Action8

Introduction

Define GRFID, Name and Description

There are many new graphic sets available to TTD players. Of course, we need to make sure that we never get sets mixed up. To make sure this will never happen you can set an ID. Another useful feature of Action 8 is the ability to include useful information into the final .grf file. Here, we explain how Action 8 works.

Syntax

Like all other pseudo-sprites, Action 8 consists of hexadecimal bits. There is no limitation in the total amount of hexadecimal bits you can use in Action 8. One term does have a limit though. Let's give an example of what an Action 8 line looks like:

<sprite-number> * <length> 08 <version> <grf-id> <name> <description>

Here is a short overview of what every term means:

Element	Size	Description
<sprite-number>	dec	A sequential sprite number
<length>	dec	The total number of bytes in the action
08	B	Action 08
<version>	B	GRF version
<grf-id>	4*B	A unique ID for your .grf file
<name>	S	A short text containing the name of this set
<description>	S	A longer description of this set

Descriptions

Sprite-number

The number of this sprite.

Action 8 has to be one of the first pseudosprites in the .NFO file. It is however valid to have other actions before it, except those that define new sprites or vehicle (etc.) properties.

Actions 6, 7, 9, B, C, D (except resource management sprites), 10 and 14 are valid before an action 8.

Length

The total number of bytes in Action 8.

GRF Version

This should be the graphics version that your file is written for. This is the version of the GRF format, not the version of your GRF! It is also not the "NFO version" you put at the top of ".nfo" files to announce the used syntax for GRFCodec.

Valid values are:

Value	Compatibility	TTDPatch version	OpenTTD support
08	02..08	-	1.2
07	02..07	2.5 beta 1 or higher	0.6
06	02..06	2.0.1 alpha 13 or higher	0.6
05	02..05	2.0r1 Stable TTDPatch + TTDPatch 2.0.1 alphas up to 12	0.6
04	02..04	2.0 Stable TTDPatch	0.6
01	00..01	1.9.1 alpha 28 or higher
00	00	1.9.1 alphas up to 27

Entries for 00 and 01 are included only for completeness, and to aid with updating existing graphics. They should not be used with new graphics, because they will be incompatible with current TTDPatch and OpenTTD versions. OpenTTD 1.1.0 and later will disable NewGRFs with non-supported GRF versions.

Make sure to set a version number no lower than the minimum version that supports all features which are used by your file.

The compatibility column means how low a version number is supported by the given TTDPatch version, e.g. TTDPatch 2.0r1 supports graphics files with any version from 02 to 05, but not for example 01 or 06.

Version 07 and 08 introduce a few minor semantic changes to some graphics features, i.e. the file will behave slightly differently depending on whether it's declared as version 06, 07 or 08. These changes are described in more detail in the pages for the features they affect.

GRFID

This is a series of 4 bytes. It's a convention to

• use the first three bytes for the creator's initials in ASCII code, e.g. 54 57 48 for "TWH".
• The last (fourth) byte typically identies which of the author's sets this is. See the next subsection for grfID ranges that are already in use.
• Version numbers for NewGRFs are communicated via preceeding Action14.

In principle, you are free what to use for the GRFID as long as you are sure it is unique, but generally it is best to follow the above guidelines. See the last subsection for locations where to find already used GRFIDs.

Note that GRFIDs starting with FF (i.e. the first byte is FF, such as in FF123456) are reserved for internal purposes and should not be used by regular .grf files. These GRFs can't be disabled; TTDPatch displays them with a blue flag in the GRF Status Window.

The extra newgrf file, part of OpenTTD base sets, have to have a GRFID starting with FF "OT". See the table below:

GRFID	purposes
00 00 00 00	reserved (used as invalid NewGRF Id, for example when explicitly referencing original industry types etc.)
00 00 00 01 .. FE FF FF FF	normal NewGRFs
FF 00 00 00 .. FF FF FF FF	reserved
FF "OT" 00 .. FF "OT" FF	extra base GRFs FF "OT" 01 OpenGFX FF "OT" 11 NoGFX FF "OTD" OpenTTD (extra) base graphics: openttdd.grf (OpenTTD 0.6 - 1.0) FF "OTN" NightGFX FF "OTT" OpenTTD (extra) base graphics: openttd.grf (OpenTTD >= 1.1) FF "OTW" OpenTTD (extra) base graphics: openttdw.grf (OpenTTD 0.6 - 1.0) FF "OTz" zBase
FF FF FF FF	TTDPatch (extra) base graphics

Used ranges

The following table shows ranges of GRFIDs that are in use by several authors of NewGRFs. People choosing new GRFIDs are asked to not use a GRFID that falls within the ranges of one of the following. This list is in no way exhaustive; if you want to claim your own range, please update the table. For legacy reasons there are some broader ranges of GRFIDs reserved by some people. When you want to reserve a broader range than a variation in only the last byte, think twice and consider how long it will take you to write 255 sensible completely different NewGRFs (as the version of a single grf is encoded in the action14, thus a new ID will even hurt and kill your backward compatibility with older versions).

Range (hex)	ASCII	Usage
43 41 XX XX	C A _ _	OzTrans; 1st generation Canadian and some North American sets
48 57 XX XX	H W _ _	SwissFan91; TARS Swiss themed newobjects
4A 56 XX XX	J V _ _	juzza1; Various Finnish sets
4D 65 6F XX	M e o _	George; ECS, Long vehicles, xUSSR railways
4D 46 47 XX	M F G _	Yoshi; DACh, ...
4D 47 XX XX	M G _ _	Ammler, #openttdcoop
4E 57 XX XX	N W _ _	Norwegian projects
4F 47 2B XX	O G + _	OpenGFX+ sets
4F 7A XX XX	O z _ _	OzTrans; Various non-Canadian projects
50 43 XX XX	P C _ _	PaulC; Town names, various mini GRFs
53 43 XX XX	S C _ _	SAC; INFRA projects
54 57 46 XX	T W F _	Timberwolf; Road Vehicles, Tracks, Trains, Stations
57 42 XX XX	W B _ _	wallyweb; NewObjects, Various features, GRF development
6D 62 XX XX	m b _ _	Michael Blunck; DBsetXL, NewStations, MariCo
97 85 XX XX	? ? _ _	OzTrans; Canadian Theme Pack (under development)
97 87 XX XX	? ? _ _	OzTrans; 2nd generation Canadian graphics
FB FB XX XX	? ? _ _	FooBar; Dutch sets, Transrapid/metro tracks
FF XX XX XX	? _ _ _	System reserved

Used GRFIDs

There are several places that have/show lists of GRFIDs that are definitely in use by someone. Absence of a GRFID in any of these lists is not proof that it is not used though.

• Bananas shows the GRFIDs of all currently active NewGRFs that are distributed by the system
• GRFCrawler allows one to search on GRFIDs of NewGRFs in its system

Name

This short field should contain the name of the set. See GRFActionsDetailed for instructions to generate the necessary byte codes, and for restrictions on what characters you may use. The name must be short because it should fit on one line of the GRF Status window (TTDPatch, OpenTTD).

Description

This is a longer description of the set. Typically it contains the name of the author and a copyright notice or other attribution. See GRFActionsDetailed for instructions to generate the necessary byte codes, and for restrictions on what characters you may use. The description may be quite long, but should be short enough to fit in the description part of the GRF Status window (TTDPatch, OpenTTD), or a part of it may be cut off.

Example

Below is an example of what a real Action 8 pseudo-sprite could look like.

1 * 43 08 07 "TW" 01 06 "Tutorial Example" 00 "Changes nothing. Author: A kind person" 00

Let's clarify it bit by bit. In order to understand what the bits say you could use a hexadecimal editor.

Byte	Meaning
1	<sprite-number>
43	<length> of the action in bytes; start counting at 08 (<action>)
08	<action>: sets this pseudo-sprite to function as action 8
07	<version>: GRF format version 7 (this is the version of the used GRF format, not of your GRF)
54 57 01 06	<-grf-id>: ASCII code for TW, then the numbers 1 and 6 to indicate version 6 of TW's first set
"Tutorial..." 00	<name>: Name of the NewGRF
"Changes..." 00	<description>: Description of the NewGRF