How do I change the colour palette of my game?

This page will take you through the tools used to edit the game colour palettes.

This guide assumes you have installed and have already set up a project with WDC. If not, get started by clicking here.

WDC has the ability to edit the palette in DOS Wolfenstein 3D, which is hard-coded directly into the exe. To do so, open your Project Information window.

In the GamePal.obj section of the Folders/Files section, point it to the GAMEPAL.OBJ located in your source files. If you followed this guide when setting up, it will be in your \WOLFSRC\OBJ\ folder.

Once you've selected the file, it can be edited by clicking the Edit Gamepal.obj button. This will bring up the palette editor.

Once edited, this will only change the file in the source code. You will need to build a new exe for the changes to be playable.

Spear of Destiny's colour palettes are located in the VGAGRAPH file, and are easier to edit.

Start WDC and open your project, if you haven't already. At the top of the window, you will see a row of fifteen square buttons.

Make sure to select the Color Palettes button. Your window should look similar to the following, which means you're on the right screen!

On the Color Palettes screen, the scrollbar will move between the different palettes the game uses (In-game palettes, menu palettes, etc).

This shows you the currently selected colour palette.

If a palette has been selected to overwrite the current one, this space will display the replacement.

This is where you will point WDC to replacement palettes. There is an address bar that will tell you where the replacement file is located and what it is called, and four buttons.

• Insert File - If you have a palette ready for your game, you can click this button to point WDC to it and have it replace the currently selected one.
• Edit Palette - If a replacement palette is currently active, this button will launch a new window with tools to edit it with.
  If you don't have a replacement, WDC will save a copy of the current palette, then open the editor to change that saved file. This file will also become the replacement.
• Open the replacement file's folder - As it says on the packaging, really. This button will open the folder in a new window.
• Use original data - This will delete the current replacement palette, and go back to using the original. If the selected palette was added with one of the “Add Chunk” buttons, it will delete the entry entirely.

Here, there are three buttons. The first is a dedicated Export button for saving the current palette to a new external file.

The second and third buttons are for adding new palettes rather than replacing them. Doing this requires changes to the engine in order to make use of these additions properly.

• Add Chunk - This will add a new entry for a palette before the currently selected one.
• Add Chunk to End - This button will be clickable when viewing the very last palette in a tab. Doing so will add a new entry at the very end of the file. This is usually the best option as to avoid disrupting the rest of the core game.

If you click the Edit Gamepal.obj button or Edit Palette button on the Replacement Bar (Depending on if you're editing the Wolf3D or SOD palette), you will bring up the Palette Editor window for whatever palette you had currently selected.

The editor is simple, and divided into two parts.

This is the palette you're editing. You can see the specific coordinates for the colours (For use in coding and scripting), and you can select each colour with a left mouse click.

These sliders can be used to adjust the selected colour in the palette. Alternatively, manual values for Red, Green and Blue can be entered via the three text boxes.

In the File menu there are buttons to import or export a replacement palette to edit and add to the project, or save the palette as a BMP image file.

When you're done editing a palette, click OK to accept your changes. To save and publish your palette changes to your project, either click File→Compile All, or File→Compile→VgaGraph.