Oh, I just realized that the nvidia plugins don't work for photoshop cs4 64bit. Does anyone have an alternative? I assume the best course of action is to get one of those free image viewers and save the images out in some other format. But I figured I'd check with people here before going through the hassle.
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The lack of vtools and the nvidia tools for cs4 has kept me from upgrading thusfar.
http://developer.nvidia.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=2493
Edit... a good alternative is to simply use the newer command-line tool. It supports PSD format, and it's very fast. You just have to write a .BAT file for it, or better yet make a javascript tool like James did with vTools.
i have a problem about ps cs4 64 bit...i want to open DDS file in there but it says here that the plug in didn`t work for 64 bit so i want to change from 64 bit to 32 bit but i dont know how..plz tell me!!! i really need that ASAP!!
http://docs.kaneva.com/mediawiki/index.php/Photoshop_DDS_Exporter
http://code.google.com/p/nvidia-texture-tools/issues/detail?id=33#c8
But there is an alternative, as Froyok posted above!
Thanks again!
**EDIT**
Okay scratch that. Got it working, but the damn thing doesn't support exportation of DDS cubemaps! what gives?
Not to mention you still can't open the DDS' themselves in PS5
Excellent points, thanks for the feedback. If I can squirrel away some free time, I may see if I can address the issues that you mentioned. The import limitation seems particularly limiting.
Opening DDS, hmm, not sure about that one sorry, still using CS3 here. But... I think you can use the Texture Tools command line functions to spit out a TGA or PSD from DDS input? Edit.. yeah, nvdecompress.
Edit edit... talk to your tech artists!
For saving lots of textures, the blistering speed from the CUDA enabled version is totally worth the extra bit of hassle.
Thanks for the feedback. : ) I just uploaded another version of the tool (really a set of utilities now). Most notably you can now import DDS files into Photoshop (still no cubemap support though). : )
Please let me know if you encounter any bugs etc.
http://docs.kaneva.com/mediawiki/index.php/Photoshop_DDS_Exporter#Download
I developed the utilities principally in CS5 (64-bit), so they "should" work well in CS5. : ) Make sure that you do not drop the contents of the extracted "PS64_DDSUtils__v1.2" folder in the root of the Presets\Scripts directory. Instead the intact "PS64_DDSUtils__v1.2" folder (containing the prefs.jsx and the readme.txt files) should be placed in the Presets\Scripts directory, alongside the "PS64_DDSUtils_Importer__v1.2" and the "PS64_DDSUtils_Exporter__v1.2" files. See the image below for more information. Hope this helps. : )
Have a look at this tool. I haven't actually used it myself as of yet, but it appears to be quite powerful.
http://www.cgted.com/
http://tech-artists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1217
Great stuff, many thanks eevans! This is a well designed tool, normal maps are much better quality than nvidia and any other tools/plugins. The only downside is having to run a script, meaning you can't do anything else until you close it. Anyway, this is going to be used from now on so thanks once again for the link and thanks to the creator
ps: had some problems installing as there were no instructions so this is for anyone else who can't suss what to do: you have to install microsoft silverlight to view the install instructions but if you don't want to do that...
Cheers
Edit... I found this tool really helpful for keeping track of updates like this
http://www.changedetection.com/
That's great news! Way to step it up, NVIDIA. : ) In the meantime, I just uploaded a fix for my work-around script utilities. Thanks to Kayo, a fix for some incorrect paths is now in place. Kayo also reported an as of yet unresolved issue. DXT1 1-bit alpha does not currently import correctly. The export works properly, and DXT5 alpha seems to both export and import correctly. I'll see if I can't come up with a fix shortly.
http://docs.kaneva.com/mediawiki/index.php/Photoshop_DDS_Exporter
Never mind, DXT1 import/export seems to be working correctly after all. : ) As an aside, layer-based transparency (i.e. via masks) is currently discarded at DDS export. This is due to the fact that I'm using the TGA file format as an intermediary. As such, it is necessary to consolidate all transparency data into a single alpha channel prior to export.
I've had a few reports of the script crashing on the first run, but I haven't been able to reproduce the issue myself. If anyone else is able to reproduce this crash (or any other issue for that matter), the information would be greatly appreciated.
How would you write a .BAT file for the command line tool so that it would batch through a folder, converting to DXT1?
1. In the folder where your TGAs are, make a new TXT file.
2. Rename it something like DXT1.BAT
3. Edit it like this: 4. Save it and run it.
Each image needs its own line in the batch file. They might support feeding it a TXT file list of image names, not sure. But a better way to make this more flexible would be to write a Python script or somesuch that makes a list of all the TGA files in your folder(s) and writes them into a temporary BAT file with the syntax you want. A batch to make a batch.
Edit... here's the list of commands:
http://code.google.com/p/nvidia-texture-tools/wiki/CommandLineTools
I'm not up on Python but can get by in maxscript so I'll give Python a look when I get some free time.
Fixed a crash bug caused by invalid import file paths, Ergo, v1.3.5. : )
http://docs.kaneva.com/mediawiki/index.php/Photoshop_DDS_Exporter
I just asked them and they are not going to update them "for now".
Nvidia have just updated their plugin !
Now available for 64bit and 32bit !
Champagne !
took them forever lol.
About 2 weeks difference, fortunately Numerator was wrong:poly142:
But now I can have the best of both!
The export utility is accessed under the "File->Scripts" menu, not in the save dialog box. Then you can record an action to bind it to a hotkey. It compresses dds files SUPER fast, in the blink of an eye if you have a decent Nvidia card.
So I was. I was just going by what the manager of the group told me.