.dds Texture settings

[Oblivion[CW]]

Asked you about this the other day [DieHard], said you would get a screen shot to me. The settings for saving the .dds files.

Thanks!

[DieHard SCWS]

I already wanted to go make a post on the settings, since the thread is here now, heres the info:


The downloadlink for the DDS Photoshop Plugin:

http://www.celticwarriors.net/Downloads/S3TCTools/DXT_TOOLS.zip



Description:

This plugin enables you to save 24bit alpha channel textures into DXT1, DXT3 and DXT5 format, depending on what the texture is used for. The Zipfile contains a bunch of tools, i didn't check them yet, i will on a later shedule.

Installation:

- After unpacking the zipfile, look for the file: dds.8bi
- copy this file into your Photoshop
- Look for the folder: Plug-Ins
- Than for: File Formats and paste the plugin there, and make sure it is within that folder.

When you now start Photoshop and you want to save a texture choose in your fileformat save options: DDS, after clicking ok you will the settings which shows in the screenshots below.





Safe options for textures without Masking:

[img]http://www.celticwarriors.net/Media/Pictures/DDS_SafeOptions.jpg[/img]





Safe options for textures with Masking:

[img]http://www.celticwarriors.net/Media/Pictures/DDS_SafeOptionsAlpha.jpg[/img]





If you encounter this error during saving

[img]http://www.celticwarriors.net/Media/Pictures/DDS_SafeOptionsError.jpg[/img]

If error above occurs, than check if the texture size is correct, sometimes Photoshop does not calculate correctly :-/. The plugin only excepts sizes that are importable by UnrealEd !


For instance, and try this yourself, if you have a texture 512 width and 2048 high, scale it down to 1024 while it constrains proportions.

The result will be: 258 x 1024 while it should be: 512

The plugin will have all options active, but the Safe option will stay blanc.

Not just that, if you cancel and make the size correct, it often, still will refuse to safe, than you need to restart Photohop to make it work again........


Its a Photoshop bug, not a plugin bug.





S3TC texture size versus Normal texture size

Another thing that is important are the S3TC sizes compared to the normal sizes.


Heres a small overview:

Normal: 4 pixels = S3TC: 32 pixels
Normal: 8 pixels = S3TC: 64 pixels
Normal: 16 pixels = S3TC: 128 pixels
Normal: 32 pixels = S3TC: 256 pixels
Normal: 64 pixels = S3TC: 512 pixels
Normal: 128 pixels = S3TC: 1024 pixels
Normal: 256 pixels = S3TC: 1024 pixels
Normal: 512 pixels = S3TC: 1024 pixels

The general rule is, don't go higher than 1024, but there are exceptions, the doors in general are 2048 x 1024 and so are some walls.


Also: fast animations (like the radar) should not be bigger than 64 pixels for normal players or 512 pixels for S3TC players


Slow animations, like one frame a second, can be made bigger, since Unreal slowly loads them one after the other In other words, it does not load the complete animation in one shot, its loaded frame after frame




More info can be found here:

http://www.celticwarriors.net/website/S3TC/TextureSizes/TextureSizes.htm



Disregard the DrawScale settings there, this used to be important but isn't anymore
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