This is actually a format variant I did a while back, but never got around to writing about it. In this case it’s a .BIN image file from SSI’s Western Front. I’ve decided to include it with their .IMG format as it is raw image data just like the IMG format is, with only a slight difference in how the data is encoded. Also I felt .BIN was a bit too generic to be considered it’s own unique type, this is more of an alias extension. So let’s dig into it and see what the differences are.

After wrapping up with the SSI-IMG format yesterday, I’ve been struggling to come up with what to blog about next. My brain isn’t quite ready to jump back into the PIC format. Then I got a message…

any chance of this amiga “.img” getting converted with your tool?

Would love to extract the bitmap of this splash screen.

And so the adventure begins. Just when I thought I was done with the SSI-IMG format.

I couldn’t let it go, or at least my brain couldn’t. After decoding the SSI-IMG file format for the EGA/VGA assets I had planned to leave it at that. The dark corners of my brain, however, decided that I was going to have to decode the CGA variant as well. As a result this post will be about diving into the CGA framebuffer, and applying it to what we see in the CGA version of the IMG file format.

At the request of one of my readers here, I was asked to look at another graphics asset format. This time it’s the IMG format used by Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI) with their 1989 release of Red Lightning. I honestly don’t know much about this game, and all I have really is the one asset file that was sent for me to look at. The goal here is to be able to read and write this format, to facilitate modding of the game. With that said, let’s see what we can find out, and help make it happen for our reader.