SCI0 Picture Extended picture operations 0x03-0x06

[cosmicr]

Anyone know what these do? According to the SCI Companion source code they are only used in KQ1SCI and Colonels Bequest? Which pics?

I have been trying to update the pic resource format specs on the Wiki. It seems that SCUMMVM, FreeSCI, SCI Studio and SCI Companion all ignore these operations.

Most docs describe them as PIC_OPX_MONO1 etc...

0x03 (MONO1) 0x02 (MONO0) has 41 parameters. It makes me wonder if it's a palette operation?

Or perhaps they were just placeholders for commands never implemented?

Has anyone taken the time to investigate what they are?

[Kawa]

I added a hacky thing where it logs which extended picture operation is used in which pics, triggered by simply opening the picture browser.

KQ1 uses 0x02 PIC_OPX_MONO0 fourteen times total, in pictures 4, 5, 12, 15, 16, 23, 24, 27, 30, 31, 35, 36, 37, and 38. No other extended ops in that game.

LB uses 0x02 PIC_OPX_MONO0 37 times total, in pictures 1 through 38 except 19.
0x03 PIC_OPX_MONO1 appears 19 times, in pictures 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 22, 23, 25, 26, 30, 33, and 37.
0x05 PIC_OPX_MONO3 appears 29 times, in pictures 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, and 37.

0x04 PIC_OPX_MONO2 and 0x06 PIC_OPX_MONO4 are marked as hitting in LB, but they don't seem to.

(Also, according to the code, it's 0x02 that takes 41 bytes, not 0x03.)

[lskovlun]

Yes, these were used for the games that supported monochrome high-res CGA. The commands were added in interp version 0.000.631 I think:

MONO0: Set mono palette
MONO1: Set visual (using the mono palette)
MONO2: Clear visual
MONO3: Set direct visual (without going through the mono palette)
MONO4: Clear direct visual

(In fact MONO2 and MONO4 share code, but it is clear that they were meant to complement each other like this)

[MusicallyInspired]

Oh wow.

[Kawa]

I figured it might've been something like that considering the name but... wow indeed, very interesting. Not very very interesting because two colors is just... at least fourteen too few but yeah.

[lskovlun]

Speaking of 'holy moly' and graphics, I just noticed this over at vogons. It's a year and a half old:
https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=75877

[cosmicr]

Great insight thanks! I'll update the specs on the wiki.

edit: okay it's updated. Please take a look: http://sciwiki.sierrahelp.com//index.php?title=Picture_Resource let me know if I've made any mistakes or if there's any improvements - I'm not really a programmer so some terminology might be wrong. I wanted to include pictures to explain the pattern bitmaps and palette stuff but I don't have upload privileges, so if anyone does please feel free to include.

[MusicallyInspired]

Ooo! An actual open source SCI driver! That's really interesting and something I was hoping to see.