DDS for Icons (Format, Compressor Type, ErrorMetric, etc..)

[Kruelgor]

Does anyone know what settings to save a DDS icon as?

I noticed the game is taking it upon itself to actually alter and resave the icon image slightly distorting some of the colors.

I have a few different options when saving:

FORMAT:
DXT1 (opague/1-bit Alpha)
DXT3 (Explicit Alpha)
DXT5 (Interpoloated Alpha)

COMPRESSOR TYPE:
Range fit (Fast/LQ)
Cluster fit (Slow/HQ)
Iterative fit (Slowest/HQ)

ERROR METRIC
Uniform
Perceptual

ADDITIONAL OPTIONS:
(check box) Weight Color By Alpha
(check box) Generate Mip Maps

 

[Spatzimaus]

Does anyone know what settings to save a DDS icon as?

DXT 5. I don't think any of the rest of it really matters; I know that GIMP wouldn't even allow me to save the mipmaps because the channels didn't all have the same size or something. In my mod I've got 45 tech icons and 62 building/wonder ones, and they all work just fine.

That being said, I'd HIGHLY suggest starting with the .xcf template files instead of the ones Firaxis provided. (They're in a thread in one of the subforums.)

 

[Kruelgor]

DXT 5. I don't think any of the rest of it really matters; I know that GIMP wouldn't even allow me to save the mipmaps because the channels didn't all have the same size or something. In my mod I've got 45 tech icons and 62 building/wonder ones, and they all work just fine.

That being said, I'd HIGHLY suggest starting with the .xcf template files instead of the ones Firaxis provided. (They're in a thread in one of the subforums.)

Thanks. Yeah, I ran into the .xcf just a while ago during a search of the forum http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=15498

I'll give it a try.

 

[Kruelgor]

fyi, with Paint.net it seems it needs to be saved under format: A1R5G5B5

 

[Justicex]

The only problem I have had with icons (once I got them working ) was when I played my custom civ vs. itself in a duel. My icons showed up fine, but for the other civ, the circle turned red with the American icon in it.

 

[CyberChrist]

Personally I have been using DXT3 (like in Civ4) and that work as expected.

 

[Deep_Blue]

For icons the following settings worked fine for me:
DXT3
No Mipmap
2d Textures

leave everything else to default.

 

[CaptainBinky]

Yeah, use DXT3 unless it has a smooth alpha channel (one with nice anti-aliasing and/or gradients in it) in which case use DXT5 otherwise it'll look utterly horrible

fyi, with Paint.net it seems it needs to be saved under format: A1R5G5B5

This is one-bit alpha (hard alpha, either on or off) which is fine for a lot of things except, for example, circular icons which really want multi-bit alpha (A8R8G8B8, so DXT3 or 5 but preferably 5) so that they can be anti-aliased. Also, your format is 16bit which won't make a huge difference but it will come out looking slightly nicer in 32bit if there's smooth colour gradients.

 

[Kruelgor]

Yeah, use DXT3 unless it has a smooth alpha channel (one with nice anti-aliasing and/or gradients in it) in which case use DXT5 otherwise it'll look utterly horrible



This is one-bit alpha (hard alpha, either on or off) which is fine for a lot of things except, for example, circular icons which really want multi-bit alpha (A8R8G8B8, so DXT3 or 5 but preferably 5) so that they can be anti-aliased. Also, your format is 16bit which won't make a huge difference but it will come out looking slightly nicer in 32bit if there's smooth colour gradients.

There is a bug or something which is distorting the picture on A8R8G8B8. That one is not working, at least for me.

 

[Seek]

I'm having a really hard time getting some artwork in for a couple buildings and I suspect that it's possibly the save settings I am using in GIMP. (I've gone through the xmls a million times, and I'm pretty sure they're good.) The options I get when saving the dds files differ quite a lot from the OP - I'm assuming because I have a different plugin. I get these options for compression:

• None
• BC1 / DXT1
• BC2 / DXT3
• BC3 / DXT5
• BC3n / DXT5n
• BC4 / ATI1
• BC5 / ATI2
• Alpha Exponent (DXT5)
• YCoCg (DXT5)
• YCoCg scaled (DXT5)

Which one should I use? Should I use any of the format options? Someone recommended the RGBA8..
Thanks!