(2021-08-04, 17:22)Travis Cobbs Wrote: !DATA is used to encode the actual image data for a texture directly into an LDR file. Having a !DATA definition for a texture has absolutely no affect (other than making the file bigger) if the image is not referenced by some !TEXMAP. !DATA technically supports any arbitrary binary data, but since the only thing that makes use of it is !TEXMAP, it's only really useful if it's an image. (Note that !TEXMAP only officially supports PNG images, although other formats might work in some renderers.)
Due to how it works, the !DATA meta-command was added to the MPD spec. I don't know if there are any tools to generate !DATA entries for a given PNG file. The syntax is simple, though. There is the 0 !DATA <filename> line, followed by 0 !: lines, where everything after the 0 !: is the Base64-encoded data from the PNG file (with line length of 80). The <filename> used on the !DATA line can then be used in any !TEXMAP, and it will be shown as the texture without requiring the actual file to be present as a separate file on the disk. There is an example in the MPD spec.
!DATA would be used to encode the textures needed by unofficial parts in an MPD file (for example for use on the OMR). The unofficial parts themselves would not use it. The containing MPD would use it. !DATA is illegal in official parts.
Thanks a lot, Travis, this is excelent summary. Canyou add this to the Documentation so people can find it?