Have you ever seen *.abc and *.sbm font files? Thread

Can anybody tell me what these weird font files are? Their data is split over two files. The filenames end with *.abc and *.sbm. The *.abc files seem to contain a character table and the *.sbm files seem to contain a bitmap or a table of bitmaps. That's as far as I got. I very much doubt this is a custom format, but all my attempts to open/convert/identify them have failed so far. I renamed them to various image- and font-formats but to no avail. I tried ImageMagick's identify and PHP's fileinfo, but that got me nowhere either. I'm at my wit's end now.

If it's any help: The fonts belong to the Bioware game Jade Empire and they're variations of the Cerigo and the Sava.

If you want to look at the files yourself, I uploaded them to my mod's web site: Jade-empire-in-style.com

These are the files in the game's "fonts" directory:

asian.abc
asian.sbm
cerigo.ini
eurodialog.abc
eurodialog.sbm
eurogui.abc
eurogui.sbm
fnt_console.ini
fnt_gui.ini
sava.ini

This is the cerigo.ini:

;cerigo-22
[1]
euroabc=d:\fonts\eurodialog.abc
eurobitmap=d:\fonts\eurodialog.sbm
eaabc=d:\fonts\asian.abc
eabitmap=d:\fonts\asian.sbm
offset=0

The fnt_console.ini, the fnt_gui.ini and the sava.ini are identical:

;sava-21
[2]
euroabc=d:\fonts\eurogui.abc
eurobitmap=d:\fonts\eurogui.sbm
eaabc=d:\fonts\asian.abc
eabitmap=d:\fonts\asian.sbm
offset=0

Edited by: pecoes

I would imagine that it's either a format meant to obfuscate the fonts so they can't be copied or to prevent piracy and unlicensed translations, or that it might be a more common format simply renamed. In this case, you're probably out of luck.

You could try opening files using the windows font viewer to see if that works (if it is the right format, the extension won't matter).

Edited by: Kyogreex

Kyogreex wrote: I would imagine that it's either a format meant to obfuscate the fonts so they can't be copied or to prevent piracy and unlicensed translations, or that it might be a more common format simply renamed.

I think there are two possibilities:

1.) What you suggested. It's a run-of-the-mill format that was obfuscated - maybe just by altering the file extension. That theory has gotten me nowhere so far. I renamed the files to pretty much everything I can think of. Without success.

2.) It *is* a custom format. If so, it is surely something exceptionally simple. The SBM file is probably just a bitmap and the ABC file contains the offsets for the different letters. This second theory didn't get me anywhere either.

Windows Font Viewer becomes only available after you've installed a font, doesn't it? I could not install these files.

Edited by: pecoes

A simple Google search ("abc" "sbm" font) shows that the files are also present in Halo 2; I would imagine that they are a carryover from the Xbox. A search for ["fontmaker" "abc"] may turn up some interesting results.

Interesting! Very interesting! I *did* stumble over those Halo-fonts, but I did not find/notice the name "fontmaker" anywhere in the vicinity. There's multiple tools with that name, but my guess is, it's this one: GT Font Maker. Unfortunately it cannot open the files it creates, so I have to test it with the game...

No, it's not that tool. Damn. There's a lot of those...

Edited by: pecoes

Actually I believe that refers to the fontmaker in the Xbox Development Kit (XDK), which would probably be difficult to obtain at this point (and I believe only able to output fonts, not read them).

I do recall an open source project, OpenXDK, but I don't believe that includes any tools for dealing with fonts.

(It's too bad that the developer's use of console assets hinders mod developers.)

Oh yeah. I see what you mean. Well. That doesn't look good.

EDIT: I just downloaded OpenXDK. From the looks of it, it's "only" a compiler. There's no font tool included.