[Utility] DDS Converter

whoward69

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DDS Converter - a Java™ Web Start utility for converting PNG, JPEG and GIF images into the DDS format required by Civilization 5 mods.



Full details available here
 
Hey there, I've been using your DDS converter for a bit now and have run into some problems regarding alphas. I'm trying to create alphas for Civ banners and unit flags but in-game they just show up black.

Is there any fix to this?
 
@TPangolin: Can you attach the original artwork you're using for the alpha icons.
 
Unit Flag:


Civ Icon:
 
If I load those .png files into PaintShopPro it displays them as black squares. If I then try to set the transparent colour it objects saying that to do so the image must be changed from 2 colours to 256 colours, so I suspect the PNG image format you're using is incompatible with the Java library. Try changing them to use a 256-colour palette and setting the transparent colour again.
 
Every other alpha icon I've seen has been "white on transparent" not "black on transparent"
 
Oh, I'll try changing it all to white and see how that works then.
 
It's working, I used a white icon on transparent and that seemed to work. Thanks man. Another question - is there a way to convert images that have bits sticking out of them?
 
Is there a way to convert images that have bits sticking out of them?

If you mean like the lance, spear or missiles on the standard icons, then no. The utility is aimed at novice modders wanting to get art into their new civilization mod without all the pain of having to learn gimp/dds manipulation. Once you go beyond the basics it's assumed you have enough skill/interest to learn how to do that yourself :)
 
Awesome. Thanks so much for this anyway!
 
I'm not sure if it's meant to do this or not, but it changed my yellow and red icon into a red and blue one. Is this meant to happen?

EDIT: Converted image to .png and worked just fine. It only seems to happen with .jpg files.
 
EDIT: Converted image to .png and worked just fine. It only seems to happen with .jpg files.

If you still have the .jpg file, can you attach it.
 
I don't know what software generate that image, but the header doesn't identify it as being a JFIF format file, so the Java library does weird things with it. Even saving it as a JPEG file with PaintShopPro/Photoshop fixes the problem and writes it as a "Java understandable" JPEG file

Very weird
 
I started to use this utility for my mod needs. It works great for normal icons, but I'm having problems with font icons - they are "rounded" like normal icons by applying a circular mask around them (see screenshot) - is there any way to disable this effect? Btw I'm using the Ebony Resource by Barathor, so if someone already created a proper font icon from it, let me know :)

Edit: Using the Image tab (Custom image type) instead of the Icon tab allows me to create a font icon, but it's 20x20 instead of 22x22, and it looks really bad due to compression (using any of the 3 options - DXT1/DXT3/DXT5). So perhaps there should be an option to leave it uncompressed...
 

Attachments

  • dds_conv.png
    dds_conv.png
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Does it do the same (ie make it circular) if you just save the DDS from the Icon tab, and don't try to add it to an Atlas?

I'll try and take a look at this over the weekend.
 
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