VPL

.vpls are used by Westwood to determine a voxels's actual color after the normal takes effect. They are one of the last things figured out within the TS/RA2 engine.

Usage

Voxels can be sectioned by the place where their normals are coming from. In TS, the normals could be divided into 16 sections, in RA2, 32. After these sections were determined, the actual color of the voxel is replaced with the used section's appropriate color. If no section is found (because there are not enough sections, see below) then the voxel become transparent.

Structure

Header: 16 byte

The VPL header is composed of the following datas, all on DWORDs.

- first remap entry
- last remap entry
- total amount of sectors (<=32)
- and an unknown entry at the time of writing

The header is followed by a WW-standard 768-byte palette which is followed by 32 256-byte sections. These sections are just mere lookup tables, containing the outputted palette color entry for the voxel in the section. While there is a palette in the VPL, it gets ignored by the engine overall.

This document is written based upon Gangster's research after VK published the components.