Freedom Reborn

Freedom Force Forums => Technical Issues => Topic started by: AfghanAnt on May 01, 2024, 09:28:55 PM

Title: Saving TGA as DDS to Prevent Pink Issues
Post by: AfghanAnt on May 01, 2024, 09:28:55 PM
Hey all,
It's been a while and I'm playing around with some skins but realizing I'm hitting some issues with saving dds correctly in Photoshop from a tgas. What's the proper setting for a flat dds and one with alpha channels to prevent pinking with meshes for FFVTR?

Thanks!
Title: Re: Saving TGA as DDS to Prevent Pink Issues
Post by: BentonGrey on May 02, 2024, 12:04:29 AM
Howdy AA, I'm afraid that I can't give a particularly intelligent answer (I'll leave that for one of our technically/artistically proficient folks), but I'll tell you what I do.  I downloaded the DDS plugin for GIMP, and I just save or export as DDS, with the default settings.  It seems to work fine.  I also use XNview for batch conversions of whole skins:
https://www.xnview.com/en/

However, I have to be a little careful with that one, as fancier skin pieces, effects and stuff, especially things with transparencies, can be messed up if I use the batch convert.
Title: Re: Saving TGA as DDS to Prevent Pink Issues
Post by: AfghanAnt on May 02, 2024, 03:28:00 AM
Ah ok! That's what I'm having issues with also. Let me see if remaining the editable mesh pieces in the nif works. I'm working on some skopes for fun and the pink pieces are really a vibe killer.

Thanks, Bent!
Title: Re: Saving TGA as DDS to Prevent Pink Issues
Post by: BentonGrey on May 02, 2024, 04:46:32 AM
Yeah, it would always drive me nuts when I'd have a character with random pink pieces in a mod.

Good luck!
Title: Re: Saving TGA as DDS to Prevent Pink Issues
Post by: WyldFyre on May 02, 2024, 12:04:22 PM
Also, iirc, sometimes the pink is due to the skin not having the ref and glow skins in the folder. I also have seen the same issue if the ref and glow are not the same size as the skin itself, i.e. 512 x 512.
Title: Re: Saving TGA as DDS to Prevent Pink Issues
Post by: AfghanAnt on May 03, 2024, 07:03:11 PM
I read through some old posts and was able to fix it while using .tgas. Just needed to rename the files to unique names and update the meshes in nifskope! Thanks guys!
Title: Re: Saving TGA as DDS to Prevent Pink Issues
Post by: BentonGrey on May 04, 2024, 12:18:01 AM
Oh!  Right!  It's the 'too many of the same texture' problem!  I didn't realize that.  You can also solve it by splitting the meshes up into different directories.  For example, I encountered that with MA because I had all of my meshes in Art/Characters.  I fixed it by putting some of them into Art/Custom_characters.
Title: Re: Saving TGA as DDS to Prevent Pink Issues
Post by: WyldFyre on May 04, 2024, 02:22:32 PM
Just curious. Does this affect the meshes that use tga files or the ones using dds format? I may need to reorganize some of my files.
Title: Re: Saving TGA as DDS to Prevent Pink Issues
Post by: BentonGrey on May 04, 2024, 05:56:29 PM
I convert everything to DDS, so it affects them too.
Title: Re: Saving TGA as DDS to Prevent Pink Issues
Post by: WyldFyre on May 05, 2024, 12:29:01 PM
Thanks for that. Looks like I may need to follow Cyber's advice on multiple folders for FFvtTR.