Batch DDS to TGA converter

[davidzoli]

Blender Tools needs TGA files for textures. To get them, you can convert the DDS files from the base folder.
Converting can made some photo manipulation software or online tools or an NVIDIA converter.
So, I get that NVIDIA tool and make batch files to make the conversion process easy.
You can find it here: https://github.com/davidzoli/batch_dds2tga or download a zip from here: http://link.davidzoltan.hu/dds2tga1

Your job is only drop a file or folder onto the bat file and after some question, all the conversion will be made for you.
The file converter process one or more dropped files. There is a folder converter too which make a copy of the given folder (structure) and DDS files. After the copy it will convert the DDS file(s) and leave only the TGA (or the copied DDS too).

So you can convert whole folders to get TGA files before start a Blender Tools project.
Be careful with recursion!
I've converted the whole base! It took 40 minutes (of ~6400 files) and 4.6GB disk space (~8GB during conversion)

Code: Select all

convert_file.bat - Bat for convert file(s). 
Drop a file or set of files onto the bat. Converter will be called and make a TGA file beside of the original DDS.

convert_folder.bat - File process a dropped folder.
User can deside to do the process recursively or not. Not recursive run will convert the files only in the dropped folder.
Recursive run will create the whole directory structure.
Folder convert always create a folder (*_converted) beside of the original folder and copy the dds files in the original folders structure.
User can decide whether keep the copied DDS files or not.

Feel free to make it better!
Or make a better solution for this kind of "problem". My desktop programming skills and freetime for this ends here.
There must be some serious programmer here Maybe Cadde?

Posted on my ets2 blog too: http://ets2.davidzoltan.hu/batch-files- ... ds-to-tga/

[50keda]

Nice one!

PS: Moderators please move this topic to User Tutorials as I think it's more suitable for that forum.

[Smarty]

Just a quick tip: Normal maps (at least the usual 3Dc type) converted by this method need to have the R and G channels swapped to work correctly.

Otherwise, it does a much better job than the NVIDIA Photoshop Plugin, which doesn't properly correct the scale and bias from the 3Dc format, hence why properly formatted dds normal maps look so bright when imported into PS.

[DaStig]

Does this mean that all skins need to be rebuild, since they use .dds texture files ? Or is the game still capable of handling regular .dds textures?

DaStig

[SiSL]

BT is capable of handling DDS files, however, recommendation is TGA because TGA is not compressed and does not get distorted.

[DaStig]

I always used uncompressed dds-textures, without that dxt5 compression ... which don't get distorted either ...

[SiSL]

Well, your choice... In the end, you obviously know DXT versions, which makes you think you know how to save them as TGA as well

Convertion Tools makes amazing job on converting, I do my trailer skins, which has no models in it with convertion tools.

[Smarty]

DaStig: I think you misunderstood the context/relevance of this thread/tool. The game still uses dds formats. Using targa in-game would be a huge resource waste.

This is about converting those to targa format for use in SCS Blender Tools. For most resources (DXT1, DXT5, R8G8B8[A8], A8L8, A8) that's somewhat unnecessary (but still a 'best practice') because BT can display them correctly. 3Dc normal maps (correct format for tsnmap) are a different story because they are so different from the source format. Like so many things, it depends on your use case.

[Volvo F12]

Hello davidzoli

Thank you for you batch file converter but i have a question
Does this batch file converts..hm..most likely corrects the file extension
refering to the dds file..inside the tobj's.
You see i converted my dds's from my base file to tga with another software
but all the tobj's are reffering to dds file not tga and i have to correct them
manyally..so..does your batch file also corrects this problem?

Thank you in advance

[ryzenmaster75]

sorry to bump an old thread,

i have a question, does this method still working properly right now ?, i tried using it but on the result folder its empty. or maybe i do it the wrong way