I am currently working on a game, and I want to be able to have some level of security on my data so could anyone provide me with a link on how to create my own bitmap file format. Something like a program that I create that changes the .bmp or other known format to something I create. Thanks

Why don''t you write the program yourself? That''s probably the easiest way to convert an image file from an existing format to a format you created. You basically answered your own question, unless I''m missing something....

See I know how to create a program that opens a bitmap and displays it. I can do that stuff fine but I do not know what to do to change it to my own format.

You have to be creative; decide what your format will have that others will not, in order to make it more secure.

r.

"The mere thought hadn''t even begun to speculate about the slightest possibility of traversing the eternal wasteland that is my mind..."

If you don''t want people to play around with your bitmaps, why don''t you have the program test the checksum of the graphic before hand? If it is different, then the person must have messed with it. Just a suggestion, checksums don''t change if the file isn''t messed with.

Whats the point of using checksum ? One can run md5sum again and overwrite the previous checksum file. I see no point of this.

I think its best being creative here.

The thing is that not only do I want to use the format for my game but I also would like to learn how to do it. I guess I just have a thirst for knowledge.

Here are a few tips that should help you get started. What you''ll need to read up on would be

1) Compression
2) Hashing (not necessary, but I''d use it)
3) Look up the popular file formats (learn how popular file formats are designed. Your own format would probably be based on these. Notice i said based, not an outright copy).

Hope that helps you.