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)

[z929669]

Just checked out the Pre 5b ... several additional fine-tuning options as well as two new constraints.

 

@Ethatron

Would you care to describe some of the feature enhancements (or point to some notes)?

 

- do you need anyone to test anything in particular?

[alt3rn1ty]

There was a minor problem with pre 5 which Ethatron asked me to show him files to reproduce the problem (some normal maps which when resized down a mip would have the normal map data downsized from say 1024 to 512, but the resulting image still had a 'canvas' size of 1024, with the resized data positioned in the upper left 512x512 quarter of the whole image) ..

 

At the time Ethatron mentioned that some of the new options in the beta were just graphical placements for the time being which I take to mean not functional. However DDSOpt is also executeable via command line, and has a command line help - Which I think was hinted at having some of those new options available if run by the command line switches method)

 

In pre 5b the problem I reported seems to be resolved, but I dont know if any more advancement on the new options have been put in place.

The ini has been updated more in the latest betas too compaired with previous versions which I had become very familiar with.

 

I have to admit I dont use it for its intended objectives (ie optimisation), in my case I use it to speed up what would take hours added onto G.I.M.P processing all the files in batch scripts .. After those I use DDSOpt to do a final fast pass on all files to remip them, with a lot of options switched off so as to lose as little detail / quality as possible for vanilla reduced textures.

The way things are developing though, I am starting to wonder if one day DDSOpt will be capable of doing what I have done with that mod .. in like 20 minutes :), by degrees DDSOpt is refining what was already a remarkable tool. The newer percentage reduction options has eliminated half my objectives battle, used on different batches of textures which need halving in different ways, you can just about do everything vanilla. I am not obsolete yet though :P

 

There was mention of a pre 6 to come, but the next beta to appear was pre 5b, so whether this is a stepping stone to pre 6 or not I dont know.

 

PS - Thank you Frihyland for the shiny :)

[Kelmych]

I don't think we need to eliminate Soul Gems Differ when processing TPC with the most recent versions of DDSopt. Ethatron mentioned successfully using DDSopt with that mod in a recent post.

 

I'm not sure when to use the new added selectable options in DDSopt pre5b in the Behave: Textures tab. By default they are not selected (they are not checked). Are there particular mod texture categories for which these are appropriate?

[z929669]

PS - Thank you Frihyland for the shiny :)

 

... but still a prisoner nonetheless :P

 

Just 8 more posts to become a full-fledged Citizen ;)

 

Sounds like you get some good use out of DDSopt that I had not considered (but I have not taken to modding textures... yet.). If you review the history of this thread, there are a number of informative posts that you may or may not be enlightened by (check the OP).

[z929669]

I don't think we need to eliminate Soul Gems Differ when processing TPC with the most recent versions of DDSopt. Ethatron mentioned successfully using DDSopt with that mod in a recent post.

 

I'm not sure when to use the new added selectable options in DDSopt pre5b in the Behave: Textures tab. By default they are not selected (they are not checked). Are there particular mod texture categories for which these are appropriate?

As alt3rn1ty stated, those are probably dummy options at the moment, but who knows?

 

I will be taking a look at the command line help at next opportunity ... can't believe I never thought of that :><:>

[alt3rn1ty]

Sounds like you get some good use out of DDSopt that I had not considered (but I have not taken to modding textures... yet.). If you review the history of this thread, there are a number of informative posts that you may or may not be enlightened by (check the OP).

Yep, even for people like me who do not wish to crunch the heck out of textures, its still a very useful tool in lots of ways.

 

Its just loads of little things like downsizing face normal maps for one example, which still needs a bit of human/G.I.M.P love (sorry if that sounds uhm, wrong) to prevent your none blocky maps becoming blocky. Vanilla were bad enough before touch up, but to let DDSOpt then process those touch ups with default settings .. offends thine eye :) (especially after the game engine stretches them at lower resolutions for the type of machines likely to be using my mod)

 

Ref the wiki guide, when the next full release of DDSOpt comes out the filtering advice will need pruned a little, the new ini includes I think most of them as special processing cases.

 

One thing I have not done with pre 5b is re-visit terrain textures (LODs and maps).

Last time I had a few command line batch files to redirect to a txt file all the thousands of names in there, which was then further processed in notepad++ to bookmark (via the find options) all the files to delete, then via the edit menu delete all bookmarked lines ..

Resulting in a batch file for xcopy to separate a few thousand files again via command line into different folders which DDSOpt used to choke on (planar) for re-mipping. Again used GIMP on all terrain textures with a brew of scripting, then only used DDSOpt on the files it could handle to finish off remip.

 

Anyway long story short - I think planar texture problems with DDSOpt (besides those few in the ini) may also be a thing of the past .. As mentioned though I have yet to try that job (see above diatribe - it was daunting the last time :))

 

Edit: PS - Off topic, but for anyone with Optimus laptop machines Sir Garnon (aka mnelson99) will have an update to Skyrim Performance Monitor at the weekend which will have a new setiings option in an attempt to get SPM to see the actual graphics card in use. See the comments.

[z929669]

Yes, a wiki update is long overdue and likely worthwhile now that Ethatron is actively developing DDSopt again.... but not until I tinker more with the new version on the vanilla textures that it seems like I have run through the app a hundred times now ... ugh

[alt3rn1ty]

:D Only 100 ?

[Ethatron]

Just checked out the Pre 5b ... several additional fine-tuning options as well as two new

constraints.

Yeah, I detected on a mod some tint-maps, and because skin-tones are sometimes severly changed by the colour-precision offered by DXT-compression, I thought it should be adressable if someone wants to. They also are not like regular colour images which will be shown on your monitor, but they are basically data for a blending-algorithm which must not be considered as-if-to-be-displayed-on-your-monitor, like all the other colour textures. So while I already had to classify them I just added them to the constraints.

@Ethatron

Would you care to describe some of the feature enhancements (or point to some notes)?

 

- do you need anyone to test anything in particular?

Hm, I just exposed the strength "knobs" of the algorithms to the GUI. How much contrast is applied, how much gamma-corretion is applied, how much brighter (thicker) the foilage gets etc. They are all ad-hoc values, there is no scientific basis to it, trial'n'error.

I added the information which strength will be used of what to the preview-info, in that info-field below. So one basically can become aware when what applies.

 

In pre5 I think I added the new alpha-channel compressor, which should have half the error-rate. I also changed some thinks to be Skyrim-specific, which differ from Oblivion - like in Oblivion the used shader get's switched if you use DXT1 or DXT3, that is not the case in Skyrim; so in Skyrim it doesn't matter if a map is DXT1 or DXT5 unlike in Oblivion. This leads to more smaller textures, at least on my run.

 

I recompressed all of the texture I use, and it looks fine so far. I'm still after the exact file which causes the screen's blood-splatter to go black (it's probably fxbloodflare.dds, and the reason is the 1x1 planar conversion), but haven't had the time to fire Skyrim up.

The Soulgems Differ should work in theory, but the setup is such a PITA without NMM (and even with) that I haven't checked it out. You may just try and report back.

[Ethatron]

At the time Ethatron mentioned that some of the new options in the beta were just graphical placements for the time being which I take to mean not functional. However DDSOpt is also executeable via command line, and has a command line help - Which I think was hinted at having some of those new options available if run by the command line switches method)

 

Other way 'round, the GUI options are fine (if they are unset it's an error, they should have defaults ...), I haven't updated the commandline options to set those values there too.

[Ethatron]

Defaults:

Normal-map steepness raise -> 8x

Foilage-map opacity raise -> 5.0x

Colour-map gamma -> g^2.2

Alpha-map contrast -> c^2.0

[z929669]

Just checked out the Pre 5b ... several additional fine-tuning options as well as two new

constraints.

Yeah, I detected on a mod some tint-maps, and because skin-tones are sometimes severly changed by the colour-precision offered by DXT-compression, I thought it should be adressable if someone wants to. They also are not like regular colour images which will be shown on your monitor, but they are basically data for a blending-algorithm which must not be considered as-if-to-be-displayed-on-your-monitor, like all the other colour textures. So while I already had to classify them I just added them to the constraints.

@Ethatron

Would you care to describe some of the feature enhancements (or point to some notes)?

 

- do you need anyone to test anything in particular?

Hm, I just exposed the strength "knobs" of the algorithms to the GUI. How much contrast is applied, how much gamma-corretion is applied, how much brighter (thicker) the foilage gets etc. They are all ad-hoc values, there is no scientific basis to it, trial'n'error.

I added the information which strength will be used of what to the preview-info, in that info-field below. So one basically can become aware when what applies.

 

In pre5 I think I added the new alpha-channel compressor, which should have half the error-rate. I also changed some thinks to be Skyrim-specific, which differ from Oblivion - like in Oblivion the used shader get's switched if you use DXT1 or DXT3, that is not the case in Skyrim; so in Skyrim it doesn't matter if a map is DXT1 or DXT5 unlike in Oblivion. This leads to more smaller textures, at least on my run.

 

I recompressed all of the texture I use, and it looks fine so far. I'm still after the exact file which causes the screen's blood-splatter to go black (it's probably fxbloodflare.dds, and the reason is the 1x1 planar conversion), but haven't had the time to fire Skyrim up.

The Soulgems Differ should work in theory, but the setup is such a PITA without NMM (and even with) that I haven't checked it out. You may just try and report back.

Great details to know ... not dummies after all it seems, but lots to test for sure.

 

BTW, you can use the BAIN Wizard for Soul Gems Differ. I revamped Thechosenone's original, so you should be able to "easily" select the textures you want to see from Wrye Bash.

[alt3rn1ty]

At the time Ethatron mentioned that some of the new options in the beta were just graphical placements for the time being which I take to mean not functional. However DDSOpt is also executeable via command line' date=' and has a command line help - Which I think was hinted at having some of those new options available if run by the command line switches method)[/quote']

Other way 'round' date=' the GUI options are fine (if they are unset it's an error, they should have defaults ...), I haven't updated the commandline options to set those values there too.[/quote']

I had a feeling I had misunderstood something there .. Cool, new options to experiment with.

 

I had an experimental session last night with the vanilla terrain textures folder, very pleased to find it coped with every one of them admirably.

I think the previous version I tried that with (hence all the bat file juggling noted earlier) was pre 3, but I cannot remember the exact settings I was using to reproduce the problems .. Though I think they would have been very similar to what I tried last night which had no problems.

So no more hiccups to report from me at this time :)

 

Edit: Before I forget, can the two problem files found by lnki in this post be addressed as a special case via the ini ?

[Ethatron]

Hm, difficult problem. As the thresholding artifacts of DXT1 only appear in the mip-maps.

You might be able to create DXT1 versions without the rim when a proper contrast-adjustment on the mip-maps goes on (you know b/w get's averaged from the original sized texture, and then you get some grey mip-map, and then comes DXT1 and says, hey I can only do b/w, and splits the gradient in b/w again, which overshoots the outline basically, that means pixels not suppose to be visible become visible, and those pixels where black in the original, not some fill colour).

I think it's a case of recompression-of-DXT1s-can-suck (on our part, and on the initial creators part), or you-need-to-consider-more-than-you-thought-of-making-textures (on the initial creators part). :)

[gwoody79]

When trying the most recent versions of DDSopt a System Error message pops up

"The program can't start because MSVCP110.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem"

 

This happens on the pre4 and pre5 versions, but DDSopt v0.8.0 (preview III) works fine and this error message doesn't appear.

 

I use a shared computer, so unsure if something was deleted to get this error message.

Searching online, most recommendations were to use a registry cleaner but I am having hard time finding a good/free one to use.

 

Any advice would be really helpful and appreciated, kinda stuck and unsure what step to take to fix this problem.