Myst VIEW resources

VIEW resources are the candidate Myst card representations, as they seem to glue other resources together like WDIB and MSND. 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 seems split into four sections with different meanings: conditional images, main section, an unknown section and a "glue" section.

Conditional Images

The first section seems to provide lists of pictures, and the value of specified variables should define which pictures to show.

unsigned short	u0
unsigned short	image_count
variable	conditional_images

• u0 is unknown (always either 0 or 1).
• image_count is the number of conditional image blocks (always either 0 or 1).
• conditional_images are the conditional image blocks.

The image blocks have the following structure:

unsigned short	variable
unsigned short	num_states
unsigned short	image_ids[num_states]

• variable is the variable to check against.
• image_ids is an array of num_states unsigned shorts representing WDIB (or PICT) IDs.

The variable value is the index of what image to use in the image_ids array.

Main Segment

The main section seems to provide basic info about the card:

unsigned short	main_image
signed short	sound
unsigned short	flags

• main_image is the main image to show on the screen. (Kind of like the default case).
• sound is the sound id to play. If it is less than 0, it acts like a flag to pause, continue sound (-1?), or stop the current sound (what means what still needs to be checked).
• flags appears to be flags.

Unknown Segment

TODO: I haven't completely figured this out. Petroff's guess was that it preloaded resources. However, it doesn't make sense that it is like that. It starts with an unsigned short representing the count. Then, following that is an unsigned short (which he believed to be the resource type to load). A 1 would mean a single WDIB, a 2 would mean a single MSND and each of these follows with an unsigned short representing the resource ID. If it was 3 then there would be an array of WDIB's (an array of unsigned shorts, starting with a count and an unknown -- each unsigned shorts). A 4 has also been observed, but that does not have any other shorts attached to it.

Glue segment

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.

Old Case Studies

image name and sub-images (akin to Riven PLSTs)

0	0	3001	-1	0/0	3001	3001	0	0
		name	neg.	bytes	(name name 0 0)

0	0	3002	-2	0/144	0		3002	3002	0	0
0	0	3003	-2	0/144	1	[1 3004]	3003	3003	0	0
		name	?		count	entry	(name name 0 0)

• I think 3004 is the name of a sub-image (small image to be placed in another) of 3003 here.

0	0	3005	3005	0/144	1	[1 3006]	3005	3005	0	0
		name twice				(name name 0 0)

0	0	3012	-2	0/50	5	[1 3013]	[1 3008]	[1 3009]	[1 3010]	[1 3011]	3012	0	0	3012
		name	?		count	entries					(name 0 0 name)

14	1	1	5	2	3030	3031	FFFC 3 2 3031 00_A0	4031	x00A0	2	2 4030	1 3030			3031	3031	0	0
44	1	1	2	2	3095	3096	FFFC 15 2 3095 00_A0	4095	x00A0	4	2 4095	1 3562	1 3097	2 5095	3095	3095	3095	0
348	1	1	16	2	3536	3535		3535	x0060	0					3535	3535	0	0
359	1	1	5	2	3550	3552	FFFC 3 2 6552 00_80	3552	x0080	4	4 3550	4 3552	2 4552	2 5552	3552	3552	0	0
47	1	1	10	2	4140	4141		5141	x0090	1	2 4141				4141	4141	4141	4141
50	1	1	10	2	4148	4149		4149	x0090	0					4149	4149	4149	0
51	1	1	10	2	4150	4151		FFFE	x0070	0					4150	4150	0	0
94	1	1	10	2	4243	4244		4244	x0050	0					4244	4244	0	0
116	1	1	40	2	4292	4294	FFFC 40 2 4292 00_50	4292	x0060	2	1 4293	2 5292			4292	4292	0	0
145	1	1	0	2	4358	4357		FFFE	x0030	0					4357	4357	0	0
287	1	1	34	3	4698	4701		4702	xFFFD	4	1 4699	2 4698	2 5698	2 6698	4698	4698	4698	4698
295	1	1	10	2	4717	4719		4717	x0040	1	1 4718				4717	4717	0	0