Atlas: Created page with "'''DKRDS Tile Layout''' is a nameless file format used in ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diddy_Kong_Racing_DS Diddy Kong Racing DS]'' with the purpose of assembling a set of reusable 32x32-pixel tiles for screen backgrounds, such as minimaps. Each tile is composed of a 4x4 grid of 8x8 character tiles sourced from a DKRDS Texture Tileset file. At least two format variants exist, distinguished by their per-entry size. Other filetypes that are commonly associated with..."

2026-05-26T22:01:23Z

Created page with "'''DKRDS Tile Layout''' is a nameless file format used in ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diddy_Kong_Racing_DS Diddy Kong Racing DS]'' with the purpose of assembling a set of reusable 32x32-pixel tiles for screen backgrounds, such as minimaps. Each tile is composed of a 4x4 grid of 8x8 character tiles sourced from a DKRDS Texture Tileset file. At least two format variants exist, distinguished by their per-entry size. Other filetypes that are commonly associated with..."

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'''DKRDS Tile Layout''' is a nameless file format used in ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diddy_Kong_Racing_DS Diddy Kong Racing DS]'' with the purpose of assembling a set of reusable 32x32-pixel tiles for screen backgrounds, such as minimaps. Each tile is composed of a 4x4 grid of 8x8 character tiles sourced from a [[DKRDS Texture Tileset]] file. At least two format variants exist, distinguished by their per-entry size. Other filetypes that are commonly associated with tile layouts, and necessary to create screen backgrounds, are [[DKRDS Tilemap]] and [[DKRDS Palette Bank]]. Its type identifier in [[assets.bin]] is '''0x00'''.

= File Format =
The file byte order is always little endian.

== Header ==
All variants begin with a 4-byte header.

{| class="wikitable"
! Offset !! Type !! Description
|-
| 0x00 || Int32 || '''Number of tiles''' ('''T''').
|-
| 0x04 || colspan=2 {{unknown|End of header}}
|}

== Tile Entries ==
After the header comes the tile entries. The total file size is always <code>4 + '''T''' x ''size''</code>, where ''size'' is 32 or 48 depending on the variant.

=== Variant A ===
The first variant is used when the sub-tiles carry their own palette in each tilemap value (4bpp mode with per-tile palette selection). It contains a single section of 32-byte entries. Each entry describes one 32x32 tile as 16 tilemap references arranged in a 4-column x 4-row grid (row-major, left-to-right then top-to-bottom).

{| class="wikitable"
! Offset !! Type !! Description
|-
| 0x00 || UInt16[16]['''T'''] || '''Sub-tile entries'''.
|}

==== Sub-tile Entry ====
Each entry is composed of a reference ID and tile attributes. Only up to 1024 different sub-tile references can be defined. They use the following bit layout:

A A A A B C D D D D D D D D D D
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

{| class="wikitable"
! Bits !! Description
|-
| 0-3 || '''Palette ID'''. Selects one of the 16 palettes from the [[DKRDS Palette Bank]] file.
|-
| 4 || '''Flip vertical'''. If 1, it mirrors the 8x8 sub-tile on the Y axis.
|-
| 5 || '''Flip horizontal'''. If 1, it mirrors the 8x8 sub-tile on the X axis.
|-
| 6-15 || '''Sub-tile ID'''. This is the index into the [[DKRDS Texture Tileset]] file (0-1023).
|}

=== Variant B ===
The second variant is used when palette and flip information is stored separately from the sub-tile references (4bpp or 8bpp mode). The file is divided into two back-to-back sections (32-byte and 16-byte each) rather than interleaved per-entry data.

{| class="wikitable"
! Offset !! Type !! Description
|-
| 0x00 || UInt16[16]['''T'''] || '''Sub-tile entries'''.
|-
| '''T''' * 32 || Byte[16]['''T'''] || '''Tile attributes'''.
|}

==== Sub-tile Entry ====
Each entry contains a direct sub-tile reference. The value here is '''only''' a tile index, so up to 65536 different sub-tiles can be referenced in contrast of Variant A's limit of 1024.

{| class="wikitable"
! Bits !! Description
|-
| 0-15 || '''Sub-tile ID'''. This is the index into the [[DKRDS Texture Tileset]] file (0-65535).
|}

==== Tile Attribute ====
Each byte corresponds to a sub-tile and encodes palette and flip data using the following bit layout:

A A B B B B C D
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

{| class="wikitable"
! Bits !! Description
|-
| 0-1 || {{Unknown-left|'''Unknown'''. Changing these values seems to produce no visible difference in-game, but existing files still use different values for each sub-tile.}}
|-
| 2-5 || '''Palette ID'''. Selects one of the 16 palettes from the [[DKRDS Palette Bank]] file.
|-
| 6 || '''Flip vertical'''. If 1, it mirrors the 8x8 sub-tile on the Y axis.
|-
| 7 || '''Flip horizontal'''. If 1, it mirrors the 8x8 sub-tile on the X axis.
|}

= Tools =
The following tools can handle DKRDS Tile Layout:
* (none)

[[Category:Diddy Kong Racing DS File Formats]]

DKRDS Tile Layout (File Format) - Revision history