Sims 3:DBPF

Tutorials:TS3 Advanced Coding Tutorials

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DBPF Packages

Sims 3 stores multiple resource types in an archive format known by it's magic number of "DBPF". On disk, these archives have one of a number of extensions:

*.package	General collection of resources
*.world	Resources comprising a "world"
*.dbc	Collection of DBPF archives in a single archive

Package Header

96 bytes: "standard" DBPF 2.0 format; DBBF not seen; DBPP is encrypted.

DWORD    magic ;; "DBPF"
DWORD    major ;; 2
DWORD    minor ;; 0
BYTE[24] unknown1
DWORD    ;; number of index entries - if zero, size and position also zero
BYTE[4]  unknown2
DWORD    ;; size of index on disk in bytes
BYTE[12] unknown3
DWORD    index_version ;; always 3
DWORD    ;; position of index (absolute)
BYTE[28] unknown4

The Index

If position is not zero, at that position:

DWORD ;; Index type

The count of set bits in the index type is the number of additional DWORD entries in index header:

DWORD[(for each bit in Index type)]

The number of DWORDs in an actual index entry is 8. The entry is stored in two parts - the index header and then the entry on disk. The header provides the data that is constant to all entries, essentially a kind of compression. However not all data is valid to be included in the index header for all entries.

• For each index entry on disk:

DWORD[(8 - number of bits in Index type)]

Each DWORD in an actual index entry can either come from the header or from the index entry on disk, depending on the bits set in the index type. The order of the DWORDs in an index entry is (with matching bit number):

0	ResourceType
1	ResourceGroup	Top byte is a set of flags
2	InstanceHi
3	InstanceLo
4	Chunkoffset	Absolute location in package
5	Filesize (lo 31bits) , Unknown1 (hi bit)	Length of data in package
6	Memsize	Length of uncompressed data
7	Compressed(lo WORD) , Unknown2(hi WORD)	Compressed is 0x0000 or 0xFFFF

(That's a total of 32 bytes per entry.)

(Possibly confusingly, in my implementation, I actually store the index type along with the entries - keeps the data structure simpler..!)

Chunk Compression

See Sims 3:DBPF/Compression.

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Above documented by Peter Jones
Based on Spore package format

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