JPod

Terminal Reality POD archive utility.

JPod opens, browses, previews, extracts and builds the POD archives used by Monster Truck Madness 1 & 2, CART Precision Racing, Hellbender, Terminal Velocity, Fury3 and their relatives. It reads and writes the POD1 directory and reads and explicitly authors POD2; EPD remains read-only.

Written in Java 17 with Swing, so it runs on Windows, macOS and Linux with no dependencies beyond the JDK. KPod is the Windows-native C# port and matches it byte for byte: the same archives, the same .inf and .lst reports, the same format names.

Browsing BAJA.POD with ART\HH4DROP.RAW previewed against the palette stored in its own directory field.

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Supported formats

Format	Games	Support
POD1	MTM 1 & 2, CPR, Hellbender, Terminal Velocity, Fury3	browse, preview, extract, save
POD2	Nocturne, 4x4 Evo 1 & 2	browse, preview, extract, explicit save/conversion, CRC, timestamp and audit history
EPD	Fly!	browse, preview, extract

There is no POD3+ support and no MOD playback. Terminal Reality's .mod files are 6-channel ProTracker and need a tracker player, so extract them and open them in VLC or OpenMPT.

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Features

Archive viewing

• Open .pod and .epd archives and browse them in a file-viewer style table with Name / Size / Description columns.
• Folders and subfolders are shown with icons and start collapsed, so root files and top-level folders are easier to scan.
• Click a column header to sort by name, size or description; click again to reverse it, and a third time to return to archive order.
• Filter visible entries instantly with the quick search field, or open the Advanced search dialog for targeted searches and jump-to selection.
• The archive comment (the 80-character POD header field) sits in an editable field below the toolbar.
• The ten most recently opened files are kept in a per-user JSON config in the operating system's preferences location.

Extraction

• Extract All writes every entry to a chosen folder, recreating the archive's subfolder structure.
• Extract Selected extracts the highlighted entries, with an option to preserve or flatten the folder structure.

Building and editing

• New Archive starts an empty archive from scratch.
• Open Response List File loads the existing .lst syntax or a PODTool-compatible .rsp with podFilename:, volumeName:, // comments and relative source paths.
• Add Files / Add Folder appends files or recursively imports a directory, via a picker or drag and drop.
• Folder editing creates virtual folders, renames files or folder trees, and moves selections by command or internal drag and drop. Archive paths use backslashes and keep their case and entry order.
• Remove drops selected entries from the in-memory list.
• Replace (right-click) swaps a single entry's data with a file from disk, keeping the original archive name.
• Validate Archive checks limits, unsafe or duplicate paths, field capacity, payload ranges, embedded RAW palette records, checksums and the expected output layout.
• Save / Save As saves a named archive or writes a copy. The actual output format is confirmed before writing; POD1 is the default and POD2 must be chosen explicitly.

Reports

• Save .inf exports a fixed-column text report: filename, total size, entry count, comment, and a padded name / size / offset table.
• Save .lst exports a plain entry-name list that the response list loader can read back.

File preview

Double-click any entry, or choose Preview from the right-click menu, for a type-aware preview:

Extension	Preview
.raw, .clr	8-bit paletted image decoded with the matched .act palette (see Palette resolution). Art textures (64x64) are shown at 4x zoom. Non-standard RAW sizes can be previewed by choosing width, height and palette manually.
.act	16x16 colour swatch grid; hover shows the index and hex value.
.wav	PCM audio player with play, pause, stop and a position readout.
.bmp, .png, .jpg, ...	Standard images via javax.imageio.
.txt, .def, .nav, .lvl, .sit, .lst, .ini, .cfg, .tex, .tnl, .ttx, .trk, .trn, .ndx, .mic and other text formats	Scrollable monospaced text viewer.
Anything else	Hex dump of the first 4096 bytes.

Palette resolution

For .raw and .clr files the palette is resolved in this order:

1. The palette recorded in the entry's own POD directory field
2. Same base name in the same archive directory, so ART\DEMO1.RAW takes ART\DEMO1.ACT
3. Any other .act file in the same directory
4. VGA.ACT anywhere in the archive
5. METALCR2.ACT anywhere in the archive, the MTM1 default palette
6. metalcr2.act bundled as a classpath resource
7. Greyscale fallback

Step 1 is the one that matters for MTM1, Terminal Velocity, Fury3 and Hellbender. Their packer stored the palette each RAW was authored against in the spare bytes of the entry's name field, and it is not derivable from the file name: on those games' main archives the old step-2-onward guess picks the wrong palette for 8221 of 8224 RAW entries, because it takes whichever .act happens to come first in the archive. MTM2, CPR and community archives carry no such record and fall straight through to the name-based rules. docs/POD_FORMAT.md specifies it in full.

When a RAW file does not match the common built-in sizes, JPod offers a dialog where you can choose width and height manually, swap them instantly, or pick a palette from the same-name ACT, any ACT inside the POD, VGA.ACT, METALCR2.ACT or greyscale. Common non-square defaults are preselected: 64000 bytes gives 320x200, 256000 gives 640x400, and 307200 gives 640x480.

Mount in pod.ini

Adds the open archive to the game's pod.ini mount list. JPod treats 99 as the recommended limit, warns when the list is already larger, and still mounts the POD rather than blocking the action. It searches the archive's folder and its parent, and detects duplicates.

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The POD1 name budget

MTM2 reads exactly one POD layout. Its directory entries are 40 bytes: char name[32], int32 size, int32 offset, holding paths of up to 31 characters. A directory table that does not validate as 40-byte records is a malformed archive, and JPod refuses it.

JPod refuses a name that does not fit rather than truncating it. A truncated name packs without error and then simply never resolves in game, which is far harder to diagnose than a refusal. The whole stored record counts against the 31 bytes: the path, its terminator, and on a .RAW entry any embedded palette name and its terminator.

Authoring guidance goes further and keeps the stem to 18 characters, because the engine builds sibling names from it and every derived name must still fit 31. ART\ plus an 18-character stem plus _MASK plus .PNG is exactly 31.

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Requirements

Requirement	Version
Java runtime	17 or later
Build tool (source only)	Maven 3.8+

No runtime dependencies beyond the JDK standard library.

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Getting started

Prebuilt binaries are on the Releases page. Download jpod.jar and run it:

java -jar jpod.jar

On most desktops you can also double-click the jar, or pass an archive path to open it directly:

java -jar jpod.jar /path/to/GAME.POD

1. Open..., or pass a path on the command line.
2. Double-click a folder row to expand it, or use Expand + to open everything.
3. Double-click a file to preview it.
4. Select entries and press Extract Sel., or Extract All for the lot.

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Usage

Toolbar

Control	Action
Open...	Open a POD or EPD archive
Save / Save As...	Save the named archive, or write the entry list to a new .pod
Expand + / Collapse -	Open or close every folder
Add Files... / Add Folder...	Append files, or import a directory recursively
Extract Sel. / Extract All	Extract the selection, or everything
Remove	Drop the selected entries from the list
Search	Open the search dialog

Menus

• File: Open POD, New Archive, Open Response List File, Open Recent, Add Files, Add Folder, Create Folder, Remove Selected, Save, Save As, Extract All, Extract Selected, Save .inf Report, Save .lst List, Exit
• Tools: Mount in pod.ini, Search, Validate Archive, Record POD2 audit history, Set Audit Author, View POD2 Audit History
• Help: About

Status bar

Size is what the archive would occupy if saved now, which is why it changes as entries are added and removed. Files and Selected are counts, unsaved appears once the list differs from what is on disk, and the square at the right edge turns red while an operation is running.

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Building from source

Building needs a JDK 17 or later and Maven 3.8+.

mvn package          # builds target/jpod.jar
mvn test             # runs the format and manifest tests
java -jar target/jpod.jar

The test suite covers POD1 detection, directory-field and palette preservation, name-length boundaries, payload bounds, POD2 checksums and audit records, and a set of stable SHA-256 authoring vectors shared with KPod that prove both ports emit identical bytes.

Project layout

src/main/java/com/mtm2/jpod/
├── JPodApp.java                   Entry point
├── PodSession.java                Shared mutable state for the current archive
├── AppConfig.java                 Per-user config and recent files
├── io/
│   ├── pod/
│   │   ├── PodArchive.java        Immutable in-memory archive model
│   │   ├── PodArchiveReader.java  Reads a .pod file into PodArchive
│   │   ├── PodArchiveWriter.java  Builds and writes a .pod file from blobs
│   │   └── PodArchiveValidator.java  Pre-save and post-open validation
│   ├── PodExtractService.java     Extracts entries to disk
│   ├── PodManifestParser.java     Parses .lst and .rsp response files
│   ├── PodReportExporter.java     Writes .inf and .lst reports
│   ├── PodIniMounter.java         Adds a POD to pod.ini
│   └── RawImageDecoder.java       Decodes .raw / .clr / .act image data
└── ui/
    ├── MainWindow.java            Main application window
    ├── PreviewWindow.java         Type-aware file preview
    ├── AudioPlayerDialog.java     WAV playback
    ├── BuildArchiveDialog.java    New-archive configuration
    ├── ExtractOptionsDialog.java  Extract destination and options
    ├── SearchDialog.java          Entry search
    └── AboutDialog.java

src/test/java/com/mtm2/jpod/io/
├── pod/PodArchiveFormatTest.java  Format detection, round trips, POD2, vectors
└── PodManifestParserTest.java     Response-file parsing

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Format specification

docs/POD_FORMAT.md specifies the whole POD family: POD1, POD2 and EPD. It covers the palette record the early Terminal Reality packer stored in the spare bytes of each RAW entry's name field, which is documented nowhere else, and it marks every claim as verified against shipped archives, documented upstream, implemented but unconfirmed, or unresolved. docs/pod-format.json carries the same structures as machine-readable data.

References

• KPod - the Windows-native C# port
• Monster Truck Madness Guild
• MTM2 Engine Content Limits
  • extended-directory design and name budgets
• EPD Format Reference
• Pod 2 Format Reference

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Credits

Developed by Juan Pablo Utreras for the Monster Truck Madness Guild.

Based on the original WinPod by MDMRE.

Licensed under the Apache License 2.0.

Monster Truck Madness, Terminal Velocity, Fury3, Hellbender, CPR, Nocturne and 4x4 Evo are trademarks of their respective owners. This is an unofficial, community-made utility with no affiliation to Microsoft or Terminal Reality.