GUIDE [WIP] DDSopt & Texture Overhauls

[z929669]

Discussion thread:
DDSopt Guide by STEP
Wiki Link

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GET DDSopt:
Github Pre-release versions
Official Nexus versions (select pre-release update 4)

[Kelmych]

Is there some way to categorize textures such that DDSopt behavior is likely to be different on the different categories? Fri suggests starting with representative textures from three important categories. Would it be possible to suggest some additional categories and then select a representative texture from each to test after Fri's three are are done. For example, we might recommend textures from one of the AMB weapons (since they are fairly complex textures relative to those from many of the other weapon mods) and from one or more body mods such as Eyes of Beauty and Better Beast Races.

[z929669]

The INI treats special cases, and textures are already categorized according to file nomenclature (mostly, but there are obvious exceptions for which the INI can handle).

 

We need some volunteers to run DDSopt on all textures of specific mods (Fri's list is a good start) and, within-game, render assets that use those textures and create screenshots of anything that seems problematic.

 

I don't know the console commands offhand, but Fri probably does.

 

@Fri

Care to suggest a standard testing methodology for DDSopt?

[frihyland]

Hmm, yeah I could whip something up. Might have something here late this evening.

[z929669]

Hmm' date=' yeah I could whip something up. Might have something here late this evening.[/quote']

Sounds good. If you get something started, I will add to it if it makes sense.

[Ethatron]

AMB weapons

 

Link?

[frihyland]

AMB weapons

Link?

aMidianBorn Book of Silence

[Ethatron]

Thanks. Do you know what the guy's using to create the DDSs?

[frihyland]

Thanks. Do you know what the guy's using to create the DDSs?

No idea, but he checks his thread here regularly so you could post there and ask him.

[JudgmentJay]

Pretty sure I've seen him mention Photoshop multiple times.

[Ethatron]

I'll upload a new preview later (like right now). Most of the work I've done lately has more to do with DX11 compression (top quality of all available libraries), but I could cross-port a few of the things to the old DX9 compression.

 

- alpha-channel compression should be about 50% nearer to lossless (I managed to reduce the compression error/loss by half), just matters for uncompressed-to-compressed conversions

- colour compression should be a tiny bit more exact, but I don't think it's percievable

- I think it should be a bit faster now as well

 

My checklist:

• "Soul Gems Differ" passes now with compressed non-pow2 textures, -42.685.640 bytes
• "Better Dwemer Ruins" passes, but I think some normal maps are broken (black holes, rims), uh and "dwemerobservatoryskyrimmapglow.dds" shows what piece of junk the compressor did (green speckles, but different ones in each mip-level), -212.230.504 bytes
• "Better Dwemer Ruins - Bonus Clutter" passes, but I think some normal maps are broken (black holes, rims), -2.796.256 bytes
• "101 Bugs - HD Insect Retextures" passes, non-pow2 and no mipmaps in the original, lot's of strips but also lots of adding mipmap (every file), +612.216 bytes
• "W.A.T.E.R." passes, I changed the ini to "effects\fxwatertileflat_n.dds=RAW", that file needs every bit of precision it can get, -11.709.161 bytes
• "Better Beast Races" passes, I recommend compressing to R565 the difference is unpercievable, I have to check that in-game though, -67.458.380 bytes
• "Book of Silence" passes, though I want to investigate this pack a bit, the textures are the best I've seen (from compression PoV), though often very softened out (check out the alpha-channel of "armor\elven\f\cuirass_n.dds", at 1024x1024, the source is very flattened out, I almost think DXT5 would have been a better option anyway), I'm not sure but I may suggest to calculate all normals-maps without the steep-option, or to do a longer and detailed comparison, -12.757.888 bytes
• "Silverlight Armor", same observation, very nice texture, too much smooth in the mipmaps
• "Cloaks of Skyrim", passed, some texture are gamma-correct mipmapped, wow, others are not compressed at all, hmm, -154.839.011 bytes
• "Climates Of Tamriel", passed, basically no changes
• "Dev Aveza", passed, -2.490.648 bytes
• "Expanded Towns and Cities" passed, I added a tint-type under the constraints tab and prevented the gamma-correction to apply to face/tint-maps, -45.830.152 bytes
• "Expanded Winterhold Ruins" passes, -928.768 bytes
• "HQ Food Ingredients" passes, -19.923.736 bytes
• "HQ Towns and Villages" passes, -17.520.480 bytes
• "That's Ice" passes, but I recommend to compress to R565 here, I guess the DXT is too blocky, have to check that ingame, -1.835.007 bytes
• "Realistic Smoke and Embers", this already has R565 normal maps, no need to re-compress
• "Ruins Clutter Improvement HD" passes, interestingly there is one R444A4 normal-map in it, seems someone is thinking about precisions after all, still, -8.388.962 bytes
• "The Eyes of Beauty" passes, is criminal, not a single file with mipmaps, +20.362.668 bytes
• "Maty's Mithril" passes, -560.435 bytes
• "Real Wildlife" passes, I have the impression some maps are actually DDSopted, must be an old version as the files are not watermarked, -18.153.188 bytes
• "Morrowind Armor" passes, but it has probably the rarest of all rarest occurences, there is a black & white subsurface map on a dagger which gets converted to DXT1, basically killing all the texture, I added it to the .ini and I also extended the DXT1-aproved code to back off when there is alpha==black (fully transparent) but having full colour, -52.724.921 bytes
• "Project Parallax" passes, though I added parallax-maps as extra type to the constraints tab and prevented the gamma-correction to apply to parallax-maps, if you want really great quality they should be in L8 format, maybe someone convinces the author to release the "Lossless L8"-Kit of it, none of the textures has mip-maps, is that intentional?, +8.937.448 bytes
• "Terrain Bump" passes, these maps of course shouldn't be DXTed, defeats the purpose, but they are so noisy that you can use R444A4 and R565 on all of them without problem, -42.292.548 bytes
• "SkyTEST - Realistic Animals and Predators" passes, -20.385.406 bytes
• "Insanity's Texture Pack" passes, -35.652.176 bytes

[Neovalen]

Giving it a download.

[z929669]

I'll upload a new preview later (like right now). Most of the work I've done lately has more to do with DX11 compression (top quality of all available libraries), but I could cross-port a few of the things to the old DX9 compression.

 

- alpha-channel compression should be about 50% nearer to lossless (I managed to reduce the compression error/loss by half), just matters for uncompressed-to-compressed conversions

- colour compression should be a tiny bit more exact, but I don't think it's percievable

- I think it should be a bit faster now as well

 

My checklist:

- "Soul Gems Differ" passes now with compressed non-pow2 textures, -42685640 bytes

- "Better Dwemer Ruins" passes, but I think some normal maps are broken (black holes, rims), uh and "dwemerobservatoryskyrimmapglow.dds" shows what piece of junk the compressor did (green speckles, but different ones in each mip-level), -212230504 bytes

- "Better Dwemer Ruins - Bonus Clutter" passes, but I think some normal maps are broken (black holes, rims), -2796256 bytes

- "101 Bugs - HD Insect Retextures" passes, non-pow2 and no mipmaps in the original, lot's of strips but also lots of adding mipmap (every file), +612216 bytes

- "W.A.T.E.R." passes, I changed the ini to "effects\fxwatertileflat_n.dds=RAW", that file needs every bit of precision it can get, -11709161 bytes

- "Better Beast Races" passes, I recommend compressing to R565 the difference is unpercievable, I have to check that in-game though, -67458380 bytes

- "Book of Silence" passes,  though I want to investigate this pack a bit, the textures are the best I've seen (from compression PoV), though often very softened out (check out the alpha-channel of "armor\elven\f\cuirass_n.dds", at 1024x1024, the source is very flattened out, I almost think DXT5 would have been a better option anyway), I'm not sure but I may suggest to calculate all normals-maps without the steep-option, or to do a longer and detailed comparison, -12757888 bytes

- "Silverlight Armor", same observation, very nice texture, too much smooth in the mipmaps

- "Cloaks of Skyrim", passed, some texture are gamma-correct mipmapped, wow, others are not compressed at all, hmm, -154839011 bytes

Wow, thanks for this comprehensive analysis.

 

Could you look at Skyrim Flora Overhaul (as a test case for non-standard foliage) and That's Ice (wondering about normal maps on this one)?

 

I will also test out the new pre once I get some time.

• Is the new INI file updated according to your latest findings above?
• What is the diff between SSE3 and non-SSE3 version of pre4?

[Ethatron]

SSE3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSE3

[z929669]

Thanks, that clears it up ... should have Googled that :P

[Ethatron]

"Expanded Towns and Cities" has a broken BSA, the length-field of each file in the BSA is by 1 too short. Looking at the memory and the DDS-files it appears the size is wrong and no data missing, a DDS is alway a multiple of 4, and the common length is 349653, while a valid DDS file is 349652.

Just wanted to share that, maybe someone is a fan of the mod and approaches the author kindly, telling that the used BSA-utility is borken.