Unknown RLE Compression

What makes you think it is encoded using RLE?

We really need a bit more info about the file to give you any help. Decoding a binary file is not a trivial task without a format specification.

I would however, say that this file is definitely not RLE compressed. Take a look at a hex dump of the file, there are many long strings of identical characters (particularly nulls), and RLE works by collapsing runs of identical characters.

It does start with the text "Resource File", followed by an int (4 bytes) that look like a version number. Then an int containing the number of resources (0x32) followed by 0x32 ints specifying offset to start of resource. Each resource starts with an int specifying the length of the resource excluding the length byte. There's some header information followed by what looks like RGB data. No RLE at all.

Skizz

it's a component from pc game software(based on visual c++). there are many of this in the game folder.

I'm not sure if it's pure RLE, but for sure it's somekind of animated graphic/sprite, cuz when i delete some of them, images are missing from the game.

I've tried to open this file using different kinds of image viewer/editor program and it didn't work.
Anyone know how to view the compressed image? using any program/software?
i need it to be graphical, not characters. i've been trying for a week. any help really appreciated. thx.

This is custom file format and there is no app out there that can read the data other than the game it came from. Read my previous post and you should be able to extract image data from it - you will need to write your own extractor / converter.

Skizz

@Skizz: can you please explain more in detail, how to extract the image from this file? would i still be able to view the graphic? and which previous post are you referring to? thx a lot

Looking at your post history (i.e. none), I would hazard a guess that this is way out of your depth ATM. You need to learn 'Binary File IO' first (in whatever programming language you prefer), and then you will be able to work on the problem.

Otherwise, check the game's website for a conversion tool or viewer.

Quote:

Original post by Xolture it's a component from pc game software

What PC game? If we know the game, we might be able to work things out by tinkering around with various bytes in the file.

The first part of the file seems to be a header - the null terminated "Resource File" string in there points that out, and the chunk of mostly 0 bytes looks to me like a struct has just been dumped there. There's no easy way to tell for sure where the struct ends, but the numbers 16, 0, 0 at offset 0xee look like they're near the end or start of something (Just guessing by the double 0-byte).

It's pretty much impossible to tell what it is without some more information, but there's no RLE compression in there (Or extremely little), and there's far too much space for there to be any other compression in there. I suspect the .rle extension stands for something like "Resource; Level Element" or something, and it looks like a lot of the file is made up from structs of dumped data, just from looking at the patterns.

@Evil Steve: It's an simple 2D online game (MMORPG) called "Redmoon Online". The website was "www.redmoon-online.com" and the game is no longer around.

Since the game was no longer around for a long time, people are making private servers for this game. I also made a server, and I was part of the game development community (at RAGEZONE Forum)

Why i need to view the RLEs? simply because:

1.My server is modified from the original game server and it doesn't need all the graphics the game client came with. The RLEs size are big. I want to remove most of the RLEs from the client, so i can make a mini-size client.

2.If the RLEs are editable, it would be great because then i would be able to modify the game interface, characters, items, etc.

There was a guy who used to made a program that can view the RLEs (Uneditable though), and for sure when i open the RLEs using his program they showed up as animated graphics.

But everything was like 2 years ago, and since then i've lost the program. The forum community is no longer active, I tried to post there asking for the program. I couldn't get any information anyway.

I tried googling for more info regarding the program, but most sited are dead. His program also didn't have any name, so i couldn't google for names either.

Then I tried other numerous software trying to open the file but none worked.

I came here to see if anyone could help me with the problem.

If anybody could open the file graphic, then i would be really happy.
because it took me weeks trying to view the file.

Here's screenshots of the game, the game client, and more RLEs

<>
http://www.geocities.com/angeredmoon/redmoon003.jpg
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/docs/20010525/red02.jpg

<> (around 300mb)
http://tstrikeonline.com/dwnlds/RedMoon353e.exe

<>
http://xezn.com/etc00102.rle
http://xezn.com/bul00004.rle
http://xezn.com/obj00033.rle

Your best bet would be to try contacting the developers, and see if they can help you out.

Aside from that, do you know what these objects are supposed to be? I mean, can we get a .rle file and a screenshot of what it represents in game?
I still think it'll be pretty difficult to create a viewer or editor without being able to "tinker around" and see the results in game.

@Anonymous Poster:
1.thanks man.
Basic Question: How to view/convert the graphic in *.png format? like the one you did.

@Evil Steve: From Anonymous Poster, example "etc00102.rle" contain the graphic: http://img50.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dudebu5.png ,and in the game it would be like this: http://www.xezn.com/thug.JPG

help anyone? i just need to view the graphic, in *.png/etc like Anonymous Poster did. thx.