WAD 3

This website is still under construction.

WAD (Where's All the Data?) is file format used by GoldSource to store textures, fonts and other data required. At this page, I will be writing about WAD3 version of this file. For WAD2 version, look here. For testing I will be using this testing wad file which I made myself using Wally (linking to GameBanana.com because I could not found original website). You can use mine or use wads from Half-Life (and mods like Counter-Strike) if you have rights to do so. You can also create your own using the tool above or data from this page. I did my testing on zhlt.wad distributed with Valve Hammer Editor (version 3.x from most websites), files from both Half-Life and Counter-Strike (which I have installed but there are other GoldSource games which you can test on) and generated files from Wally. I found specifications on those pages (and completed them by myself):

Main Structure

All data are Little Endian.

WAD Header

Each WAD file starts with 12 bytes header.

Size (bytes)	Data Type	Name	Description
4	unsigned int32 or byte[4]	Version	`WAD3` or `0x57414433` W = 0x57 A = 0x41 D = 0x44 3 = 0x33
4	int32 or unsigned int32	Entries Count	Number of entries inside wad file.
4	int32 or unsigned int32	First Entry	Offset to first entry from start of WAD file.

typedef struct WAD_Header_t
{
    uint32_t Version;
    uint32_t EntriesCount;
    uint32_t FirstEntry;
} WAD_Header;

WAD Entry

Each WAD entry has 32 bytes and all of them follow after the other.

Size (bytes)	Data Type	Name	Description
4	int32 or unsigned int32	Data Offset	Offset of data (of this subfile) from start of WAD file.
4	int32 or unsigned int32	Data Size	Size of data (of this subfile).
4	int32 or unsigned int32	Uncompressed Data Size	Size of data (of this subfile) before compression.
1	byte	Data Type	Type of this subfile. 0x40 = Decals 0x42 = Cached 0x43 = Textures 0x46 = Fonts
1	byte	Compressed	Defines whether are the data compressed. 0x00 = false 0x01 = true Other values should be considered true too.
2		Dummy	Dummy bytes. There is no known usage of those bytes but I had some problems with some values. `0x0001`?
16	byte[16]	Name	Null-terminated string of 16 characters. Name of the subfile.

typedef struct WAD_Entry
{
    uint32_t DataOffset;
    uint32_t DataSize;
    uint32_t UncompressedDataSize;
    uint8_t DataType;
    uint8_t Compressed;
    uint16_t Dummy;
    uint8_t Name[16];
} WAD_Entry;

Data Types

Decals (0x40)

...

Cached (0x42)

...

Textures (0x43)

Textures are main thing we need from WAD.

Size (bytes)	Data Type	Name	Description
16	byte[16]	Name	Null-terminated string of 16 characters. Name of the texture. First char(s): { = transparency ! = water (deforming) + = toggle buttons or animation - = random tiling ~ = emitting light
4	int32 or unsigned int32	Width	Width of the texture. Multiples of 16.
4	int32 or unsigned int32	Height	Height of the texture. Multiples of 16.
16	int32[4] or unsigned int32[4]	Mipmap Offsets	Offset of all 4 MipMap relative to start of data of current entry. Index 0 = Width/1 X Height/1 Index 1 = Width/2 X Height/2 Index 2 = Width/4 X Height/4 Index 3 = Width/8 X Height/8

typedef struct WAD_Entry_Textures_t
{
    uint8_t Name[16];
    uint32_t Width;
    uint32_t Height;
    uint32_t MipMapOffsets[4];
} WAD_Entry_Textures;

Texture data are placed in this order:

MipMap 0
MipMap 1
MipMap 2
MipMap 3
Palette

MipMap

Each MipMap is width*height bytes (dimensions of the MipMap) because 1 byte represent position in palette.

Palette

Palette are 256 RGB colors (1 color = 3 bytes) in order Red, Green, Blue.
To support transparency, you can use last (255th) index as transparent index if you set the color to [0,0,255].

typedef struct Color_24b_t
{
    uint8_t Red;
    uint8_t Green;
    uint8_t Blue;
} Color_24b;

Color_24b Color[256];

Fonts (0x46)

Size (bytes)	Data Type	Name	Description
4	int32 or unsigned int32	Width	Width of Character Bitmap. Always 255.
4	int32 or unsigned int32	Height	Height of Character Bitmap.
4	int32 or unsigned int32	Row Count	Number of fixed-height character rows.
4	int32 or unsigned int32	Row Height	Height of a row.
1024	Char Info	Font Info	Information about each character.
Height * Width	byte[Height][Width]	Color Indices	Image indices.
2	int16 or unsigned int16	Used Colors	Number of used colors (maximum color index + 1). Maximum 256.
3 * Used Colors	byte[Used Colors][3]	Color Palette	RGB palette data (3 bytes = RGB).

typedef struct Color_24b_t
{
    uint8_t Red;
    uint8_t Green;
    uint8_t Blue;
} Color_24b;

typedef struct Wad_Entry_Font_t
{
    uint32_t Width;
    uint32_t Height;
    uint32_t Row_count;
    uint32_t Row_height;
    Char_Info FontInfo[1024];
    uint8_t *ColorIndices;
    uint16_t Used_colors;
    Color_24b *ColorPalette;
} Wad_Entry_Font;

Char Info
Size (bytes)	Data Type	Name	Description
2	int16 or unsigned int16	Start Offset	Offset to the character in data.
2	int16 or unsigned int16	Character Width	Width of the character.

typedef struct Char_Info_t
{
    uint16_t StartOffset;
    uint16_t CharacterWidth;
} Char_Info;