Help with editing .dds textures - no idea what I'm doing wrong!

[SmedleyDButler]

Alright, so I'm trying to start in on modding various things. Just baby steps for now - texture alteration, slot changes, simple, basic stuff.

 

So I'm trying to recolour a four-channel colour texture .dds (RGB & Alpha), using photoshop CS2 with the appropriate .dds plugin installed.

 

Problem is, every time I try to save, the image gets destroyed yellow-filtered, white-filtered, whatever. Obviously it's wrong.

 

I have read a dozen or more tutorials, including the ones on the Nexus wiki and on many different websites and forums (here too). Not one of them agree! Everybody has different suggestions, different settings, and god-knows-what recommendations.

 

I've tried saving with 888 RGB 24, DXT3 ARGB, both versions of DXT5 (ARGB and XY), and even some of the the formats I didn't see suggested anywhere, but nothing is giving me a proper output. What setting am I missing? Is there something I need to do in the normal map settings? Or elsewhere? I saw one tutorial which mentioned doing a pass with the normal map filter before saving, but when I did that, that also ruined the image. Please tell me what it is that I'm doing so wrong.

 

Thanks!

 

Images:

 

 

[PsychoMachina]

I have PS and currently experiencing that issue.  I resorted to using GIMP and the results are much better.

 

GIMP

https://www.gimp.org/

 

DDS Plugin

https://code.google.com/archive/p/gimp-dds/

 

Normalmap Plugin

https://code.google.com/archive/p/gimp-normalmap/

[SmedleyDButler]

I'm not sure either, but I'm pretty sure it's not my compression choices. I think what's going wrong is that the normalization is going haywire. But I've tried every setting in the Normal Map conversion dialogue when saving and not one preserves the image as edited, as well as playing with the dds filter options prior to saving.

[Kastagir]

It looks wrong because you're telling the dds plugin to convert a diffuse texture to a tangent space normal map with incorrect settings that won't be usable as diffuse or normal.

 

If it's meant to be a re-colored diffuse, all you need to change is the diffuse texture.  The normal map you already have remains valid.  In this case, don't check "convert to tangent space normal map."  If you're actually trying to create a normal map instead, there are several steps you're missing, but that doesn't seem to be what you're trying to do.

[SmedleyDButler]

It looks wrong because you're telling the dds plugin to convert a diffuse texture to a tangent space normal map with incorrect settings that won't be usable as diffuse or normal.

 

If it's meant to be a re-colored diffuse, all you need to change is the diffuse texture.  The normal map you already have remains valid.  In this case, don't check "convert to tangent space normal map."  If you're actually trying to create a normal map instead, there are several steps you're missing, but that doesn't seem to be what you're trying to do.

 

Unchecking that box is one of the normalization options I tried, but it still gives a result similar to the first image. Is there some other setting I need to change in conjunction with that? I only have limited experience editing .dds files (for two other games and only once or twice), so maybe there's something else I'm missing?

 

I mean, should I only be editing certain layers or in certain ways for Skyrim's .dds files? I've edited the RGB channel. I also created a new layer at one point, but I merged it with the base before trying to save.

 

All I want to do is a simple recolour (I have another where I'm trying to remove a transparency slightly, but as far as I know that's just a matter of editing the alpha channel as well).

[Kastagir]

 

Unchecking that box is one of the normalization options I tried, but it still gives a result similar to the first image.

 

"Normalization options?"  I'm not sure what you think that's supposed to mean, but from what I understand you're trying to edit and save a dds diffuse texture.  You should not be converting to a normal map.  You should not even see the dialog box where "normalize" is an option because that's for normal maps, not diffuse.  If you're seeing that dialog, you need to uncheck the box for "convert to tangent space normal map."  I suspect you clicked the "normal map settings" button in the dds plugin save dialog.  You don't need to do that if you're saving a diffuse texture.  If you've already done that, you'll have to click the "normal map settings" button again and deselect the "convert to tangent space normal map" checkbox to prevent the plugin from attempting to convert every texture you save to a normal map.

 

[SmedleyDButler]

 

 

Unchecking that box is one of the normalization options I tried, but it still gives a result similar to the first image.

 

"Normalization options?"  I'm not sure what you think that's supposed to mean, but from what I understand you're trying to edit and save a dds diffuse texture.  You should not be converting to a normal map.  You should not even see the dialog box where "normalize" is an option because that's for normal maps, not diffuse.  If you're seeing that dialog, you need to uncheck the box for "convert to tangent space normal map."  I suspect you clicked the "normal map settings" button in the dds plugin save dialog.  You don't need to do that if you're saving a diffuse texture.  If you've already done that, you'll have to click the "normal map settings" button again and deselect the "convert to tangent space normal map" checkbox to prevent the plugin from attempting to convert every texture you save to a normal map.

 

 

I got that but, even if all I do is:

 

1) Open the .PSD working file

2) "Save as", selecting .dds as the file type

3) Select the right compression (I've tried DXT1, DXT3, and DXT5)

4) Hit save (or preview 2D)

 

I still have this issue even if I don't touch the "Normal Map Settings" button at all.

 

Here's how it looks with all normalization boxes unchecked:

 

 

Pretty similar. So I guess maybe what is happening is that even when I specifically don't tell it to normalize on saving and leave (as you instruct) all those settings alone and unchecked, it refuses and insists on normalization... why?

[Kastagir]

Save your profile (dds save dialog, lower right) and upload it here.

[SmedleyDButler]

Actually I finally figured it out and WOW was the reason ever stupid!

 

So, when I open files in photoshop, sometimes I do so by dragging the file over the photoshop working area. Normally this is just fine - if you do this with say, a .jpg or .psd no worries. HOWEVER, doing this for .dds files seems to corrupt some aspect of the file irrecoverably.

 

When I instead opened the files the "proper" way, by using the File -> Open dialogue, everything worked perfectly.

 

I have NO IDEA why this caused a problem, but there you go.