DDS creation

This should describe the steps you'll have to follow in order to create DDS files suitable for use in your Dark Mod maps.

You'll need ATI's "The Compressonator" application version 1.21.1044 with this exact version - other (newer) versions will not work! Install/unzip it to a folder and create a shortcut if you like.

Compress Diffuse/Specular Maps

• Open your source (TGA) file
• Create Mip Maps using the Box-Filter with the lowest mip map size of 1x1.

• Compress the Image using DXT1 compression (0/1 bit alpha) with a colour weighting of red=0.3086, green=0.6094, blue=0.082. This applies for images without alpha. For images with alpha you'll have to choose the DXT3 compression.

• Save your DDS to the dds/ tree, e.g. dds/textures/darkmod/stone/blah.dds. You won't need to add the dds/ path prefix to your shader definition, this is automatically added by the game.

Compress Normalmaps

• Open your source (TGA) file
• Create Mip Maps using the Box-Filter with the lowest mip map size of 1x1 (same as for the diffuse maps).

• Compress your normalmap using the UberCompressor in DXT5 RXGB format with the colour weighting of red=0, green=0.5, blue=0.5 and "adaptive" ticked off.

• Save your DDS to the dds/ tree, e.g. dds/textures/darkmod/stone/blah_local.dds. You won't need to add the dds/ path prefix to your shader definition, this is automatically added by the game.

Batch Processing

Choose File > Batch Compress or hit F4 to open the batch compression dialog. Choose the same compression settings as described above for your diffuse and normal maps. Don't mix diffuse/speculars with normals as they require different compression settings.

Change the File Extension to lowercase

The Compressonator automatically names the file *.DDS, but all files should be lowercase (also the TGAs). Be sure to rename the files to a lowercase .dds extension before uploading them. This can also be done via the command line using:

ren *.DDS *.dds

Command Line Parameters

ATI's compressonator provides some command line parameters to compress the textures:

thecompressonator -convert "normal.tga" "normal.dds" RXGB +red 0.0 +green 0.5 +blue 0.5 -mipmaps 
thecompressonator -convert "specular.tga" "specular.dds" DXT1 -mipmaps 
thecompressonator -convert "diffuse.tga" "diffuse.dds" DXT1 -mipmaps 
thecompressonator -convert "diffuse_with_alpha.tga" "diffuse.dds" DXT3 -mipmaps