[Tool] BF2 DDS Assembler

[PeppeJ]

Hey Guys! I've been working on a tool that I've chose to call BF2DDSAssembler, and what it does is it combines your color/detail maps into a single PNG image. It will also allow you to break it up back into proper encoded txXXxYY.DDS files.

I've made a little guide/preview of the tool which can be viewed here:


Here's a more robust and thorough list of all options and how to use them.

Usage
Preview window
Here you can see a preview of what your maps/image will look like combined/split.

Show X/Y: Shows the coordinates of the different tiles.
Show Grid: Shows a grid to easier see where a tile ends.
Invert Text Color: Inverts the color of the text so it's easier to see on dark images.

Map Size
The size of your map, it's important to have this set to the correct size both while loading and saving images. If it's not the correct size it will not load enough images, or save it to the wrong size.

Image Options
These options allows you to pick what type of map you want to load and save to.
Colormap: Specifies that you're loading/saving a colormap.
Detailmap: Specifies that you're loading/saving a detailmap. When checking this the _1 to _6 options will become available so that you can specify which detailmap you'll want to load.
Use CUDA: Uses CUDA for GPU encoding of the .DDS images, making it faster than normal saving.
Editor Folder: Uncheck this whenever you're NOT loading a color/detailmap that's in yourlevel\editor\...

NOTE: Always double check your settings prior to loading and saving images/maps. Failing to do so can cause them to be encoded with wrong formats, save insufficent images and make you feel bad.

Buttons
Load Image..: Loads a single image, make sure it's the right size (1024, 2048 or 4096, depending on your map size).
Load Folder..: Loads all the txXXxYY.DDS files in the specified folder.
Save as seperate images: Saves the currently loaded image(s) as seperate txXXxYY.DDS files.
Combine to single image: Combines the currently loaded image(s) in to a single .PNG file.

Download & Source code
The current release version is 1.1 and can be found on the Github releases page

The source code can be found under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License on github.com.

For more info regarding licenses please refer to the license file

Prerequisites
Requires .NET Framework 4.5 and only runs on Windows. (I've only tested 10 but I assume it works fine with XP and above)


Issues
Please report any issues or crashes on the github issues page, and please provide as much info as you can (how to reproduce etc). For any other general questions post away!

Other than that, have a good one!
//PeppeJ

[anantdeathhawk]

So this basically helps to map a real location on earth accurately to be used in the game?

[PeppeJ]

So this basically helps to map a real location on earth accurately to be used in the game?

Yes, amongst other things. It' pretty much just allows you to edit the textures etc easily through photoshop or any other external image editor. So if you want you could make your map textures full of smileys/ponies/make it checkered or whatever.

[Mineral]

how do you deal with recompression? Do you notice bad quality textures after a few in and out ports?

[PeppeJ]

how do you deal with recompression? Do you notice bad quality textures after a few in and out ports?

Here's a DIFF after 10 runs, there's defo degradation since DXT1 is lossy, but I'd image ideally you don't want to run it more than a few times
Video: https://streamable.com/qcsw