I am trying to get the sprites from a game from 1997 called Swing (US: Marble Master). The file is called NORMAL.SET and contains a set of sprites. There is an executable named SHOWSET.EXE that displays the entire set after printing a number on each sprite.
There are also a file called HINTERH.SWG (SWG probably stands for SWING). I was able to figure out what this file type is using TiledGGD! It is raw data without headers, has the size 640x480, 16 bpp, big endian, (A)RGB. See Screenshot below.
Using the same settings in TiledGGD I get a close approximation of the NORMAL.SET image. Below you find the output from SHOWSET.EXE (left), aswell as the image how TiledGGD displays it (right).
Using a screenshot of the SHOWSET.EXE output, I was able to get close to the codec (?correct term?) used for the pixel data in the NORMAL.SET. I do believe it is based on 16-bit ARGB1555, but still different. Below you see the image extracted from the screenshot. Let's call it screenshot-sprite.
Those are the first 192 bytes from NORMAL.SET
47 69 62 20 6D 69 72 20 27 6E 65 20 4B 75 67 65
6C 0A 00 1A 73 74 61 6E 64 61 72 64 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 9D 4F DD 32 00 00 00 00 68 27 01 00
14 00 01 0F 1E 00 1E 00 2C 03 00 00 03 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 03 00 0A 00 90 08 90 08 90 08 90 08 <1,2---
8F 08 8F 08 8E 08 6D 08 6C 04 6B 04 03 00 0A 00
03 00 08 00 90 08 91 08 91 08 91 08 91 08 91 08
90 08 90 08 8F 08 8E 08 6D 08 6C 04 6A 04 4A 04
03 00 08 00 03 00 06 00 91 08 91 08 B2 08 B2 08
B2 08 B2 08 B2 08 B2 08 B2 08 91 08 90 08 8F 08
8E 08 6D 08 6C 04 6B 04 49 04 48 04 03 00 06 00
03 00 05 00 90 08 B2 08 B2 08 B3 08 B3 0C B3 0C
Those are the first 192 bytes from the screenshot-sprite.
42 4D 50 07 00 00 00 00 00 00 46 00 00 00 38 00
00 00 1E 00 00 00 E2 FF FF FF 01 00 10 00 03 00
00 00 0A 07 00 00 3B 00 00 00 3B 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 7C 00 00 E0 03 00 00 1F 00
00 00 00 80 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 <1---
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 90 08 90 08 90 08 <2---
90 08 8F 08 8F 08 8E 08 6D 08 6C 04 6B 04 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
00 00 90 08 91 08 91 08 91 08 91 08 91 08 90 08
90 08 8F 08 8E 08 6D 08 6C 04 6A 04 4A 04 00 00
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
You can see the point where the data does probably begin (arrow 1), you see a similar hex string 90 08 90 08 90 08.
You also see that the data in the screenshot-sprite probably begins with 10 byte-pairs (arrow 2). In the NORMAL.SET you find 0A 00. Now I read about RLE and with some fantasy I could see a link between 10 byte-pairs and 0A 00 which I could translate into "ten times a black pixel".
I am still confused why I see two blue sprites in the NORMAL.SET, where in the screenshot there is only one blue sphere. But that is something I would care about at a later time.
NOTE
At this point I am quite sure that I am on the right track! I think RLE decompression is the only thing missing here, besides figuring out where the data starts and what the headers are supposed to mean. Maybe they aren't even of much use to me.
I am not sure, if I still have a question at the moment. If nobody disagrees, I would keep this here until I figured out the rest in the hopes that someday, to someone this will be helpful. I will update this as soon as I solved the riddle.
Until the, if you got a a solution for the RLE ready, don't be shy to post ;)
