A flame is stored in an Xml file, which can contain one or more flames in them. The first step in rendering is to read the data out of the Xml and into a list of flames.

The first parameters encountered in each flame Xml are ones that specify general information about what is to be rendered, such as the dimensions, rotation, quality, supersampling, filter types and sizes, and color information. Followed by that is the list of xforms. Last is the palette of colors that are to be used during iteration which are specified as a list of 256 colors.

The rough structure of the file can be visualized like so:

<flame size=”1000 1000″ …>

<xform weight=”0.25″ … />

<xform weight=”1″ … />

<xform weight=”0.33″ … />

<palette count=”256″ format=”RGB”>

0123456789ABCDEF…

</palette>

</flame>