Changes

The files and data formats used in the PSX version of FF7 and it's PC port are conceptually the same thing, and accomplish the same tasks. That being said, they both have wildly different formats. Both ofwhich , both of which were derived from a third original format that is also somewhat different that to the first two.

The original PSX FF7 was created in part using Sony's Psy-Q development library. This library uses common formats that are "native" to the PSX. Often times , a toolkit was used to convert common development- based formats, such as a TGA bitmap or a palleted GIF file, to something a little more suited to Psy-Q, which would be a [[PSX/TIM_format|TIM file]].

During the porting process to the PC, some of the original artwork, (and artists for that matter), were no longer available. This resulted in the port team having to use the Psy-Q versions of many files,which were ill suited for the PC architecture. In our example, the [[PSX/TIM_format|TIM file]] was converted to a TEX file,which would be manipulated in the PC's video memory a little more efficiently. Sometimes the original artwork was available, such as the pictures of the characters within the menu, or the original MIDI files. Most often times it was not.

To make things a little more confusing, both systems also archive their data files in different ways, making the extraction and rendering of each file a bit of a bear. For the most part the data within each file is the same thing, just a little switched around. This manual Here, we will cover the more generic files first,and then common files used in each module.

The BIN format comes as two different types. They both have the same extension, so one must open the file to see which format is which. They are best described as BIN Types and BinBIN-GZIP types.

 The [[FF7/LZS format|The LZS format]] is used throughout the PSX version of Final Fantasy 7, often ending with the .lzs extension. LZS itself stands for Lempel-Ziv-Shannon-Fano, Satisitcal Statistical plus ArthimiticArithmetic. It was originally devoped developed by [http://oku.edu.mie-u.ac.jp/~okumura/index-e.html Professor Haruhiko Okumura] based on the work of [http://www.hpl.hp.com/about/bios/abraham_lempel.html Abraham Lempel] and [http://www.marconifoundation.org/pages/dynamic/fellows/fellow_details.php?roster_id=23 Jacob Ziv].

 A texture is just a picture that's is placed into video memory. It is later manipulated by the engine and displayed on the screen. The native format of a texture was the Psy-Q [[PSX/TIM format|TIM]] (Texture Image Map). This is used as the native format for the PSX version as well, with a few caveats explained below. The file can hold multiple color look up tables. This was one of the reasons why a video card on the PC that could do palleted data at high color depths was needed.

 The [[PSX/TIM_format|The TIM files]] are found both on raw format and also within several archives, including [[FF7/Kernel/Low level libraries#BIN archive data format|BIN]], [[FF7/Kernel/Low level libraries#LZS Archives|LZS]], or even MNU. The format proper has the ability to contain 24 bit bitmaps, but is not used in FF7. The Format format was created because the PSX does not have direct access to it's VRAM, and must go through the [[PSX/GPU|GPU]] for any graphic access. [[PSX/TIM format|A TIM file]] is a clean way to load a texture and color look up table into VRAM.

During the development process, 3D models contain a good deal of information needed by the artist every time they save or load the model. When the model is finished, it is often exported and broken up into smaller files with many unneeded attributes striped stripped from them. When the models for FF7 were created, they were exported into Psy-Q's 3D library formats. These include [[PSX/RSD|resource data (.RSD)]], polygon data (.PLY), polygon groups (.GRP), materials (.MAT), [[PSX/TIM_file|textures (.TIM)]], [[PSX/HRC|skeletal hierarchy (.HRC)]], and animation (.ANM).