Hello,
I see. I guess, you need some more information about the past and the developing of tools for the
BG-games
.
A cursory glance suggests Hauglid did not account for this when he wrote the unbiff code for NI, so when you export a TIS file, you get the file data, same as with any other file, except for TIS files this does not include a header.
...so it's not about editing the file, but exporting, well in a sense.
Well, Hauglid has developed the best editing tool for editing Infinity games and hacking the Infinity engine that was possible at that time, with the knowledge about that engine that was available at that time, until he has retired from
NI. My kudos to him and his work, that he is so kind, to hold available for so long time
.
The reason why he couldn't implement a better export of TIS files in
NI is the lack of knowledge about the code of the Infinity engine at that time. I will quote from the readme of the mentioned old TISUtil to make it somewhat clearer. In this readme from the year 2000 is written:
"4. What are the two options for output file type? How do they differ?
The tilesets that Interplay works with are .TIS files. These files are usable in the
overrides\ directory of Infinity Engine games. However, when the tiles are packed
into .BIFF files, their headers are stripped. Thus we have no knowledge of the .TIS
header format and cannot directly use extracted files.
.TS files are the raw tileset information, with no header of any kind. The applicactions
for this file type are limited.
.PTS files are a file format of my design. They differ from .TS files in that they do
have a header. They are still not recognizable to the games, however the header allows
for easier writing of utilities. Currently several utilities are under construction which
will operate on .PTS files. Only .PTS files can be reimported into the game at this time."
These from TISUtil created .PTS files can be viewed and edited by the old MOSMaker, I mentioned before, and then reimported by the TISUtil. The TISUtil was one of the first tools developed for modding the games, earlier than NiI came out.
Later on, the founded "Infinity Engine Hacking Project" has made some progress in understanding the code and the tool
IETME (Infinity Engine Tileset Map Editor) was made based on this newer knowledge in the year 2002, which does all the export-import-work automatic for you, if you view and/or edit an area with it. (With
IETME I have managed to get a crashfree Beregost for my game by editing some heavily overlaping ambients in that area and deleting one or two (? ... a long time was going by since then, and I haven't installed
BG on my notebook yet to review how many
) of the ReputationTraps there
.
I hope, this makes a bit clearer, why
NI is not able to export TIS files in a way, they can be viewed and/or edited an reimported in a way the games would recognise correctly. So I have recommended to use the old tools for this type of files for the
BG-games
.
Greetings
Roana