BLP

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BLP files store textures with precalculated mipmaps. BLP files are capable of storing data with a few different formats. The primary variables are palettized/RGB and alpha bit depth. The RGB formats are actually stored using DXT compression (DXT1 for 0-bit alpha and DXT3 for the others), and thus conversion to these formats is somewhat lossy. Here is a list (with my shorthand for the format in parenthesis):

Palettized, 0-bit alpha (P0) - Example: character skins, clothing.

Palettized, 1-bit alpha (P1) - Example:. clothing (relatively rare).

Palettized, 8-bit alpha (P8) - Example: clothing.


RGB, 0-bit alpha (RGB0) - Example: Sansamroot.blp.

RGB, 1-bit alpha (RGB1) - Example: Peaceflower.blp.

RGB, 8-bit alpha (RGB8) - Example: Sungrass.blp.


From BLPConverter.rtf

Header

Offset 	Type 		Description
0x00 	char[4]		always 'BLP2'
0x04 	uint32 		Version, always 1
0x08 	uint8 		Compression: 1 for uncompressed, 2 for DXTC, 3 (cataclysm) for plain A8R8G8B8 textures (see remarks)
0x09 	uint8 		Alpha channel bit depth: 0, 1 or 8
0x0A 	uint8 		Something about alpha? (compressed, alpha:0 or 1): 0, (compressed, alpha:8): 1, uncompressed: 2,4 or 8 (mostly 8)
0x0B 	uint8 		when 0 there is only 1 mipmaplevel. compressed: 0, 1 or 2, uncompressed: 1 or 2 (mostly 1)
0x0C 	uint32 		X resolution (power of 2)
0x10 	uint32 		Y resolution (power of 2)
0x14 	uint32[16] 	offsets for every mipmap level (or 0 when there is no more mipmap level)
0x54 	uint32[16] 	sizes for every mipmap level (or 0 when there is no more mipmap level)

Alpha channel bit depth = 4 are found in Interface\Glues\Credits\*.blp. Most BLP converters are not compatible with this.

Compressed textures

For compressed textures, DXT1 or DXT3 (possibly DXT5 depending on the header values) data follows, for every mipmap level. Unused mipmap levels have an offset and size of 0.

Detailed description of the DXTC formats can be found on MSDN or on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.BLP)

Uncompressed textures

After the header, 256 32-bit BGRA values make up the palette. The image data (for each mipmap level) consists of 8-bit indices into this palette.

If there is an alpha channel, then transparency data follows the image data in each mipmap level. If the Alpha bit depth is 0, there is no alpha channel. If the Alpha bit depth is 1, the alpha data is 8 alpha bits backed into each byte. If the Alpha big depth is 8, there is one byte per alpha value.

If compression is set to 3 we also have uncompressed textures but they do not use a color palette. They just store the pixels in A8R8G8B8 format. You can read all the pixels and fill them directly into a texture. Examples for such textures are found in: tileset\Terrain Cube Maps\

--Cromon 09:56, 28 February 2012 (UTC)