GBD Tutorials Clive Ellison GBC Files.Pdf

By Clive Ellison Files used by GBC Tutorial

This page provides a description of some of the GBC files that as a user you may come across. The following files will be located in the main GBC folder

JNGBCGolf.exe - this is the main game executable. If you click on this file in Windows Explorer the GBC game will run. JNGBCDesign.exe - this is the GBC Course Designer executable. If you click on this file in Window Explorer the GBC Course Designer will start. This tool is not supported by the games publisher. Note that a version of the tool was also provided for the Accolade Jack Nicklaus 5 (JN5) game. Converter.exe - this is the GBC Course Converter executable. If you click on this file in Window Explorer the GBC Course Converter will start. Although technically it is a different program the publisher regards this as being part of the GBC Course Designer which they have provided as an unsupported tool. The following file will be located in the GBC/data folder

txtrobj.dat - this very large file contains all the stock objects, skys, horizons etc used by the game. Unfortunately there is no facility available for people to individually extract the objects for editing other than by using the GBC Designer and screen dumping them into a graphics package. Some of the objects were made available on the CD that accompanied the Brady Games GBC Official Guide book but these were limited to the new objects added for GBC that were used on the stock courses. Different versions of the txtrobj.dat file have been released for GBC, JN5, JN4 and the various demos. The sizes have progressively increased as more stock objects have been made available. Interchanging the different versions is possible but will result in either a display of the golden trees or a rather weedy looking bush if a required object used in a course is missing from the file. names.txt - a list of names that can be used for tournament play. Alternative versions have been made available for download. Other files including .sts files are also held here but I do not have any information about them The following file will be located in the GBC/data/courses folder

xxx.course - This is the compiled course file where 'xxx' is the course name. GBC requires courses to be compiled in order to play them. Courses can be compiled using either the GBC Designer or Converter programs. To be recognised in the game this file (or a Windows shortcut to it) should be placed in the GBC/Data/Courses folder. The GBC converter includes an option for compressing the course file and this can result in a saving of around 10% in space against the uncompressed version. I am not aware of any performance issue with using the compressed option which is the default option. Also held in this folder are some further folders containing the video intros for the stock courses

Other files of note Uncompiled Course Files

The following files should all be found together in a folder yyy where 'yyy' is the name of the course. The files in this folder are known as uncompiled course files and are used by the GBC Course Designer and GBC Course Converter programs but are not used within the main game. The yyy folder need not be held with the other game files. In the screen capture above you will see that I have written the folder to a CD. yyy.jnc - This is essentially a header record that contains information such as the course name and description. The GBC Designer will not open an uncompiled course if this file is missing or corrupted. hole01.hol, hole02.hol etc - there will be upto 18 of these ie one for each hole on the course. They contain most of the details of each hole ie objects used and their positions, elevations, texture shapes, pin and tee positions. yyy.bak - This is a backup of the yyy.jnc file. Most of the time it will be of no use but should the yyy.jnc file be corrupted then the xxx.bak can be renamed to yyy.jnc using Windows Explorer to recover the course. hole01.bak, hole02.bak etc - these are backups of each hole which can be used to recover '.hol' files that have been corrupted. yyy.ini - This is the 'ini' file that will be needed for any course that contains custom (user made) objects. It is used to define details of the custom objects on the course. The ini file can be edited in a text editor such as Windows notepad. The name of the file must be the same as for the course for custom objects to be recognised. The contents must be a set format that is described elsewhere at this site - see ?????? The ini file will define any .pcx graphics files used for custom horizons, custom skys, custom objects and textures. It will also define any .wav custom sound files. The pcx files and wav files must be held in the yyy folder. All pcx files must be 8 bit 256 colour format with a transparent background defined. All object files will be accompanied by a thumbnail that will be used in the GBC Designer to represent the object in the custom palette. The object pcx files also allow a feature called mips. For example you may come across a file containing bush1.pcx, bush2.pcx, bush3.pcx, bush4.pcx and busht.pcx. These are all the same object. The busht.pcx is the thumbnail. The bush1.pcx will be the full version of the object. The bush2,3 and 4 versions will each be reduced by 50% in size from the previous. Having these reduced versions enhances the game rendering of the objects at distances and has a small performance gain as well. Help Folder This subfolder contains the help files and associated images. You can bring up individual pages by clicking on the html pages.

Saved Files zzz.round and zzz.shot - Saved Game and Shot Files where zzz is a user defined file name and should be held in the saved game folder. These are the files created when you save a round or a shot. The rounds can then be replayed by selecting them in the GBC Golfers Panel provided you have the correct course and pin loaded. The shots can also be replayed by selecting the 'saved game and shot' option from the main panel but also require the course to be available before they can be viewed. Try the Clearing House http://coursedepot.gagames.com/clearinghouse/ for a large number of entertaining shots including aces. Other Files and Utilities Secnvrt.exe - This file was provided with JN5 and is a utility that will convert Jack Nicklaus Special Edition (JNSE) courses into a format that can be imported into the Course designer. This utility creates files with the format xxxx.cvt where 'xxxx' is the course name. Note that only elevation, texture, pin and tee information convert. No objects (stock or custom) can be imported from the JNSE courses. Also elevations are exaggerated due to the way they are converted. As a result the converted courses are little more than a template that can be used in the GBC Designer. The utility was not provided on the GBC CD but has been made available for download at some sites. Note that the Links 2001 game also uses cvt files for converting its older courses but these are totally different in structure to the JNSE files and are not compatible with GBC. Smileyman Utilities - Link here These utilities have been written to facilitate the changing of golfer clothes (clothes caddy), golfer clubs (club caddy) and course flags (flag caddy). These changes were not something that the games developers intended and are totally unofficial but do enhance the game for many people and it is good that they are available. However people use these utilities at their own risk and they will not get support from the games publisher if things go wrong. The utilities automate fiddly changes that otherwise would need to be performed manually using Windows Explorer. If there is a problem then reinstalling the game should correct it. My understanding is that they change some of the graphics files contained in the models folder but I have never tried it so cannot provide further information

General Notes Uncompiled courses can only be read by the Course Designer if the course jnc file name is the same as the folder in which it is held. However the Course Converter is less fussy and will compile courses where the course jnc file name is different to the folder name. The Accolade Jack Nicklaus JN4 game also used jnc files for its courses. However the format is totally different to the jnc format used in GBC. As a result the GBC Course Converter will not load JN4 courses directly. To load a JN4 course into GBC you must use the GBC Designer. This will load the course which must then be 'saved'. Saving it creates files in the GBC format and these saved files can then be compiled by 'saving as playable in the GBC Designer. When uncompiled courses are converted into the compiled format what effectively happens is that all the individual components are compressed together into one single .course file. From my own investigation I know that the compilation includes converting the custom pcx files to bmp files. Also the two different compression options that are available in the GBC Converter means that .hol or .jnc information is not very recognisable and therefore easily extractable from the compiled file. There is no facility to recreate an uncompiled course from the compiled version that has ever been made available and I doubt that there ever will be such a facility. The bmp versions of custom objects can be extracted by someone who has the know how. However many designers would prefer to have protection from unauthorised changing or use of their work so the inability to decompile courses is not necessarily a bad thing. Courses are usually made available for download in the compiled version. However some GBC courses and all JN5 courses are available in the uncompiled format. To facilitate downloading the courses will normally come in a zipped format and you will need to have a zip utility to extract the files. Zipping the files compresses all the individual files into one file that makes downloading easier and also generally uses less space so the downloading time is reduced. Note that some JN5 user courses held at the Accolade download site are held in exe format as an alternative to the zip format. The size of user designed courses will vary considerably. Also the level of compression when zipping files will vary subject to the number of custom objects incorporated and individual objects placed. For example the Glenhurst course is by far the largest in zip format (52 meg) that has been released to date. However when unzipped it is still about the same size. In comparison the Augusta 2000 course is 26meg when zipped but will unzip to a much larger 66meg and my own Ravenswood course goes from 13meg zipped to 62meg unzipped. The major contribution to the file size of Glenhurst is the number and size of custom objects included. Graphics files do not compress when zipped and the internal conversion from pcx to bmp format actually means they contribute even more to the file size. For Augusta and Ravenswood a major contribution to the size is also the actual numbers and location of each object that have been placed on the course. This type of positional data will heavily compress when zipped. Uncompiled courses created in the JN5 version of the Designer are compatible with GBC. Similarly GBC versions can be read by the JN5 version but due to the extra stock objects in GBC and also larger limits on number of custom objects then the courses may not render properly because some objects will be replaced by the golden trees. In other words uncompiled courses are forward compatible but not fully backward compatible although they should be playable in JN5 with some tweaking.