This .dds Photoshop plugin requires Direct3D 9.0 or higher to be installed.
DirectX 9 is available at: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/downloads/drx90.asp
Copy the file dds.8bi to
\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop 5.5\Plug-Ins\File Formats
or
\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop 6.0\Plug-Ins\File Formats or
\Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop 7.0\Plug-Ins\File Formats
This should work with Paint Shop Pro, but I have not tested
it. Some users have reported that the alpha channel is lost.
Use "Save As" and "DDS" to save compressed files
Allows dropping .dds files into PhotoShop
Save Format
Chooses which format to save the image as. This is affected by Options and Fade To Color below it.
DXT1, DXT1 with alpha, DXT3 and DXT5 are compressed formats
DXT1's compression ratio is 8:1
DXT3 and DXT5's are 4:1 compression ratio
Other formats are uncompressed
16 bit (4444) - 4 bits for alpha, red, green and blue
16 bit (1555) - 1 bit for alpha, 5 for red, green and blue
16 bit (565) - no alpha, 5 bits for red, 6 bits for green, 5 bits for blue
32 bit RGB - 8 bits for alpha, red, green and blue
24 bit RGB - 8 bits for red, green and blue
16 bit (0:5:5:5) 5 bits for red, green and blue
8 bit index - create a 256 entry paletted texture RGB or RGBA
V8U8 - Environment-Mapped Bump Mapping (EMBM) format. 16 bit
CxVuU8 - Compressed Normal map format C = sqrt(1 - (U2 + V2)). 16 bit
A8 - Alpha channel only. 8 bit
4 bit indexed - create a 16 entry paletted texture RGB or RGBA
MIP maps
Generate MIP maps - MIP maps will automatically be generated for you. Filtering and Sharpening applies.
The combo box specifies the number of MIP maps to generate or use from the existing image.
Use Existing MIP maps - The image contains the MIP maps already. Use those.
No MIP maps - No MIP maps will be exported.
MIP map generation (Filter)
When MIP maps are generated different filtering algorithms are used to create the MIP levels.
Point: No filtering
Box: Fastest filtering
Mitchell: High quality filtering
The rest are for experimentation: Triangle, Quadratic, Cubic, Catrom, Gaussian, Sinc, Bessel , Hanning, Hamming, Blackman, Kaiser
I believe that Photoshop uses cubic filtering
Filter Settings
Kaiser Gamma: Gamma value for filtering in gamma space. Not implemented yet. Default 2.2.
Blur Factor: During MIP map generation, you can increase the sharpening or blurring. Default is 1
Override Filter's Default Width: Each filter has a default width associated with it. You can override it by selecting this.
Filter Width: Use this filter width instead of the filter's default value
Sharpening
You can optionally sharpen an images after MIP map creation with the sharpening filters. These are applied after the MIP map is created.
Sharpen MIP 0: Apply this filter to the main image, otherwise filter is applied only to MIP maps
None - Do not apply a sharpen filter
Smoothen - Slightly blur
Sharpen Soft -
Sharpen Medium
Sharpen Strong
Mean Removal - Sharpening
UnSharpen Mask - Sharpening, use Custom Dialog to change parameters
XSharpen - Sharpening, use Custom Dialog to change parameters
Warp Sharp - Sharpening, currently disabled
Custom - Create a custom filter
Image Intensity - These are not sharpening related
Negative - Negates the colors
Lighter - Makes the image brighter
Darker - Makes the image darker
Contrast More - Add contrast
Contrast Less - Reduce contrast
Edge Related - These are misc that show other filtering weightings
Find Edges
Contour
Edge Detect
Edge Detect Soft
Emboss
Create a 5x5 filter by selecting 'Custom' in the filter combo and change the 25 entries in the Custom Filter Settings area.
Each setting is divided and bias as above. To maintain the intensity of the image, you can balance the divider or the bias by hitting the Balance button.
Unsharp and Xsharpen parameters are customized here also
Options
DitherColor - jitters image so 16 bit image look better. dithers then generates the MIP levels.
Is a Normal Map - set this if you are exporting a normal map. This renormalizes the MIP maps and tailors the compression for tangent space normal maps.
Dither Each MIP - Dithering applied to each MIP level. Can improve compressed or paletted images.
BorderColor (1 texel) - Create a one texel border around each MIP level.
Border Color - Specify the border color
GreyScale - Set if image is all or mostly a grey scale.
Alpha
Alpha Zero Border - Set the alpha channel to zero for the border of each MIP level
Binary Alpha - treats alpha as one bit only for MIP map generation
Binary Alpha Threshold - When Binary Alpha is selected, this value determine if the alpha is zero or one. If the alpha channel is greater than or euqal to this threshold, alpha is set to 1.0, otherwise alpha is set to 0.0.
Fade MIP maps
You can fade each MIP maps to a specific color.
Fade Color - gradually fades from the image to a selectable color over n MIP maps.
Fade Color (button) selects the color
Blend Amount lets you specify a percentage fade for each MIP level.
Start at MIP. delays fade until a given MIP level
Specify. Instead of programmatically fading alpha, you can specify the alpha fade on a per MIP map level. This button displayes the 'Blend per MIP level' dialog.
MIP 0 (base image cannot be faded)
Specify what percentage of the fade amount for each MIP level
Set numbers allow up to 10 different fade profiles to be saved
Controls are disabled if there is no MIP map present. In this case levels 10-13
Use These Fade Amounts - Enable the use of the blending set. Otherwise the main dialog values are used.
Normal Map Conversion Options
You can convert height maps to normal maps by checking Convert Height Map to Normal Map' button
Normal Map conversion options are set in the Normal Map Generation Settings... dialog
This is the dialog to create normal maps from height information. The height can come from the alpha or color channels.
The normals are created by using adjacent texels. You can specify how many in the "Height Generation" area.
Scale - Specifies how much to scale the height values. floating point value.
MinZ - Forces the "up" direction to be a minimum value
Du/Dv - Use this to create EMBM maps
InvertX, InvertY - changes the direction of X or Y
Alternate conversions
Biased RGB subtracts average color of image from each texel
Red - Use the red channel as height
Green - Use the green channel as height
Blue - Use the blue channel as height
Max - Use the maximum value from the R,G and B channel
Color space - Height = 1.0 - [(1.0 - r) * (1.0 - g) * (1.0 - b)]
Normalize Only - Image is already a normal map, just renormalize
Alpha Field - Specifies what is placed in the alpha channel after normal map generation
Select 'Using Multiple Layers' if you are are using Layers and cannot get the alpha channel to work
Preview Formats
You can preview your texture in a 2D or 3D window.
For 3D
Select the formats that you wish to preview and select 3D Preview. Change options in the dialog, then hit Refresh View to update the textures
Zoom - You can make the image larger, effectively zooming in.
For 2D
Select 2D Preview (no formats are needed, 2D preview is always 8888 format). Change options in the dialog, then hit Refresh View to update the textures.
Preview Options
Alpha Blending - Enables/disable alpha blending using the alpha channel of the texture. This is applied to 2D and 3D previews
Show Differences - Compares the full precision image with the modes that are selected. Differences are magnified 10 times.
Enable Filtering - Enables disable all texture filters
MIP Mapping - Enables/disable MIP mapping
Anisotropic - Enables/disables anisotropic filtering
Background Color- Specify the background color in the 3D display
Background Image: Specify a background image in the 3D display.
Use Image: Enable/Disable use of the backgound image
background image file name is listed at the bottom of this group
Dialog Options
You can specify a very fast, low quality compression option for DXT1, DXT3 and DXT5
Ask To Load MIP maps: Enable/Disable the dialog that asks you if you want to load MIP maps
Show Size Warning: Warns if the texture is the wrong size
Show Alpha Warning: Warns if alpha is all black
Texture Format based on Alpha: Choose the texture format based on the alpha channel
DXT1 is no alpha channel
DXT3 if there is an alpha channel.