Design : Add DDS file support #118863

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Gangneron · 2024-02-28T18:49:20+01:00

Gangneron commented

2024-02-28 18:49:20 +01:00

I would like to add support for DDS files to Blender because this file format is widely used, particularly in the industry (e.g. farming simulator) and by many other people. In this context reimplemented dds format support would be useful.
This format was once present. but before starting development I wanted to collect opinions or advice on the subject

I would like to add support for DDS files to Blender because this file format is widely used, particularly in the industry (e.g. farming simulator) and by many other people. In this context reimplemented dds format support would be useful. This format was once present. but before starting development I wanted to collect opinions or advice on the subject

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Gangneron added the

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label 2024-02-28 18:49:20 +01:00

Iliya Katushenock added this to the Python API project 2024-02-28 18:54:18 +01:00

Iliya Katushenock removed this from the Python API project 2024-02-28 18:54:25 +01:00

Iliya Katushenock added this to the Pipeline, Assets & IO project 2024-02-28 18:54:57 +01:00

Steff Kempink commented

2024-02-29 14:24:37 +01:00

Specifically for games, DDS files are commonly used to store pre-generated or specifically authored MIP maps. Blender images internally don't support custom MIP maps (as far as I know at least). Did you put any thought into how you'd deal with importing/exporting this information? A hacky thing I was thinking was to use the UDIM image type and store the different MIP levels in descending UDIM tiles. This way you could at least begin to import the DDS, do specific edits and if the exporter follows the same logic export the same result again.

For reference, here's a video where somebody uses NVIDIA's tool/plugin to generate custom mip maps in a DDS file:
https://youtu.be/Pcm6SrfgnvA?si=V35tQ-E6N59Y-nL6&t=171
With either the standalone tool and plugin, the non-dds representation is a single image with the lower and lower resolution mips arranged horizontally. Doing that is technically also a way a DDS could be imported and then exported again, but it leaves the image completely useless when mapping it onto a mesh while inside Blender.

Of course making Blender fully support images with custom mips could be very cool, that's of course waaaay out of scope for DDS support.

Specifically for games, DDS files are commonly used to store pre-generated or specifically authored MIP maps. Blender images internally don't support custom MIP maps (as far as I know at least). Did you put any thought into how you'd deal with importing/exporting this information? A hacky thing I was thinking was to use the UDIM image type and store the different MIP levels in descending UDIM tiles. This way you could at least begin to import the DDS, do specific edits and if the exporter follows the same logic export the same result again. For reference, here's a video where somebody uses NVIDIA's tool/plugin to generate custom mip maps in a DDS file: https://youtu.be/Pcm6SrfgnvA?si=V35tQ-E6N59Y-nL6&t=171 With either the standalone tool and plugin, the non-dds representation is a single image with the lower and lower resolution mips arranged horizontally. Doing that is technically also a way a DDS could be imported and then exported again, but it leaves the image completely useless when mapping it onto a mesh while inside Blender. Of course making Blender fully support images with custom mips could be very cool, that's of course _waaaay_ out of scope for DDS support.

Gangneron commented

2024-02-29 15:48:30 +01:00

Thank you for comment. In first time I think to support dds import and after export. But in the long term modifying mip map could be considered but that would then be the subject of another ticket.
To tell the truth, I hadn't thought about the idea of UDIM but I'm going to think about it

Thank you for comment. In first time I think to support dds import and after export. But in the long term modifying mip map could be considered but that would then be the subject of another ticket. To tell the truth, I hadn't thought about the idea of UDIM but I'm going to think about it

👍 1

Ray molenkamp commented

2024-02-29 16:02:06 +01:00

seems to work just fine, what exactly are you planning to do?

seems to work just fine, what exactly are you planning to do? ![image](/attachments/e92f1d75-cae9-4af0-9288-648bf2f37cdf)

image.png

544 KiB

👀 1

Gangneron commented

2024-02-29 16:42:42 +01:00

DDS export works? if this is the case I would do the opposite operation of #115987
and I'm considering at this point adding dds creation tools and maybe doing a refactor of code and seeing if we can improve performance.

DDS export works? if this is the case I would do the opposite operation of #115987 and I'm considering at this point adding dds creation tools and maybe doing a refactor of code and seeing if we can improve performance.

Ray molenkamp commented

2024-02-29 16:53:53 +01:00

DDS export works?
I'll be honest i only read the opening post, which mentioned neither import nor export.

import works, export we're trying to rely as much as possible on OpenImageIO which currently only supports reading.

> DDS export works? I'll be honest i only read the opening post, which mentioned neither import nor export. import works, export we're trying to rely as much as possible on OpenImageIO which currently only supports reading.

Aras Pranckevicius commented

2024-03-01 10:09:57 +01:00

Exporting uncompressed DDS files is pretty trivial to implement. Exporting compressed DDS files is "quite hard" (Blender would have to use some of 3rd party texture compression libraries). For your use case, does the end application that receives DDS files expects them to be compressed or not? If compressed, then in which compression formats? (there are several, and compression libraries for them are different)

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Design : Add DDS file support #118863