Myst VIEW resources

VIEW resources are the candidate Myst card representations, as they glue other resources together. In particular they seem to describe what to show on screen, what sound to play and where to find additional data about the card.

Original hints by Petroff Heroj.

Basic Format

The data is split into five sections with variable size and different meanings:

• card flags
• pictures
• sounds
• element list
• other resources

Card flags

This is just

unsigned short

card_flags

card_flags seems either 0 or 1. It's 0 for regular cards, while 1 is suspected to disable game saving in that card.

Picture section

This section defines the card background picture, which may be static or dependent on the values of variables. The section starts with

unsigned short

count

If count = 0 then there is a single, static background picture and the whole section reduces to

unsigned short	count = 0
unsigned short	picture_id

where picture_id is the WDIB (or PICT) resource ID.

Otherwise, if count > 0, the section contains count conditional blocks:

unsigned short	count
variable	conditional blocks

Each conditional block associates a variable with an array of picture IDs:

unsigned short	variable
unsigned short	id_count
short	picture_ids[id_count]

The card will use the value of the specified variable to index the ID array and display that picture.

Sound section

This section specifies ambient sounds for the card. It uses a basic "command" mechanism to continue with the already playing sound, alter it or start a different one.

short

sound

If sound is -1 or -3, the section stops here.

• -1 seems to continue with the current sound.
• -3 seems to stop the current sound at all (mute).

If sound is not negative or -2, the section includes a second field:

short	sound
unsigned short	volume

A positive sound stops the currently running sound and starts the given one, while -2 seems to continue with the currently running sound, but different volume.

Finally, if sound is -4, there is a conditional block similar to those in the picture section:

short	sound = -4
unsigned short	variable
unsigned short	count
variable	sound specifications

Each sound specification is a single short, followed by a second one if it's not negative or -2, similarly to what happens for the first field of the section. This probably chooses the sound/flags combination based on the given variable.

Element list

This section seems to list elements (pictures, sounds) available to the card. It is suspected that those elements can then be activated by scripts.

unsigned short	count
variable	element specifications

Each specification begins with an unsigned short type describing what the element is.

• Type 1 is a picture (WDIB or PICT). Resource ID follows.
• Type 2 is a sound (MSND). Resource ID follows.
• Type 3 is a conditional block associating a variable with an ID array. This structure follows:

unsigned short	variable
unsigned short	id_count
unsigned short	u0
short	ids[id_count]

The variable value is used to index the ID array. IDs can be -1, probably meaning that nothing should be done in that case.

• Type 4 seems to refer to pictures, since a WDIB ID follows.
• Type 5 seems to refer to sounds, since a MSND ID follows.

Other resources

The final section points to associated resources that further describe the card, namely RLST, HINT, INIT and EXIT:

unsigned short	rlst_id
unsigned short	hint_id
unsigned short	init_id
unsigned short	exit_id

These values can be zero, indicating that the corresponding resource does not exist (i.e. a card might not have an associated HINT). It happens that all the IDs match the VIEW ID when they are not zero. Furthermore, rlst_id is always set: no cards exist without hotspot descriptions.