A downloadable tool

This is a tool that will watch your RPG Maker project directory for file changes and convert any PNG images that aren't in a compatible RPG Maker 8-bit PNG format to that format, if your PNG does not contain more than 256 colors.

How does it work?

If your PNG file is not already an 8-bit PNG, it will attempt to convert any PNG format to an 8-bit PNG by:

Iterating over every pixel and building up a palette of colors
It will decide that the top-left corner is the transparent pixel (except for Chipsets, it picks from the transparent tile)

How to use

Download below
Backup your RPG Maker project into a safe place. This application will change your files and has the potential to break your work.
Drag your RPG Maker project folder onto the EXE / binary file, this will start the app and it'll watch for file changes

Github Repository:
https://github.com/silbinarywolf/rm2kpng

Changelog

v1.0.2 - 2022-12-17

Fix bug where "Battle" folder for RPG Maker 2000 was not watched
Use absolute paths for error display

v1.0.1 - 2020-09-12

Fix bug where a PNG wouldn't convert properly if you used less than 17 colors. (App now forces 17 colors to be in the palette so charsets will appear correctly)
Stop app from closing if file failed to convert due to palette size exceeding 256 colors. (Now just shows an error in the console)

v1.0.0 - 2020-09-06