Hard Light Productions Forums

Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: MicroPsycho on September 20, 2005, 04:57:33 pm

Title: DDS usefulness
Post by: MicroPsycho on September 20, 2005, 04:57:33 pm

So what are the benefits of .DDS textures, why are they so great and what do/can they do?

Title: DDS usefulness
Post by: StratComm on September 20, 2005, 05:06:04 pm

They can be compressed pretty well, and (more importantly) can be loaded and used by many graphics cards in compressed format.  They boost performance over tga while offering enhancements like higher color-depth and transparency over pcx.

Title: DDS usefulness
Post by: taylor on September 20, 2005, 05:11:30 pm

They also use one third to one quarter the memory of a TGA and half the memory of a PCX.  And that don't require any sort of post processing to be rendered, they get sent to the video card as is.

Title: DDS usefulness
Post by: Getter Robo G on September 20, 2005, 05:23:57 pm

When ever I need to alter them or simply see a model I have to open photoshop and convert evey DDS file to PCX... (just a gripe)... Mainly cause I hadn't found a batch function for photoshop like there is for Irfranview (#1!).

Title: DDS usefulness
Post by: StratComm on September 20, 2005, 05:25:57 pm

:wtf:

If you have photoshop, and need to edit DDS files, why are you not editing them as DDS?  Converting them to PCX causes them to lose information.

Title: DDS usefulness
Post by: CP5670 on September 20, 2005, 05:32:06 pm

I think pcx is lossless aside from the lack of an alpha channel. But yeah, it doesn't make sense to use it when the final image will be a dds.

Title: DDS usefulness
Post by: StratComm on September 20, 2005, 05:33:21 pm

PCX is lossy if you convert it to 8-bit, which is the only format that FS2 will read.

Title: DDS usefulness
Post by: Getter Robo G on September 20, 2005, 05:36:43 pm

You misunderstand, I only got photoshop because of DDS files and inability to eidt/see Omni's Trek conversions... You know my lack of skills, so Irranview is my savior.

Title: DDS usefulness
Post by: StratComm on September 20, 2005, 05:42:18 pm

IrfanView can open DDS files if you download a plugin for them.

But, learn to use Photoshop.  It's infinitely more powerful than Irfanview.

Title: DDS usefulness
Post by: DaBrain on September 20, 2005, 06:24:07 pm

Quote

Originally posted by CP5670
I think pcx is lossless aside from the lack of an alpha channel. But yeah, it doesn't make sense to use it when the final image will be a dds.

Argh, no way. PCX is a horrible format. 8-bit is really outdated. It has one advantage over DDS though. If an image has a really low ammount of colors, the PCX version will look better than the DDS version. DDS files always have ugly compression artifacts. (Ok, I think it's not that bad. ;) )

Use the format that look best for an effect or texture. I think that will mostly be DDS. :)

Now I have to convince the WC Saga guys. ;7