What is the proper setting for save .DDS file? (Photoshop CS6)

[mew5151515]

I have try to edit the .dds file in photoshop and choose merge visible but don't know the proper setting to save.

 

Diffuse (femalebody_1.dds)

Normalmap (femalebody_1_msn.dds

SSS (femalebody_1_sk.dds)

Specular (femalebody_1_s.dds)

 

Does anyone know? :tongue:

[Deleted49413338User]

I don't know about photoshop but I generally use there settings in Gimp https://imgur.com/a/Q1Km0Q7

 

MipMaps are the layers of the same pic that get smaller and smaller, I think most textures have those so choose to generate mipmaps. but.. idk, I'm in the wrong forum, lol I don't use photoshop or play Skyrim atm. so hopefully someone else can verify for you.

[FrankFamily]

You'll want DXT1(aka BC1) for images with only 3 channels (R,G,B) like diffuses without transparency, and DXT5(BC3) for those thatt have alpha channel. Generally you want mipmaps, yes.

[mew5151515]

  On 12/6/2018 at 9:02 PM, FrankFamily said:

You'll want DXT1(aka BC1) for images with only 3 channels (R,G,B) like diffuses without transparency, and DXT5(BC3) for those thatt have alpha channel. Generally you want mipmaps, yes.

 

Diffuse (femalebody_1.dds) DXT1

Normalmap (femalebody_1_msn.dds DXT5

SSS (femalebody_1_sk.dds) DXT5

Specular (femalebody_1_s.dds) DXT5

Did I understand this correctly?

[FrankFamily]

I'm not familiar with skin textures in particular, but I extracted vanilla and all seem to have just rgb, no alpha channels. So all DXT1, if anything you may want to leave the normal map uncompressed to avoid artifacts, the size will be MUCH larger though, and if you are starting from vanilla normal maps that are compressed there's not much gain in doing it if the existing artifacts aren't removed.

 

Check here if you aren't familiar with channels in PS: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/channel-basics.html

In all of these you should only see RGB, no alpha. It's possible you have an all-white unused alpha in them depending on formats the were saved previously, if so, just remove it before saving. As said, looking at vanilla it doesn't seem like any of these will use alpha channel for anything. So DXT5 will only double the size by introducing an all-white alpha channel for no benefit at all.

Edited December 8, 2018 by FrankFamily