Labdata (labyrinth data) contains information about objects, walls, floor and ceiling in 3D labyrinths.
| Offset | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 0x0000 | uword | Wall height (mostly near the range 300~400). |
| 0x0002 | uword | Default combat background index in the lower 4 bits. |
| 0x0004 | ubyte | Ceiling color index (see Color) |
| 0x0005 | ubyte | Floor color index (see Color) |
| 0x0006 | ubyte | Ceiling texture index (taken from Floors.amb) |
| 0x0007 | ubyte | Floor texture index (taken from Floors.amb) |
After the header there are the objects. Objects are really object groups. So they can be created out of 1 to 8 single objects.
The section starts with an uword which is the number of object groups. Object groups are referenced from 3D map blocks.
Each object group consists of a header (uword) which gives the AutomapType the object uses and 8 object entries. As stated before, object groups consists of 1 to 8 objects. For example burning torches are two textures/billboards (objects) which form one real map object. One object is the torch and the other one is the flame.
Note that the objects are rendered in reverse order so that the first object is drawn above later objects. In modern rendering terms that means that the depth value is lowest for the first object and highest for the last object. Using the burning torch example, the flame is the first object and the torch the second one. Therefore the flame is shown in front of the torch.
Note that there will always be all 8 object entries even if not all are used!
Each object entry inside the group consists of 4 uwords.
| Offset | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 0x0000 | uword | Relative X |
| 0x0002 | uword | Relative Y |
| 0x0004 | uword | Relative Z |
| 0x0006 | uword | Object data index (see below) |
The relative positions are relative to the map block from the 3D map. Note that x and y are related to the x and y of the map and z is the height above the ground with z=0 is ground level.
A block's dimension is 512x512x341 so values of 255 for x and y are used to center objects. Note that the given position is the center of the object.
The object group section contains 66 bytes per object group. 2 byte header, and 8 objects with 8 bytes each.
Note that the object data index is 1-based and 0 means "no object". The latter is used to mark unused/empty object entries. When you load the object data below they might be 0-based so you have to subtract 1 to get the right object data for non-empty objects.
After the object groups the object data entries follow which contain the real information of objects like texture information.
This section again starts with an uword which is the number of object data entries.
Each object data entry consists of 14 bytes:
| Offset | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 0x0000 | udword | Flags |
| 0x0004 | uword | Texture index (taken from XObject3D.amb) |
| 0x0006 | ubyte | Number of animation frames |
| 0x0007 | ubyte | Color index (see Color) |
| 0x0008 | ubyte | Texture width (as the texture file uses) |
| 0x0009 | ubyte | Texture height (as the texture file uses) |
| 0x000A | uword | Mapped texture width (used in rendering) |
| 0x000C | uword | Mapped texture height (used in rendering) |
The mapped texture dimensions are used to resize the texture (stretch or shrink). For example if the mapped texture width is twice the normal texture size, the object appears wider.
I am not 100% sure about the color index here as it is always 0 in Ambermoon. But according to wall data it makes the most sense.
After object groups and object data, the wall data is located. It again starts with an uword that gives the amount of wall data entries.
Each wall data entry consists of a header and optional overlay data.
The header is 8 bytes in size.
| Offset | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 0x0000 | udword | Flags |
| 0x0004 | ubyte | Texture index (taken from XWall3D.amb) |
| 0x0005 | ubyte | Automap type (see Maps3D) |
| 0x0006 | ubyte | Color index (see Color) |
| 0x0007 | ubyte | Number of overlays |
If the number of overlays is greater than zero then there will be this amount of overlay data entries for this wall.
The color index is used for the mini map (spell Magic Map View). There each wall is represented by a 2x2 pixel area with the given color. The map border (object/wall index = 255) seems to be drawn with color index 2. Empty areas (no map border or wall) are drawn with color index 0. As the mapping from color index to palette color index for 3D maps is a 1:1 mapping, this also is the palette color index in the original game data.
Each overlay is a decal/subtexture drawn on the wall texture. Like a button, sign or riddlemouth.
An overlay data entry consists of 6 bytes:
| Offset | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 0x0000 | ubyte | Blending (0: off, 1: on) |
| 0x0001 | ubyte | Texture index (taken from XOverlay3D.amb) |
| 0x0002 | ubyte | Relative X offset in pixels |
| 0x0003 | ubyte | Relative Y offset in pixels |
| 0x0004 | ubyte | Texture width (as the texture file uses) |
| 0x0005 | ubyte | Texture height (as the texture file uses) |
If blending is off the overlay will just override the wall data. This means that even transparent pixels are integrated into the wall. If blending is on, transparent pixels will be discarded from the overlay or more precisely the overlay pixels are blended over the wall.
As the texture dimensions are given by the labdata it is best to read object and overlay graphics through labdata loading. Wall textures on the other hand are always 128x80 pixels and floor textures are always 64x64 pixels in size.
The original code limits the max amount of walls (wall data entries) to 32 and of objects (object data entries) to 64.