
RSBTool - Readme

Version: 1.0
Author.: Bruce A. Lewis, Dec 30, 2001

======================================================

This program came about because I wanted to use the
game graphics that came with Ghost Recon.  There were
some tools out there that let you open some of the RSB
files that come with the game but only some of them.

This program will currently work on 16 bit (565) as
well as 24 and 32 bit RSB file formats.  You can select
multiple files and it will automatically determine the
format of the file and convert it to TGA.

In order to use the program, just put it anywhere on
your system and run it.  You can select the files and
then convert them. It's that simple.  The new files
will go where the original files are.  One note, it
WILL over-write any old files with the same name as
the newer ones without asking if it can over-write
them. Consider yourself warned.

There is no "spy" code in this program and I don't
care how you use it.  It's useful to me and some other
folks I know.  I thought it might be useful in general
so I put it up on the Internet.

Currently all the program messages are written to the
console window attached.  If you want to see what the
program is doing with your selection, select that window.
If you close the console window. You can't see what it's
doing.  And you can't reopen it unless you restart the
program.

----------------------
About RSB file formats
----------------------

Ghost Recon introduced a new RSB texel format that the
old plugins could not read.

I'm lame when it comes to art work but I do okay with
programming. So I found out the RSB file format and
proceeded to write my own program to convert the RSB
files to something that most graphics programs could
read.  Supposedly (I haven't tried it) the game can
also read Targa TrueVision format files so I made my
program create TGA files.  They are either 24 or 32
bit based on whether there is any alpha information
in the RSB file.

Apparently, RSB files can come in several "flavors" or
texel formats.  The most common is an RGBA 8888 format
that has 8 bits of information for each of the Red,Green
Blue and Alpha channels. These convert to 32 bit TGA
files.

Some others, though, are in an RGB 565 format. Which
has 5 bits of information for the Red and Blue channels
and 6 bits for the Green channel.  This format has no
alpha information at all.  These are 16 bit files but
I convert these to a 24 bit format with no alpha.

There are other possible texel formats like 5551 and 4444
that are also 16 bit but they contain 1 or 4 bits of
alpha channel information (these correspond to 
transparent/opaque and 16 levels of translucence.  I
have not tried to support these, yet. But that is also
in the works in the event that Red Storm decides to use
those formats, too.

My guess is that unless space is an issue, all graphical
file formats will become either 24 or 32 bit in the future
and supporting these older texel formats (565, 5551 and
4444) are probably a waste of time.  But programmers can
sometimes do things that surprise you. And these formats
can be useful if you don't need that much color information
in the graphic and you want to save space (like if you
have thousands of these files).

This program was originally going to convert files to the
RSB format as well, but each file might need to be a different
RSB format. On top of that is the fact that I am not at
all sure what the file "footer" in the RSB format is for
and I have a problem.  It will take some careful analysis
of the RSB file types to determine if footers are necessary
and what their formats should be (if they are different)
for the various RSB file types.

Please not that this program is not supported in any way
shape form or fashion.  It is freeware and may not be sold
for profit or otherwise.

If you have suggestions for enhancements to this program,
please contact:

Bruce Lewis
brucel@abraxis.com

I will consider your request and may add the enhancement
to the program.  I am not releasing the source code to this
at this time.  I may in the future but it's my decision
when or if to release it.  Besides, what do you want for
free?

Also, I have requested SDK's from both Adobe and ACDSystems
so I can create plug-ins for their software to read and
write the RSB format.  Yeah, I know RSE (or somebody) already
did that but those (currently) don't work with the newer
RSB file formats included with Ghost Recon.

We'll see what happens.

