What's the best way of saving all your texture maps from one PSD?

Jeff Parrott

So I've tried all the plug-ins for Photoshop on http://wiki.polycount.com/PhotoshopTools#Export_Tools

I used and still do like vTools the best.

What is everyone's preference for saving out multiple texture maps from 1 PSD file? Just wondering if there is a better way of doing this operation in Photoshop.

Ihazard

use an action, have it save out the diffuse then have it reveal a group, I make with a hue/saturation adjustment layer and any other specular details I want, and have it save the specular map out too, so I create diffuse and spec with just one click and have them both updated consistently, saves a bucket load of time, you could add normals to the mix if you were editing them that much I suppose

Jeff Parrott

But when you change texture files it overwrites the texture file you made the action for correct?

Ihazard

if you save out the diffuse while it's recording you save it as whatever_diffuse.tga, then the spec would be called whatever_specular.tga and it recognizes the difference in file names so you get both saved individually , well make sure you're saving as not just saving

Jeff Parrott

Yeah that's the problem I run into with actions. They work on that texture set then you have to change them when you start on the next texture. vTools and those other scripts do not save the texture name with them. If there is a way to do that with an action I'd love to know.

Ihazard

oh right I know what you mean, well you can edit actions and they don't take long to set up either

m4dcow

I only recently started using layer comps, and the "Layer Comps To Files" that is built into Photoshop. You just Name the layer comp whatever you want the map to be called, and add a prefix in the script. I did have to edit the default script because it would add 4 digit number to the filename outputs but it was easy enough to change.

I think it works pretty well for saving out multiple textures. You can't save alpha channels out selectively though, if you export as 32bit everything is 32bit.

EarthQuake

you should be able to set up vtools to save:

<filename>_n
<filename>_s
<filename>_d

and that should just work off your psd's file name, you're not able to do this? Or do you want some other functionality?

Jeff Parrott

Yeah that's exactly what I do EQ. I was just wondering what other people do for this and if there is some other way of doing it. vTools is great, but I just wanted to hear alternatives and other people's approaches.

Bal

I still use qSave, I have different save scripts depending on what I do, bound to ctrl-F2 to F5. I have one that saves everything map in it's own file, diffuse, normal, specular, etc, with the right file names and suffixes.
I guess it does what vtools does for you, don't know why but when I tried vtools a few years ago I couldn't get it doing what I wanted, I should try again sometime.

cw

I wrote my own little ps script a long time ago and it's my main thing I use nowadays.

Rough around the edges, but it packs alpha channels and can save out resized versions from the psd so it saves me a ton of time.