Agent Character File (file format)

Agent Character File
	Screenshot of Freddy Fazbear's ACF loaded in MAWS.
Name	Agent Character File (HTTP Format)
Extension	.ACF
Initial release	September 8th, 1997 (28 years ago)
Operating system	Microsoft Windows

Not to be confused with Agent Character Storage.

An Agent Character File (ACF) (also known as an Agent Character File (HTTP Format)) is a file format used by Microsoft Agent for Microsoft Agent characters. It can be opened with any program which utilizes Microsoft Agent technology, and by web pages on Internet Explorer.

Usage

ACF files contain metadata about the character, such as the GUID, TTS voice, system tray icon, and the names of each animation the character has. However, they do not contain the character animations themselves, and instead rely off of ACA or AAF files in order to play animations for the character. Even with this limitation, they have an advantage of being able to be loaded through the internet, even if they are not installed locally on the system.

Differences from ACS

ACF files rely on ACA or AAF files in order to load animations of the character, while ACS files do not need any external files.
It is a lot harder to download an ACF file than it is to download an ACS due to ACFs not being made for downloading.
While ACS files can only be loaded if they are installed on the system, ACF files can be loaded through the internet.

Trivia

While not originally intended to, ACF files can surprisingly be loaded locally on the system.
- However, it is impossible to load an ACS file from a website like how users can with an ACF.
The ACF file used to be the default format that MACE would compile Microsoft Agent characters into until 2.0 switched the default to ACS.
When trying to decompile ACF files through the Microsoft Agent Decompiler, it will throw the error "Feature not implemented yet", suggesting that the feature was planned to be implemented in the future.
- However, MAD never got an official update after version 1.0, and due to the discontinuation of Microsoft Agent, it unfortunately might never get one.