World Data Files

Geometry

Terrain chunks

Terrain in RIFT is split into "chunks". Each chunk is represented by a 256x256 mesh stored as a NIF file.

The chunks are stored in the Asset Files and the name can be generated using the following template:

Terrain chunks have two types, a far LOD and a close LOD version.

%s_terrain_%d_%d_%s.nif

Where the parameters are:

• World name
• integer X co-ordinate
• integer Y co-ordinate
• type of the terrain. For close terrain, this should be "split", for far it should be "lod_split".

Examples:

• world_terrain_0_0_split.nif
• world_terrain_256_0_split.nif

The X/Y co-ordinates are 256 aligned, and you can find out the available chunks by looking in the base CDR (see below)

World Definition

The base world definition can be found in the base CDR where the world name is appended by '_map.cdr', eg:

• world_map.cdr

This file contains the class 105. Much of this file needs exploration to determine exactly what it contains, however it is known that members at position 2 and 3 represent the number of X and Y tiles respectively. Multiply these by 256 to get the maximum X and Y co-ords for tiles.

Example minimum and maximums from 'world':

• world_terrain_0_0.cdr
• world_terrain_17408_9216.cdr

World Objects

The static world objects are stored within CDR files. These files are in DAT Format and are stored as binary serialized data. The filename is similar to the terrain chunks above except without the LOD and have a CDR extension. This means that each chunk of terrain also has a corresponding CDR file.

• world_terrain_0_0.cdr

The initial class within the CDR file is 107 and in general looks something like this:

class _107:
   _600[] elements;
   byte[] data;
   _108[] elements;

Where _600 and _108 refer to "classes". The unknown data appears to be occlusion related and is of no use to us.

class 600

 class _600:
     int ID;
     string objectName;
     // array of objects, generally like so:
     array {_602, _603, _601, _826}

class 602

In most cases this class appears to contain a single integer which is key to an entry in Dataset 623 within telara.db

It also contains references to light sources.

If it is a light, member 3 will contain an array of floats (red, green, blue).

Members 4/5 are undetermined by believed to be intensity and range related.

class 603

This class contains a reference that links the object to it's NIF and HKX data, as well it's position, rotation and scale within the world

 class _603:
     int ref;
     array of floats { posX, posY, posZ }
     array of floats { quaternion.x, quaternion.y, quaternion.z, quaternion.w }
     int ref2;
     array of floats { pos2X, pos2Y, pos2Z }
     float scale

Keep in mind that due to the way the deserialization protocol works ( see DAT Format ) in that it skips empty members, that some classes or members may not exist.