Master Studio Album File Format

Contents of this website are freeware and/or copyrighted material, and may not be sold under any circumstances.
Email: dogsbody@dogsbodynet.com Home: https://dogsbodynet.com

Table of Contents

Introduction
AMS1.0 Album Format
AMS1.1 Album Format
Example

1. Introduction

AIBO Master Studio (AMS) uses album files to organize/track multiple action files.   In particular, they tell AMS which skits to download to AIBO. They can be confusing & cumbersome and aren't needed/supported by Skitter.

There are two versions of the album files.   The first version (AMS1.0) only supports the 210.   The second version (AMS1.1) can support all AIBO platforms.

2. AMS1.0 Album Format

The first album file format uses fixed size fields for everything.   It's organized as a header followed by zero or more entries.   This makes loading/saving the format very easy.

struct album_header_type {
  unsigned signature;        // "OALB"
  int version;               // always 1
  int action_count;
};

Album entries are the organized as follows:

struct album_entry_type {
  unsigned action_number;
  unsigned unknown;          // always 0
  char action_filename[260];
};

The action_filename stores a relative path to the skit action files (*.act). Typically the action files are stored in the same folder as the album. Action number appears to be the MWCID value need by AIBO. See MWC format for more details.

3. AMS1.1 Album Format

The newer album file format is more complicated, but generally much smaller than the AMS1.0 format. The files consist of a header, followed variable length strings.

The header is the same format as AMS1.0, but with a different signature & version:

struct album_header_type {
  unsigned signature;        // "OLIB"
  int version;               // always 0x00010001
  int action_count;
};

The variable length strings consist of a 4-byte length, followed by the string characters. There are always at least four strings (which may be zero-length). These four strings store the following:

Platform. ie: "ERS-210(E)"
Creator
Company
Comment

Any variable length strings which follow are relative pathnames to the skit action files (*.act). Typically the action files are stored in the same folder as the album.

4. Example

File Header
String Lengths

000000:  4f 4c 49 42  01 00 01 00  02 00 00 00  0a 00 00 00  |OLIB............|
000010:  45 52 53 2d  32 31 30 28  45 29 00 00  00 00 00 00  |ERS-210(E)......|
000020:  00 00 00 00  00 00 10 00  00 00 2e 5c  62 65 65 74  |...........\beet|
000030:  68 6f 76 65  6e 35 2e 61  63 74 0e 00  00 00 2e 5c  |hoven5.act.....\|
000040:  4d 69 6e 75  65 74 31 62  2e 61 63 74               |Minuet1b.act    |

Download Example