Palettes Tab


 The Palettes Tab purpose is to allow you to change the palettes used during extraction of some image files. Some games use only one palette for all of the images, other game images may have their own palette for each image , while some image files use a palette included in other files.

 Taking for example Dark Forces most *.Bm images can be extracted using the default Dark Forces palette.

 On the other hand Jedi Knight *.Bm files use many different palettes , depending on the use of the image. Some images will extract properly with the default JK BM palette supplied. While some images such as the force icons , are placed on top of a background image, those bm files will need to have the palette that is used in the background image bm. Most of the BK*.bm images have their own palette. Thus if you are extracting the force icons you would need to use the BKForce.bm palette.

 Some Quake/Doom style games generally use one system wide palette for all images. Unless you are totaly changing all of the images then the default palette should suffice. You may choose to use sometihng else if you like.

 For most operations involving images in CAGE, it loads the palette specified on the palettes tab page for that game/image type. It does this once.When you first load the images or container file. JediKnight BM files are an exception. It looks for the specified palette for each file converted. If the image type being converted has a palette it will use that one.

 For games such as DarkForces *.bm, Quake *.bsp, Quake2 *.wal if you are going to use another palette for image conversions , then you should load the palette first before loading the images and converting.

 For JediKnight Bm you may change the palette at anytime and it will use that for any further conversions.

 For images containing their own palettes it will make no difference what palettes are selected.



The Tab


Here is the palettes tab.

On the very top line in bold print is the path and filename for the selected game file. The selected game file radio box is directly below the path and filename. Only one game file may be selected at any one time.

Selecting a different game file will display the palette that game file wil use. It will also update the path and file display. You will not change anything by doing this.

In the lower right corner is the palette source selection radio box.

The choices at this time are:

Pal File 768 bytes.
This is a file containing 256 colors ,each color is arranged as red,green,blue bytes for a total of 768 bytes. DarkForces *.Pal files are such palette files.The maximum values can be either 255 or 63. Cage will adjust them as necessary. This is also the same type of file Cage stores in the "\Data" directory. Use this selection to return to a default or saved palette.

Bmp File 8 bit 256 colors
A plain 256 color bmp file (8 bit). The same as Cage creates. The file can be compresed in this case.

Cmp File JediKnight
A JediKnight/Mots *.CMP file. Cage will extract a palette from this file type.

BM File JediKnight
A JediKnight/Mots *.BM file , If a palette is present in the file, Most of the BK*.bm files are good candidates. For use with the overlay images such as buttons, force icons etc.


To change a palette in use :

  1. Select game file to change the palette for.
  2. Select where to get the palette from.
  3. Press the "Load Palette" button.

If the file is valid for the selection cage will load the new palette and display it. It also automaticly makes a *.pal file for you in the "\Data" directory with the filename of the file you orginaly used.

If Cage was unsuccessful or the palette source you have selected is wrong then Cage will report an error and not change the palette.

You may extract files with one palette then rextract with another, Cage will overwrite any file already created.

You may delete any pal file that does not start with "default".Unless of course you are using that file.