Example - ZTA File to PNG Exporter¶

ztalib is only designed to parse Zoo Tycoon 1 animation graphics and palette files in-memory. However, you can use the parsed data to export the frames as PNG images. By taking advantage of the buffer data extracted from the ZTA files, you can use popular libraries like stb_image_write to save the frames as PNG files. Below is a working example of how to achieve this.

Download stb_image_write.h from https://github.com/nothings/stb

#define STB_IMAGE_WRITE_IMPLEMENTATION
#include "ztalib/ZtaF.h"
#include "include/stb_image_write.h"
#include <string>
#include <filesystem>

int main()
{
    // ---------------------- LOAD ZTA FILE
    std::cout << "ztalib test - version " << ZTA_VERSION << std::endl;
    ZtaF zta;
    std::shared_ptr<ZtaData> data = std::make_shared<ZtaData>();

    std::cout << "Loading ZTA file..." << std::endl;

    try {
        data = zta.load("SE", 0);
        if(!data) {
            std::cerr << "Failed to load ZTA file." << std::endl;
            return 1;
        }
    }
    catch (const std::exception& e) {
        std::cerr << "Error loading ZTA file: " << e.what() << std::endl;
        return 1;
    }

    // ---------------------- INFO

    std::cout << "Speed: " << data->info.speed << std::endl;
    std::cout << "Frame Count: " << data->info.frameCount << std::endl;
    std::cout << "Has Background Frame: " << (data->hasBackground ? "Yes" : "No") << std::endl;
    std::cout << "Palette Location: " << data->palette->location() << std::endl;
    std::cout << "Palette Color Count: " << data->palette->numColors() << std::endl;

    // ---------------------- FRAMES TO PNG

    std::vector<ZtaFrameBufferObject> buffer = zta.getFrameBuffer();
    std::cout << "Number of frames in buffer: " << buffer.size() << std::endl;

    if (!buffer.empty() && !buffer[0].pixels.data()) {
        std::cerr << "No pixels to write" << std::endl;
        return 1;
    }

    if (!std::filesystem::exists("./out")) {
        std::filesystem::create_directory("./out");
    }

    for (size_t i = 0; i < buffer.size(); ++i) {
        std::cout << "Frame " << i << ": " 
                  << "Width: " << buffer[i].width << ", "
                  << "Height: " << buffer[i].height << ", "
                  << "Channels: " << buffer[i].channels << std::endl;

        std::string fileName = "frame_" + std::to_string(i) + ".png";
        std::string filePath = "./out/" + fileName;

        if (!stbi_write_png(filePath.c_str(), buffer[i].width, buffer[i].height, buffer[i].channels, buffer[i].pixels.data(), 0)) {
            std::cerr << "Failed to write image" << std::endl;
            return 1;
        } else {
            std::cout << "Wrote image" << std::endl;
        }

    }
    return 0;
}