TepNetwork

DDS and DXT format

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If you are working on a game chances are you will work with DDS (DirectDrawSurface) files. DDS file is a standard format by Microsoft to store image/textures. It can store single image, mip maps, cube maps, etc2 and can have standard DXT compression technique.

If you want to understand various DXT variants (DXT1, DXT1a, DXT3, DXT5), you can check out:

• http://www.fsdeveloper.com/wiki/index.php?title=DXT_compression_explained

The following library/tools are proven to be useful:

• NVIDIA Texture Tools for Photoshop http://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-texture-tools-adobe-photoshop
• NVIDIA Texture Tools Source Code http://code.google.com/p/nvidia-texture-tools/
• libsquish (open source DXT compression library) http://code.google.com/p/libsquish/

If you ever need to write your own source code, the following links can be your starting point (don’t just copy and paste, some of them have bugs):

• DDS image format loader http://www.mindcontrol.org/~hplus/graphics/dds-info/
• S3TC DXT1 / DXT5 Texture Decompression Routines http://www.glassechidna.com.au/2009/devblogs/s3tc-dxt1dxt5-texture-decompression/