dds plugin question

r13

Does anyone have a DDS exporter plugin that will allow you to keep layers when exporting a DDS from photoshop? The Nvidia one I’m using requires me to flatten the image before exporting each time. I always step back up the history, which is doable obviously, but if I could skip this step with a properly featured plugin would be nice.

Fordy

I might be wrong but I dont think the .DDS file format allows for layers. Can't you just keep the original as a Photoshop .PSD file and export when necessary?

rawkstar

if I remember correctly dds files are just compressed targas, don't think they support layers. I usually just use PSDs till its time to put stuff in the engine.

monster

Fordy, I don't think he wants to save the layers, he just doesn't want the extra step of flattening before save.

I used the one from this site with Photoshop 7:
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/nv_texture_tools.html
And it didn't require me to flatten the image before saving.

Snowfly

You could just set up an Action that flattens, saves a DDS with the settings you want, and then unflattens. What I don't recall off-hand is if Photoshop recognizes DDS settings as recordable actions...

Eric Chadwick

It does not. I asked Doug Rogers about exposing their DDS plugin to Actions, and he said "what are actions?"

So if you make an Action, it will just use the last settings you used. But everytime you restart Photoshop, the DDS tool forgets the last setting you used.

Though you can save DDS settings in the tool. They're just not exposed to Action scripting.

I've had that warning sometimes about "incorrect input format" or somesuch, never was able to narrow it down. Sometimes it's cool with all the layers, sometimes not...

Ryno

How about an action that duplicates the image, flattens it, then does Save As... At which point you will need to name it, and choose the DDS format?

Eric Chadwick

Hey, I figured out why I get the "Unsupported input format" error...

The PSD needs a true "Background" layer. Without it I get the error. Select the bottom-most layer, Layer menu > New > Background from Layer. Probably a hotkey for it, whatever.

That one was bugging me for a while.