Okay, my education must start from scratch

[Chemist18]

I remember solving many problems when I worked on mods back in 2008-2009 but I'm not having much luck figuring them out again.

 

I distinctly remember figuring out about half my problems on my own and the other half by finding various tutorials. I think I'm not looking in the right places, maybe since I turned 50 I've gotten dumber. I KNOW that I have far less patience now than I did five years ago :).

 

I gave up on retexturing one of the kits, I'll use one as it is. But, I want to create a number of small items (probably a large number) in game:

For example, In game there is a canned good called PorkNBeans, the texture for which is in the file

 

textures\architecture\urban\FoodPackaging.dds

 

This texture actually holds textures for several items. I have a jpg file containing an old canned milk label that I want to put in this texture file in place of the Pork'n Beans one (I actually have a number of labels I want to use.

• If I install GIMP so I can read/convert dds files then Corel PaintShop Pro will no longer run (literally)
• I can't make GIMP do what I want darnit

I remember doing this before, open the two files (FoodPackaging.dds as a jpg and the new can label) as layers, cut the Pork'n Beans piece out of the texture, shrink my new label to fill the spot I cut out, combine the layers and save the file with a new name.

 

If you can point me to some useful tutorials great, if not just figure this post is a rant by some frustrated, unemployed, chemist.

[Ghogiel]

You can just use any image edting software you are comfortable with, ie ignore GIMP.

 

If your image editing software doesn't have dds support, You can get programs that convert dds files to some lossless format like tga/png. Open that in corel, edit it then save a png back out.

then use ddsopt to convert your image into a dds.

 

 

ddsopt> http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/5755/?

Edited January 13, 2014 by Ghogiel

[Belthan]

If you prefer an image editor that doesn't have native DDS support, another option to quickly convert textures from DDS to another format and back is DXTBMP. If your texture doesn't have an alpha (transparency) channel, it's particularly fast and easy to go back and forth between DDS and BMP (as the name implies). It can also handle textures with alpha; it just isn't quite as quick or easy for that.

[Chemist18]

Hey guys thanks for the responses. I think I've gotten GIMP figured out enough so I can use it.

 

The only issue I'm having at this time is getting the normal maps to not make my brick walls look like they are made out of bright shiny copper. I think I have that one licked too though.

Edited January 23, 2014 by Chemist18