SEQ — Cutscene Timeline (.SEQ)¶

SEQ files drive in-game cutscenes (mission briefings, death screens, campaign intros). Each file is a plain ASCII text timeline: a sequence of timestamped commands that trigger bitmaps, sounds, palette changes, and fades. FA_2.LIB carries 126 of them.

Tools¶

fx¶

fx seq dump   <file.SEQ>              # pretty-print events to stdout
fx seq unpack <file.SEQ> [-o out.txt] # write editable text
fx seq pack   <in.txt>   -o <out.SEQ> # write binary SEQ

Other Tools¶

SEQ files are plain ASCII — open and edit directly, no conversion step needed.

VS Code — free; multi-file find/replace useful for batch renaming bitmap or sound references
Notepad++ — free, Windows; column editing helps with tab-aligned time fields
Notepad / TextEdit — free, built-in; sufficient for small edits

File Layout¶

Plain text; no binary fields.

; optional comment lines
[blank lines]
<TAB><time><TAB><command>[<TAB><arg1> <arg2> ...]<CR><LF>

Lines beginning with ; are comments and are preserved verbatim on round-trip.
Event lines begin with a tab, then a time field, then another tab, then a command.
Lines may use \r\n or \n — write \r\n on output.

Time field¶

Form	Meaning
`0`	Absolute tick 0
`5`	Absolute tick 5
`+23`	Relative: 23 ticks after the previous event

Trailing spaces after the time value (before the second tab) are legal and common.

Command and arguments¶

Arguments are space-separated on the same line, after the command: - Quoted strings: "NAME" (filename references, no extension) - Bare numbers / floats: 256, .5, 0

Known commands¶

Command	Typical args	Notes
`bitmap`	`"NAME" x y flags width`	Display image at (x,y)
`palette`	`"NAME"`	Load a named palette
`font`	`"NAME"`	Set current font
`video`	`"NAME"`	Play video clip
`sound`	`"NAME"`	Play sound (quoted, no extension; `^` prefix = looping)
`fadein`	`seconds`	Fade to full brightness
`fadeout`	`seconds`	Fade to black
`wait`	(none)	Pause until sound/video completes
`sync`	sub-command...	Execute sub-command synchronously

Example¶

KDEAD.SEQ (92 bytes):

    0   bitmap "KDEAD" 0 0 0 256
    0   fadein  .5
    0   sound "^KDEAD.11K"
    +23 sync    fadeout .5

Round-Trip Notes¶

fx seq pack emits files byte-identical to the originals (tabs, trailing spaces, CRLF); tests/test_seq.cpp asserts it, including comment and blank-line preservation. Parsed event count for KDEAD.SEQ: 4 events.

Formats: 11K — the sound command plays PCM clips (^ prefix = looping); MUS — the engine's _SEQmusic path triggers music slots from sequence state.