I've written a plug-in to read and write the DirectDraw Surface file format in After Effects and Photoshop. DDS files usually store textures because they employ compression formats that can be decoded quickly on a GPU. The plug-in is free and open source.
Most of the heavy lifting in this plug-in is done by Rich Geldreich's open source crunch library. DDS users may also want to check out Rich's DDS Export program and Nvidia's Photoshop plug-in.
Development of the plug-in was sponsored by Walter Soyka of Keen Live and Cameron Yeary of UVLD. Walter inquired about hiring me to write a plug-in for him, and I said I'd do it for half price if I could make it open source. He agreed, and here we are.
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Version: 0.6
Date: 4 May 2022
Mac | Win
That isn't to say that the jpeg2k doesn't still outperform, no question. You can clearly see the differences if you zoom in a bit. The jpeg2k PNG is sexy and smooth. That's assuming your jpeg2k actually does render like that. I'm still having trouble finding a tool that can load it. They all use libjasper which triggers an assertion against your image.
ReplyDeleteBut anyway, I *DO* think the cjpeg output is a lot better than your reference JPEG, not as good as JPEG2K, but close enough that you really have to look closely to be bothered by it.
Ok. This is the last one, I promise.
ReplyDeleteAnd you can totally delete these if you like.
Zooming in on both and flipping back and forth... JPEG2k is less blocky, but at the expense of loss of detail on the rocks and moss. It seems to do some kind of smoothing :-/
And yeah, sorry, wish you guys had a comment form, or a less annoying spam filter on your e-mail address.
Fnord, you have no idea how you help me for my project. I have thousands of textures dds, I'm so happy my cc can take care in future. I'm trying and will send my feedback. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteYou are a savior! Here I was trying to figure out if I could get a Windows VM to get the Nvidia plugin running on my Mac and you've solved the problem. Thank you x1000.
ReplyDeleteThat's great! is there a limitation on the maximum file size that can be saved? I'm trying to use this for cubmaps, but I don't see the DDS options when saving unless I reduce greatly the image size
ReplyDeleteDDS files appear to have a maximum size of 8192 pixels on a side, so Photoshop won't let you choose DDS if your file is bigger than that.
ReplyDeleteThis is so perfect and simple and well done, thank you very much for this
ReplyDeleteCopied the plug in into the application file but still cant open the dds file that I want. Is there any trick involved?
ReplyDeleteThanks, this is an awesome plug-in.
ReplyDeleteWondering if anyone else has been having this issue. Recently I started getting the "could not complete your request because of a program error" only when opening some .dds files. Everything was working perfect and then this started when trying to access .dds files I have opened before. I have completely removed and re-installed Photoshop CC 2015, the plug-in, and all saved preferences and configs.
Thanks,
Brian
Great tool! Finally some dds tools for Mac users.
ReplyDeleteOne question: Is there a way to open the dds file with the mip maps as separate layers, edit them and save the file with existing mip maps?
Best,
Frank
nice and thank you very much bro, this help full my photoshop
ReplyDeleteThanks you, you made my day ! I was stuck with the new fancy convertion apps and you was here. <3
ReplyDeleteMuch appreciate!
ReplyDeleteNice article
ReplyDeleteI have adobe photoshop cs6 . I downloaded your plugin but i don't understand. I am suppose to ut the plugin in the adobe photoshop plugin correct? I tried opening some dds files but it says" could not complete your request because of a program error".
ReplyDeletePlease help
Just found your plug and I'm so happy. Really a great day! Thank you so much!!! Greets :)
ReplyDeleteWorks perfect in Photoshop CC 2015.5.1 (20160722.r156.x64)
Thank you so much!
ReplyDeletedoesnt seem to be working in CC 2018, gets a program error when opening a DDS file, I finally got one to open and there was no color information in the RGB channels.
ReplyDeletemostlyhuman:
ReplyDeletePhotoshop or After Effects? Mac or Windows?
@mostlyhuman, I've run into the same problem. Diffuse/Color files open OK, but Normal and Spectral maps error.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't work for cc 18 it doesn't allow it to save
ReplyDeletei get a permissions error
Is there a newer version of this somewhere? It doesn't work with Photoshop CC 2018.
ReplyDeletePlease i am looking to!
ReplyDeleteI'm using Photoshop CC19 on Mac and I copied the Plugin into the Photoshop/plugin folder, but I still can't open DDS-Files as it seems that the plugin doesn't get loaded. Can someone help me please?
ReplyDeleteThanks
u must copy folder like windows OS to C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop CC 2019\Required\CEP\extensions\64-bit
ReplyDeleteI don't use MAC os, sry
I am testing on the new MacOS 10.15 Catalina, and I had an issue where it couldn't start because it's from an unidentified developer.
ReplyDeleteClicking "Open Anyway" in Settings didn't make any difference.
To make it work, you have to allow apps downloaded from "Anywhere". Since this isn't an option by default, it has to be manually enabled.
Open Terminal and use the following command.
sudo spctl --master-disable
It will prompt for your admin password. This will add the "Anywhere" options and select by default. This will allow the plugin to work without further issues.
Do not though, that it now allows all unidentified apps to be installed without warning.
This is a piece of heaven for a game modder like me. Thank you very much, man.
ReplyDeleteThe installer creates a 'Plug-ins' folder in the 'Plugiins' folder and Photoshop gives an error that some plugins were unable to load. I see, in another comment, you mentioned extensions... can you specify SPECIFICALLY where each file should live? Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThank you! I really can't thank you enough :D
ReplyDeleteFile can be opened. Works in photoshop cc 2018. Thank so much.
ReplyDeletePhooey. Won't work in Photoshop CC 2019.
ReplyDeleteHoping there might be an installer available at some point for AE2020 and Catalina. Thank you for the resource!!!
ReplyDeleteYou´re a genious! and it does work. Thank you very much.
ReplyDeleteGreetings from Guatemala. I used for photoshop CC 2018 to be able to screw up XPlane Textures.
I can't figure out how to install this for Photoshop 2020 on a mac. I followed all the instructions, it's copied in, and yet it doesn't show up in Photoshop.
ReplyDeletegracias
ReplyDelete