paint.net Paint.NET now supports all DDS formats (including BC7 Linear etc)

[Deleted133263User]

SPREAD THE WORD PEOPLE

 

If you know a Mod Author working on textures, who needs a solution to load and save in the newer Intel Texture Works dds formats like BC7, but they dont / cant afford to own Photoshop ..

 

.. Tell them to grab the latest Paint.NET

 

Even if they prefer working in something else like Affinity Photo or GIMP, but lack the ability to easily save out a dds file with mipmaps in the newer dds formats (GIMP has started supporting dds natively, but does not currently have all the newer formats) - Just save resulting work from your preferred graphics software to a lossless format like PNG. Load it up in Paint.NET, and then save it out in the desired dds format.

 

 

PDN now bundles a plugin made by null54, it used to be necessary to rename any dds file to work with to have a .dds2 extension name which was a bit of chore if you had many files to work with - Now it is officially bundled with PDN, .dds files are loaded and saved without any renaming of extensions

 

 

See the release notes here for PDN 4.2.2

https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/115144-paintnet-422-is-now-available/

 

PDN is now at version 4.2.5 and includes the latest dds plugin (further updated work since 4.2.2)

https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/115242-paintnet-425-is-now-available/?_fromLogin=1

 

Source for the plugin (where any issues found need to be reported) on Github

https://github.com/0xC0000054/pdn-ddsfiletype-plus

 

Paint.NET forum topic for the plugin

https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/111731-dds-filetype-plus-2019-09-20/

 

 

Edit : Please feel free to copy this post on the various official CK forums (I am no longer a member)

 

 

Paint.NET also now supports WebP https://developers.google.com/speed/webp/

 

(Another plugin bundled which was also programmed by null54)

 

Lossless and lossy, I havent used it yet but it sounds like its better than PNG and JPG for website performance.

 

---------------------------

 

To save a file in DDS formats :

Choose File / Save As

And use the drop down menu to select the DDS filetype

 

 

 

Then click Save

 

You will then be presented with the Save Configuration

 

Use the drop down menu to select the DDS format

 

 

 

And dont forget to tick the box for Generate MipMaps

PS - When choosing the compression mode in PDN, Slow = Fine (More accurate) (Fine as in Intel Texture Works definition of the compression mode)

 

 

 

 

And have a read of this topic - Its a bit old now, but still relevant I think.

https://www.afkmods.com/index.php?/topic/4283-all-about-textures/

Edited June 28, 2023 by Pickysaurus

[HadToRegister]

Thanks for the heads up!

[Deleted133263User]

Paint.NET also now supports WebP https://developers.google.com/speed/webp/

 

(Another plugin bundled which was also programmed by null54)

 

Lossless and lossy, I havent used it yet but it sounds like its better than PNG and JPG for website performance.

[Deleted133263User]

Small bit of info' ..

Watch out for updates to IrfanView in the future and the History of Changes

I have been in email conversation with Irfan, who has said "No promise"

But he may be tentatively looking into supporting all the newer DirectXTex DDS formats. At his request I made a load of different texture types (with / without alphas / normal / diffuse / specular etc), and then saved out duplicates of each in all the different formats with MipMaps. I also gave a run down of each of those with errors generated by the current IrfanView, whether they load / partial load / load elongated / do not load / correct Compression information given or not blah blah ..

Hopefully it will all be enough to help Irfan get the viewer up to date in viewing every dds format and the "Information" to help us find the original texture format, before working on it and saving it out in the correct format for its use case by the games concerned .. Fingers crossed :smile:

--------------------

Also the Paint.NET DDS FileType Plus plugin has been updated, you can still install this in FileTypes\ as Paint.NET will use either the Bundled version, or a manually installed version of the same plugin, and it will use the most recent whichever is newer of the two. So future updates to Paint.NET will use its own Bundled version if that then becomes newer than the one you manually installed.

Edited October 19, 2019 by Guest

[misslexi]

Thanks!

[Deleted133263User]

Someone on Nexus gave me a good tip :

RenderDoc designed to handle GPU formats, can be used as a Texture Viewer for dds

It gives the necessary info we need about what format a texture is

From the documentation https://renderdoc.org/docs/getting_started/tips_tricks.html

1. RenderDoc can be used as an image viewer! If you drag in or use file → open, you can open images in a variety of formats - .dds, .hdr, .exr, .bmp, .jpg, .png, .tga, .gif, .psd. The image will load up in RenderDoc’s texture viewer and you can use the normal controls to view it as if it were the only texture in a capture. Note that .dds files support all DXGI formats, compressed formats, arrays and mips - all of which will display as expected. If the file is modified, RenderDoc will reload it and display it. Note that changing the image’s dimensions or format will likely cause problems.

2. ~snip~

3. ~snip~

4. Right clicking on one of the channel buttons in the texture viewer (R, G, B, A) will either select only that channel, or if it’s already the only one selected it will select all of the others. This is useful e.g. to toggle between viewing RGB and alpha, or for looking at individual channels in a packed texture or render target.

----

 

I noticed a couple of issues with RenderDoc, though its something that can be worked around.

 

Issue 1. If you dont have enough horizontal Screen space, and the file path for the loaded texture is long, the Format of the texture goes off the end of the available space to show it.

 

To solve issue 1, I decided I did not need the "Event Browser" box open all the time, so closed it.

 

Issue 2. Currently in RenderDoc v1.5, if you have closed the Event Browser, and try to load a texture into RenderDoc (by whichever method), RenderDoc crashes.

 

Issue 1 is going to be addressed in a future version, I contacted Baldur

Issue 2 is fixed in a private build last night, so will be in the next version whenever that occurs.

 

Meanwhile, Baldur gave me a tip - You can get around Issue 2 by dragging and docking the "Event Browser" as another tab alongside the Texture Viewer Tab etc. Which free's up more horizontal space to show the full path and Format at the bottom of the interface (well that is so long as the file path is not so long as to hide the format again).

 

Anyway, those minor issues aside ..

 

I very much like RenderDoc (even if I dont have much if any use for its full potential), aswell as being able to select all Channels including the Alpha individually for viewing, I like also that you can use a drop down menu to see how many MipMaps the texture has, and I also like that among the Formats displayed RenderDoc also includes un-compressed Formats like A8R8G8B8 .. Whereas IrfanView would just not show any format info for such a texture because it is not compressed, so distinguishing un-compressed formats is a breeze with RenderDoc.

 

Its a bit slower to load than Irfanview, but its a lot more comprehensive for dds support than IrfanView.

 

I think RenderDoc has just become my favourite viewer for investigating dds files

[Deleted133263User]

Had a message from IrfanView programmer, and I dont think it will be supporting DirectXTex new formats any time soon.

Its a bit of a tall order for Irfan to overcome (he would need the code for plugins to be in C or C++, whereas C# has been used and conversion from one to the other is too complicated to attempt .. In other words its too big a job just to support a couple of new dds format texture types in a Viewer which is not really focussed on just that job)

Its still very useful for older games, but going forward RenderDoc mentioned above I think is going to be the main man for finding out original textures formats.

[Deleted133263User]

RenderDoc Pre-v1.6 Nightly build in use ..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ZAZAZ000000000000000000000]

1. Recent versions of Paint.NET break DDS files. Textures are visible in NifSkope and some other programs, but the game does not see them. This is why I returned to the old version of Paint.NET. I sometimes find such broken files even on this site. To fix these files, sometimes it’s enough to save them on the old version of Paint.NET.

2. All versions of Paint.NET spoil DDS files if there is transparency in the texture. Therefore, such textures must be saved in a different format. And then convert them to DDS with an online converter, or some kind of program. Such files also need to be checked in the game, and not just in NifSkope.

Sorry for my bad english.

[lmstearn]

1. Recent versions of Paint.NET break DDS files...

I believe it has been fixed in @Null54's most recent update of the save dialog.