Digital Art Zone

Can Daz or any of its peripheral software/plugins make use of .dds files? Or at least extract them for the goodies inside?

I had to Google it.  It is very unlikely I would have thought, I have never seen it used.

Open source modders use these files for games like Elder Scrolls. They pack their meshes, textures and UV’s together. It would be nice to add a Skyrim flavor to some of my work.

If you google converters, it brings up a few apps that will convert at least some of it to BMP or JPG.  I don;t know if you can extract the mesh or not.

if you use irfanview batch convert you can also edit your mtl file using find and replace
got some cool suggestions on this in this forum!
I was able to texture my 3D ripper dx capture of GTA San Andreas by doing this, re-exporting the obj then replacing the new mtl file with the original frame capture one renamed and reopening it in studio.
had to also add a space between each .jpg and # though for it to read it ( also using find and replace all)

I was mistaken. Meshes are stored as NIFs.
Thanks. This is helping me sort out what’s what in the 3d “world”.

wendy♥catz - 04 October 2012 12:27 PM

if you use irfanview batch convert you can also edit your mtl file using find and replace
got some cool suggestions on this in this forum!
I was able to texture my 3D ripper dx capture of GTA San Andreas by doing this, re-exporting the obj then replacing the new mtl file with the original frame capture one renamed and reopening it in studio.
had to also add a space between each .jpg and # though for it to read it ( also using find and replace all)

Would this also work with Photoshop?
Edit… Not sure I comprehended.

there is a program that converts nif files too, I actually have it for some odd reason even though I don’t have any use for it.
not on my computer so do not know what it is called.

I don’t have photoshop but it certainly should since the freeware image editors do!

wendy♥catz - 04 October 2012 12:44 PM

there is a program that converts nif files too, I actually have it for some odd reason even though I don’t have any use for it.
not on my computer so do not know what it is called.

Nifskope

yeah, that is what I have, I collect a lot of programs just in case I need them!!

There was a plugin from nvidia for photoshop that let you import & export Direct Draw Surface files (.DDS), I think I wore out mine when I used to mod Freelancer.

IIRC the NIF format was originally from one of the star trek games, so there should still be at least one plugin for Milkshape kicking around that will allow you to convert it to another format.

There used to be a script for Blender, to import/export NIFs, too…but I’m not sure if it ever got updated for the 2.5 series, let alone 2.6.  The last working one I know of is for 2.49b, which is why I’ve still got it around.

The Nvidia DDS plugin for Photoshop

http://developer.nvidia.com/content/nvidia-texture-tools-adobe-photoshop

Here’s a DDS plugin for GIMP

http://code.google.com/p/gimp-dds/