
The compressed data starts in byte 0x0006
of the block.
The block size (0x0000/0x0001) includes the rest of the header. This means
there are only block size - 4 data bytes.
Duke Nukem 3D uses a modified Lempel-Ziv algorithm (similar to the
UNIX command compress(1)
) to compress the game tics. To reach an
even better compression ratio not the game tic itself but the difference
to the last one of the same player (difference per byte, without carry bits)
will be compressed. This increases the number of 0 bytes enormously and allows
long recording in short files.
In fact Steffen Winterfeldt changed the original
compress.c
until we could decompress a DMO file.
If you are really more interested in the compression/decompression routines
look in the files lzw.c
and unlzw.c
included in
LMPC, the Little Movie Processing Centre. You can get it from my
Demo Specs page.
The compression algorithm used in Redneck Rampage seems to be similar but I
did not get lzw.c
and unlzw.c
to work with Redneck Rampage
recordings.
Some blocks of data form a macro block. This has to do with both decompression and game tic difference storing. The first game tic in a macro block is the original game tic. All the following game tics are only the byte-per-byte difference game tics to its specific predecessors. There is no special code to signalize the end of a macro block. It is simply the number 2520/(player number) game tics, which makes a macro block. Note that 2520 is divisible by 1,2, ... ,8 without remainder. Only the last macro block may contain less game tics if the file ends before.
One game tic corresponds to 10 times player number bytes:
address
0x0000
word
0x0002
word
0x0004
word
0x0006
long
0x000a
word
0x000c
word
The 2 words (signed short
) are duke's speed or the displacement
vector in length units per game tic.
To calculate the absolute value of his speed just calculate sqrt(x2+y2).
A standard speed is 1280 (with running 2560). The coordinate system used is like this:
|
|
|
------------+-----------> x
|
|
|
\|/
y
The turn word contains 2 bytes (signed short
) which are the
current turning speed or the angle difference per game tic.
A positive turning speed means right and a negative
means left.
There are many ``use'' actions in Duke Nukem 3D. You can do all at once, because there is a single bit for each action. The apropriate bit is 1 as long as you press the corresponding key.
bit