DXT 1 & DXT 5 compression for Gimp-exported textures.

[MonaBabii]

Hello! I'll try to keep this post as short as I possibly can from my usual walls of text, and it's just a question (that may or may not branch into a series of new ones depending on the responses, if I get any ):

 

¿Is there any way I can use DXT 1 and DXT 5 (or maybe better methods?) compression for .dds textures I save/export using Gimp?

 

Today I was fixing a few things on both the diffuse and the normal map textures of the Real Girls skin and the SG Female Texture Renewal normals, and I'm finally finished with the modifications (tweaked the breasts for less empowering baked shadows and the area of the butt between the cheeks that used to have a very strong white line across it), however when I check the actual texture for the skin (the diffuse one) it went from the original 8 MB or so, to 64 MB >_<

Without having to get Photoshop, which for right now it's a bit too expensive for me, is there any way to tone those numbers down without sacrificing quality?

 

Thanks a ton in advance

 

P.S.: Here's a link to my IMGur album showing my modifications to the aforementioned files:

 

 

Tweaked Breasts and Butt.

 

 

Caution: In-game nudity present in the album.

 

Skin looks a lot better on SevenBase bodies now =D Though the body used in the album pictures is the 7BUnpB (UNPB Top, 7Base bottom).

 

The game I'm modifying files for is Skyrim by the way.

 

Cheers!

[pornphile]

Are you using the GIMP DDS plugin? Shouldn't it have DXT options?

[MonaBabii]

Are you using the GIMP DDS plugin? Shouldn't it have DXT options?

 

It does indeed. The problem is I hear compressing textures via DXT through Gimp is something you shouldn't do, because Gimp apparently gives those exported compressed textures a very bad quality.

I'm just wondering if there's a way around that fact, or if that fact is even true at all

[pornphile]

You can try Paint.NET.

 

Saving as .dds results in quality loss across all platforms. Not sure how the GIMP implementation results in poorer quality.

[blabba]

compression = loss of quality.

 

It doesn't matter if you use GIMP, PS or anything else.

 

For Diffuse textures, the loss of quality is hardly noticeable and DXT1 is suggested (unless you require an alpha for whatever reason)

 

For Normal textures it varies. Some people like to keep the size of a normal texture down (like keeping it 2k or below) and save at a very low compression rate to prevent loss of quality.

Normally though you don't want to use DX compression on normal maps as quality can adversely affect the normal map by a lot.

[MonaBabii]

Okay Awesome then! I'll just start compressing the diffuse maps left and right from now on Thank you both!

[Guest]

As the Orange has said, compression is by it's nature 'lossy'. You can only mitigate it by working with an uncompressed source. I've used Photoshop with it's NV plugin and GIMP and I've never been able to put a cigarette paper between them quality-wise. 

 

I've seen some really shockingly awful diffuse maps in some high profile armor, body and race mods I won't name - those people almost certainly re-compressed, that's the only time I've ever seen artifacts that are very obvious in game. None of the diffuse map  DXT1 compressions I've done were anywhere near as bad, because I will only ever do it if the source is already very clean. If it isn't, I avoid using it altogether. 

[BruceWayne]

Moved to Skyrim modding.

[MonaBabii]

Moved to Skyrim modding.

 

Oops! Sorry! The one time I don't write down "Apologies in advance if this is in the wrong section" is when it's actually in the wrong section. Figures!

 

Thanks! I don't get out much from my home at "Skyrim Adult mods Downloads"