MtG art from *.cat files?

[Smiling Spectre]

Hello.

There is long time when I seeking tool for actual viewing this *.cat files. Yes, I know that your modern versions use replacements for that... but still? It seems, you, guys, perfectly knows about all this MtG formats - but I didn't see actual tool for extracting original pictures on this forum. Is this possible? And if it is - can you direct me into right direction? Thank you!

[Aswan jaguar]

I made a question about how you can open those files,too but nobody knew.

[CirothUngol]

If you'd like info on Microprose's .PIC format, or tools to view and convert them, then check out this thread:
Microprose PicViewer and Conversion Tools

Here's the original post | Open

You should check out the Magic: the Gathering image decoding tools from CTPAX-X. It contains both a PIC2BMP converter and a CAT2BMP converter. The utilities also require a few files from the original Demo Version of Microprose MtG, and you can find everything you need in the ZipFile below (you can also find all of this in my "Microprose MtG" folder on MediaFire).
The tools were updated in May of 2012, come with SourceCode, and run just fine on Win7x64.
I've also included a tiny app I wrote called TodPal.exe that will convert the text file TodPal.tr into a duel.plogpal palette file that'll correctly decode about 60 more images from Shandalar.

Incidently, here's a Microprose PIC Viewer for Windows that displays the Manalink.pic files, but it's designed for Darklands, so the Color Palette is all wrong. It does come with SourceCode, so it should be possible to load a proper Palette... a working PIC Viewer would be sweet. ^_^

Edit:
Updated mtg_tools to version 1.1.
Updated to include TodPal Palette Converter
Removed file and linked to this thread in the Manalink forum.

[Smiling Spectre]

Yay, thank you!

Hmm, I am amazed, why it takes so long to appear... And also that it's only one year old. Great to have it anyway.

[tojammot]

Note that MtG decoder updated to v1.1 on CTPAX-X site.
The older version from attach above is not able to convert all the files inside .CAT archives due to bug in the extractor.
See the changelog at the end of "mtgtools.##.txt" file.

[CirothUngol]

Thanks for the heads-up!
I've updated the archive above and on MediaFire to ver1.1 of mtg_tools from the CTPAX-X website.

[Huggybaby]

Check out the GOTD today: http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/allmedi ... 9#comments

This utility takes images and other media files out of exe's, dll's etx. Looks pretty handy, I've never heard of such a thing.
12 hours left on the deal.

[CirothUngol]

...got it!
I've seen apps like this before, but never so automatic or compatible with so many different resources. Great software for the price, thanx. ^_^

[CirothUngol]

Sorry for the double-post, but I've just figured out how to create another of the 256 color palettes needed for Shandalar. There are a few *.tr text files in the Program Folder that are obviously color palette info, so I wrote a little app to convert them to duel.plogpal files for use with mgpicbmp.exe from CTPAX-X. The only one that proved useful was TodPal.tr... it'll properly decode about 60 more images from Shandalar, including most of the Title Screens, Menus, Icons, Buttons and Bars.

I named it TodPal.exe and included it along with everything else in the MtG_PIC2BMP archive (see my 1st post in this thread). You can also grab just my app at the link below. TodPal.zip contains executable, source code, TodPal.tr and the new duel.plogpal.