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   DXT Compression Plugin


    This .dds Photoshop plugin requires Direct3D 9.0 or higher  to be installed.

     DirectX 9 is available at:  http://www.microsoft.com/windows/directx/downloads/drx90.asp


    Copy the file dds.8bi to

    \Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop 5.5\Plug-Ins\File Formats  or
    \Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop 6.0\Plug-Ins\File Formats or
    \Program Files\Adobe\Photoshop 7.0\Plug-Ins\File Formats


    This should work with Paint Shop Pro, but I have not tested it


    Use "Save As" and "DDS" to save compressed files
    Allows dropping .dds files into PhotoShop

 


Save Format

    Chooses which format to save the image as.  This is affected by Options and Fade To Color below it.

    DXT1, DXT1 with alpha, DXT3 and DXT5 are compressed formats

    DXT1's compression ratio is 8:1

    DXT3 and DXT5's are 4:1 compression ratio

    Other formats are uncompressed

        16 bit (4444) - 4 bits for alpha, red, green and blue

        16 bit (1555) - 1 bit for alpha, 5 for red, green and blue

        16 bit (565) - no alpha, 5 bits for red, 6 bits for green, 5 bits for blue

        32 bit RGB - 8 bits for alpha, red, green and blue

        24 bit RGB    - 8 bits for red, green and blue 

        16 bit (0:5:5:5) 5 bits for red, green and blue 

        8 bit index  - create a 256 entry paletted texture RGB or RGBA

        V8U8 - Environment-Mapped Bump Mapping (EMBM) format. 16 bit

        CxVuU8 - Compressed Normal map format C = sqrt(1 - (U2 + V2)). 16 bit

        A8 - Alpha channel only. 8 bit    

        4 bit indexed - create a 16 entry paletted texture RGB or RGBA

    MIP maps

        Generate MIP maps - MIP maps will automatically be generated for you.  Filtering and Sharpening applies.

        The combo box specifies the number of MIP maps to generate or use from the existing image.

        Use Existing MIP maps - The image contains the MIP maps already. Use those. 

        No MIP maps - No MIP maps will be exported.

    MIP map generation (Filter)

        When MIP maps are generated, different filtering algorithms are used to create the MIP levels.

        Box - Fastest, but lowest quality

        Cubic -  Fits a cubic spline curve to each color component and selects points on the curve to generate new colors.

        Full Discrete Fourier - Frequency domain filtering.  Result may look better than Kaiser on some images, and worse on others.  YMMV.

        Kaiser - Variable Window filtering function.

        Kaiser (Gamma Space) - Highest quality MIP map generation, but slowest.  Kaiser filter, gamma corrected.  

 

    Filter Settings

        Kaiser Gamma, Used in  Kaiser (Gamma Space) filter.  Gamma value. Default 2.0. 

        Kaiser Filter Window Parameter -  Filter window size, call the alpha value

        Filter Width - Width of all filters

 

    Sharpen

        Sharpen -  Adds a sharpening filter after the MIP maps have been generated.  Sharpening is accomplished with the warp-sharp technique. http://www.cs.technion.ac.il/~gotsman/AmendedPubl/EnhancementByImage/EnhancementByI-D.pdf

        Sharpen Settings - displays sharpen setting dialog

 

    Sharpen Settings

        Edge Radius - Width of edge detection

        Lambda - Strength of sharpening

        Clamping Value - Values that stops texels from drifting.  Keep this greater than zero.

        Theta - Used in anisotropic filtering.  Blend value from src to dest image

        Non-Maximal Suppression - Add clamping to filter

        Two Components -  Create two images and process these

        Anisotropic - Alternate version of warp sharp.

        SharpBlur - Used in anisotropic filtering.  Sharpen the warped image. 

        

        Experiment with these options for best result.

    Options

         DitherColor - jitters image so 16 bit image look better. dithers then generates the MIP levels.

         Normalize MIP maps - set this if you are exporting a normal map

         DitherEachMIP - Dithering applied to each MIP level

         BorderColor (1 texel) - Create a one texel border around each MIP level.  

         Border Color - Specify the border color

         GreyScale - Set if image is all or mostly a grey scale or Normal Map (Makes weighting the same for each color channel)

  Alpha

        Alpha Zero Border - Set the alpha channel to zero for the border of each MIP level

        Binary Alpha - treats alpha as one bit only for MIP map generation

        Binary Alpha Threshold - When Binary Alpha is selected, this value determine if the alpha is zero or one.  If the alpha channel is greater than or euqal to this threshold, alpha is set to 1.0, otherwise alpha is set to 0.0.

 

Fade MIP maps

    You can fade each MIP maps to a specific color.  

        Fade Color - gradually fades from the image to a selectable color over n MIP maps.

        Fade Color button selects the color 

        Blend Amount lets you specify a percentage fade for each MIP level.

        Start at MIP.  delays fade until a given MIP level

        Specify.  Instead of programmatically fading alpha, you can specify the alpha fade on a per MIP map level.  This button displayes the 'Blend per MIP level' dialog.

 

MIP 0 (base image cannot be faded)

Specify what percentage of the fade amount for each MIP level

Set numbers allow up to 10 different fade profiles to be saved

Controls are disabled if there is no MIP map present.  In this case levels 10-13

Use These Fade Amounts - Enable the use of the blending set.  Otherwise the main dialog values are used.

 

 

 

 

Normal Map Conversion Options

This is the dialog to create normal maps from height information.  The height can come from the alpha or color channels.

The normals are created by using adjacent texels.  You can specify how many in the "Height Generation" area.

Scale - Specifies how much to scale the height values. floating point value.

MinZ - Forces the "up" direction to be a minimum value

3D Preview - 3D rendered version using the normal map

Du/Dv -  Use this to create EMBM maps

Alternate conversions

    Biased RGB subtracts average color of image from each texel

    Red - Use the red channel as height 

    Green - Use the green channel as height 

    Blue - Use the blue channel as height 

    Max - Use the maximum value from the R,G and B channel

    Color space - Height = 1.0 - [(1.0 - r) * (1.0 - g) * (1.0 - b)]

    Normalize Only - Image is already a normal map, just renormalize

Alpha Field - Specifies what is placed in the alpha channel after normal map generation

    Select 'Using Multiple Layers' if you are are using Layers and cannot get the alpha channel to work

 

 

Preview Options

        Alpha Blending - Enables/disable alpha blending using the alpha channel of the texture

        Show Differences - Compares the full precision image with the modes that are selected

        Enable Filtering - Enables disable all texture filters

        MIP Mapping - Enables/disable MIP mapping 

        Anisotropic - Enables/disables anisotropic filterng

 

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