Greetings! I have downloaded a library toolkit from NVIDIA which should make it easy to convert .DDS files. I got almost nuts with it. The problem is, I can create a .DDS file but it is completly messed up. First I had to figure out that it accepts only 32 BIT RGBA files. Ok, so I had my TGA loader rewritten to convert any loaded image to 32BIT RGBA. I am able to open the .DDS file but it is somehow corrupted. The saved data is not what I am seeking for. Altough the NVIDIA documentation provided with this kind of SDK is obsolete and very poor. The interfaces for the classes described in the documentation were changed ages ago. Can anyone help me out? http://developer.nvidia.com/object/dds_utilities_legacy.html

I made a DDS converter GUI a while back. Can't remember using a library for it though. The NVidia toolkit came with their own (command line) dds converter. What I did is make a small program that fed all the TGA files in a certain directory to Nvidia's DDS converter. This way I could just select a directory and it would spit out a DDS file for every TGA file in the directory. I don't know if Nvidia still includes the DDS converter but I can't imagine they don't. Also, they distribute the code of the converter. So you could mod it directly and avoid my complex scheme :)

-Paul

PS.
I think I had the 'complete toolkit' or something like that. It came with a bunch of _very_ nice textures. There's also a DDS plugin for photoshop included somewhere, maybe it's of use.

That Photoshop DDS plugin might be a good start. I don't have fond memories of their command line tools, though.

Back in that time I chose to write my own DDS tools. Calculating normal maps from height maps is rather trivial, the DDS format itsself is nicely documented in the DirectX documentation. For compression and decompression of DXT texture I recommend Squish. A very small library, no additional dependencies, straight interface. I like it. Putting it all together might cost you an afternoon, though.

Bye, Thomas

Also, are you absolutely sure the 'corrupted' data is a result of the way the DDS converter saves it's output? It could be there is an error in the way you load the TGA. I think this may be the case as i can't imagine Nvidia would distribute a broken DDS converter. Especially because it's quite old as you stated, any errors in the converter are expected to have been ironed out.

Tip: try to open the DDS file outputted by the converter with Photoshop, using the Photoshop DDSplugin. If it's also messed up in Photoshop, your code is probably okay and the converter is broken; If it loads fine in Photoshop, well, you know what you have to do.. Good luck

-Paul

edit: If you don't have Photoshop you can download IrfanView for example; it's free and loads a _lot_ of image formats, be sure to download the DDS plugin though (available at the same site).

Hello!

I have dumped the buffer into a .RAW file which Paint Shop Pro can read. And the .RAW file is absolutelty ok, so the RGB buffer can not be the problem. Something else is wrong and I just didn't find it out. It is a test question that I have to answer so I do have to write my own .DDS converter.

Thank you all anyway. Maybe we will solve it.

Moved to visual arts. DDS files might be tied in with D3D but this seems like more of a content-creation/tools issue than anything related to the actual DX API's...

cheers,
Jack