of .dds textures and photoshop

[HarvesteR]

hello,

i was doing some reading here about textures in FSX and started wondering...

if one has the Nvidia tools plugin installed in photoshop, it is possible to save the images as .dds straight out of the 'save as' dialog...

what i was wondering was if an image saved thus would work in FS, or if an intermediary step is required (such as saving in DXT5, then to .dds)

also, if you have PowerToys installed, you get a shell extension option to change the format of bitmaps, and convert them to DXT or any other pixel format without using DXT Tool...

i was just wondering if anyone has tried these... as they seem like they would make things much easier

[Fr. Bill]

I have used both the nVidia DDS plugin and the normal map plugin ever since beta testing FSX.

You can export your layered PSD files directly to DDS/DXT1, DDS/DXT5 or DDS/888-8 format directly from Photoshop. The only caveat is that you must manually "Flip Vertical" prior to DDS export, since DDS textures are stored that way.

Alternatively, you can use the ACES Imagetool.exe program to load and export your PSD files to DDS/xxx formats. Imagetool.exe will auto-vertical-flip the textures for you.

I use the nVidia normal map plugin to create my FSX "Bumpmaps." Full details with illustrations are available at http://freeflightdesign.com in the "Tips" or "Tutorial" forums.

[HarvesteR]

cool, then it does work

[Fr. Bill]

Indeed so!

[HarvesteR]

life just got a whole lot easier  ;)