README

May 16, 2024 ยท View on GitHub

libsmacker A C library for decoding .smk Smacker Video files

version 1.2.0 2021-06-02

(c) Greg Kennedy 2013-2021 http://libsmacker.sourceforge.net

Introduction

libsmacker is a cross-platform C library which can be used for decoding Smacker Video files produced by RAD Game Tools. Smacker Video was the king of video middleware in the 1990s, and its 256-color compressed video format was used in over 2600 software titles.

libsmacker implements the minimum feature set required from smackw32.dll to get an smk off a disk and the frames / audio into a buffer in the correct order.

License

libsmacker is released under the Lesser GNU Public License, v2.1. See the file COPYING for more information.

Usage

See the webpage for sample code and function documentation. The source package additionally includes a pair of driver programs:

  • driver.c - dumps all frames of a file to a bmp/ subdirectory, and all audio as raw streams to out_*.raw files in CWD
  • smk2avi.c - converts smk file(s) to AVI files - uncompressed 24-bit color and PCM audio stream.

Though the libraries are "bulletproofed" the sample apps are not: be cautious if you plan to implement in some critical environment.

Changelog

1.2.0

  • Major refactor of data structures for performance
  • Merge all files into a single unified .c source file
  • Support audio-only .smk files 1.1.1
  • Re-license under LGPL 2.1 1.1
  • Switch to autotools-based build
  • Incorporates patches from Dalerank Slim, Gennady Trafimenkov, and Bianca van Schaik
  • Performance improvements and code cleanup / safety. 1.0
  • Initial revision

Contact

Questions/comments:

Enjoy!