Asset-Making Guide

In Crossfire, assets include all the resources that make up the game, excluding maps and regions, which for historical reasons, are maintained in a separate repository. Assets are stored in a directory called arch.

File Name/Extension	Packed To	Asset Type
*.arc	crossfire.arc	Archetypes
*.trs	crossfire.trs	Treasure Lists
*.face	crossfire.face	Face and Compound animations definition
*.png (if the name conforms to the expected format)	crossfire.tar	Image displayed by the client
image_info	image_info	faceset definition
messages	messages	general messages found in readable items
*.formulea and formulae	formulae	crafting recipes
*.artifact and artifact	artifact	Artifacts
*.quests	crossfire.quests	quest definition

Asset Packing

The server can run directly using this arch project, or it may pack everything in consolidated files.

The packing process is handled by the server binary itself, through the -pack-assets option.

Note that if you have packed assets, then you don't need the arch directory under the installation directory.

Packing assets makes for a faster server start and easier distribution, but makes it harder to contribute back changes – one would need to figure the original split file names.

Todo:

link to relevant documentation.

Add file extension to the relevant places also.