Is there any way to load a palette for 8 Bit pictures at runtime?

Who needs 8 Bit pictures you may ask? Nobody I answer... except the case you have a pile of palettized BMPs and PCXs and do not want to write a converter script.

I can easily fix this by loading one of the images as palette in the map properties of WED, but this requires
a) a level
b) a compilation process

I can live with a), but b) destroys the fun.
So I thought of
c) patch the palette of the WMB file via script, load the wmb at startup and see the 8 bit pictures in correct colors.

This should do, but that's REALLY ugly... I'd prefer a simple palette_load() so I can work without having a level at all.

Is this possible in some way or did I miss something?

The idea is to not have a step in this process where user input is required.

Thanks for help.

There is no function to load a palette, but you don't need WED either. When the engine finds a file "palette.raw" or "palette.pcx" in the work folder, it is used for the palette at runtime.

That's great news! Thanks.

I've done a quick test.

It works for palette.raw, but unfortunately not for palette.pcx
The palette file can only reside in the root directory, a directory defined with PRAGMA_PATH is not possible?

No, because the palette is loaded at the beginning before the scripts are compiled.

You're right with the palette.raw, but you can easily generate one, either with WED, or by script. It's just 768 bytes with the individual R,G,B values for the 256 palette entries.

How am I supposed to generate a palette by script when it is loaded before the scripts are compiled?

The problem is, I generate palettes from several file formats without a problem, but they are created too late for the engine...

If I start the engine a 2nd time right away everything is ok.
No way around this? It kills the fun a bit...

I meant a script function that allocates a 768 bytes array, fills it with the desired palette colors, and saves it as "palette.raw". This file is then read when you start the project the next time.

That's what I doing, unfortunately the problem is "next time".

Guess I'll have to live with that for now. I'll have to split the whole thing into two separate parts later anyway.