Carnage2K4 Posted June 23, 2016 Share Posted June 23, 2016 I'm just wondering on how other modders go about resizing Normal Maps, It's been pointed out to me at the resized normal maps for my mod (both vanilla and Gimp generated) have some holes in them, I assume this is from large areas of almost transparent pixels being reduced to 100% transparency as the image is resized, although, in saying that the Gimp generated Normal Maps are also receiving the same issue... I normally use Paint.net to resize my Normal Maps as it has a lot of DDS options, I normally save in DTX5 with 'Cluster Fit' and 'Perceptual' options ticked, however no mixing of these options seem to fix the issue. Below is an example of the issue, the vanilla 4K texture is on the right, and my resized 2K version is on the left, as you can see there are a lot of black (100% transparent) areas within the parts of the Normal Map that will show up on the model. So what methods do you guys use to create/resize normal maps? http://orig12.deviantart.net/8b2f/f/2016/174/0/3/normal_map_resize_by_carnage2k4-da7f3dc.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Di0nysys Posted June 23, 2016 Share Posted June 23, 2016 Photoshop/ or Paint.net But why are you resizing normals? Upsizing them is useless, downsizing might be relevant if you want to bring down a normal from 2k to 1k. Apart from that, upscaling a normal map will never give you more detail. It's just wasteful space. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carnage2K4 Posted June 23, 2016 Author Share Posted June 23, 2016 Photoshop/ or Paint.net But why are you resizing normals? Upsizing them is useless, downsizing might be relevant if you want to bring down a normal from 2k to 1k. Apart from that, upscaling a normal map will never give you more detail. It's just wasteful space. I never said I was up-scaling them.To quote myself:"the vanilla 4K texture is on the right, and my resized 2K version is on the left"4K to 2K is a down scale...I'm resizing them for 4K, 2K, and 1K versions of my mod. These are the results from a paint.net resize, I'm betting Photoshop does the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrankFamily Posted June 23, 2016 Share Posted June 23, 2016 Photoshop doesn't do this from my experience... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Exoclyps Posted June 24, 2016 Share Posted June 24, 2016 I just change the size of the "image" and then save? Just like with the 4k. I'm using Photoshop myself and had never had any issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deleted133263User Posted June 24, 2016 Share Posted June 24, 2016 Not sure whats gone wrong there but I would not use Paint.NET for handling DDS files - It can, but its support is limited and does not fully implement all possible types of DDS and can as a result lose information from the original texture I mention it in the second post of the All About Textures sticky topic, but only as an intermediary software for quick jobs and using Lossless formats like PNG https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/4591655-skyrim-all-about-textures/&do=findComment&comment=39703760 Paint.NET ( Supports some variations of dds textures, but not all of them ) - http://www.getpaint.net/index.htmlVariety of plugins pinned on the paint.net forums - http://forums.getpai...ublishing-only/Best used as an intermediary tool for some jobs and saving out the work in lossless png format, then you can load the work up in GIMP or PS afterwards without any loss to quality, before eventually saving out to a lossy dds texture. For the job you wish to do DDSOpt is actually very good when you become well acquainted with all of its menu options to get the best from them. http://wiki.step-project.com/Guide:DDSopt_%26_Texture_Overhauls Use the settings as shown in "The Interface" screenshots Something that is not well known about DDSOpt - When it re-does Mip Maps it produces the best detailled Mip Maps out of all software choices. Ethatrons algorithms for doing those are excellent. Compared side by side a redo of Mips Maps between PS / GIMP / DDSOpt, DDSOpt did better than the other two in terms of the quality of detail retained for distant viewing of the texture. Having a good source texture to start with helps obviously with no compression losses / artifacts from previous saves of the same texture, but no matter what texture tried ( various sizes and quality ) DDSOpt clearly produced the best interpolated lower scale downs of the top layer texture. I still use the Pre-release Update 4 version occasionally for jobs http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/5755/? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TechAngel85 Posted June 24, 2016 Share Posted June 24, 2016 Alt is right. DDSOpt is probably the best program for resizing textures and normals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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