Repaint help needed please

[NickB]

​Hello chaps, I need some help with my repainting. I think I may have inadvertently adjusted some settings somewhere, possibly in DXTBmp.
I did a couple of repaints for Rob Richardson's Cougar and Seahawk, but I have noticed that my paints are a little blurry, to the extent that the stencilling which is clear and readable on the original paint, is unreadable on my paints.
After painting in my old version of Photoshop, I merge the layers and save as a bmp which is then inverted and converted to a DDS in DXTBmp.
I have noticed that my DDS files are about 4MB where as the original paints are 64MB and other repaints by other painters are about 16MB and clear and readable.
Can anyone tell me what I might be doing wrong please?


Cheers
NickB

[Bomber_12th]

Nick, if you're using 4096x4096 textures, know that DXTBmp automatically resizes them down to 2048x2048 when you load textures of that size. By using the Nvidia texture tools plugin in Photoshop, you can save the textures as DDS files from there and it won't resize them (not sure how old of a copy of Photoshop you have, but I know I could still make do with the Nivida plugin in CS2).

(64MB file size is the result of saving a 4096 sized texture file in 32-bit format, where as the 16MB file size is the result of saving the same 4096 file as DXT5 format. In contrast, a 2048 sized texture file saved in 32-bit format will also be 16MB, while a 2048 texture file will only be 4MB when saved in DXT5 format.)

[FlyingsCool]

Also, make sure the box under the Alpha Channel window in DXTBmp has "Save Mip Maps" turned off.

[62stratfan]

My 7.1 version of Photoshop won't handle 4096x4096. But DXTBmp version 4.00.97 does not resize textures. They're still 4096x4096 where applicable. See if you have the latest DXTBmp.

62stratfan

[mgr]

Hiya,

4.00.96 is the latest version so far i know. This version can indeed import and save 4096x4096 bitmaps.

If you load a native NON FS bitmap with size 4096x4096 then it's converted to 2048x2048.

The trick is to start with a FS bitmap or DTX file and then use the "send to editor" and "reload after edit" function to modify the texture-file. This way the 4096x4096 format maintained.

Marcel

[62stratfan]

So odd. 4.00.96 is at Martin Wright's site, but mine clearly states 4.00.97. The *.exe says 4.0.0.97. If I hover over "Download" it states ...dxtbmpnew. I wonder if that's it. Oh well, it works so far.
62stratfan

[Bomber_12th]

Thanks guys, I was not aware that DXTBmp could now handle 4096 textures - sure enough, I tried it with the latest version (4.00.97) and it keeps them in original size.

[NickB]

Thanks everyone for such a fast response. My version of DXTBmp was 4.00.96 which was reducing the size to 2048. A quick download of 4.00.97 and, behold, huge textures.

Thanks again to you all.

Nickb

P.S. Have just donated to the SOH 2019 Charter Membership Drive because of things like this.:applause: