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I am looking for a way to edit individual mipmaps within a DDS file. To my knowledge, the NVidia Plugin only lets you create the largest image and then computes the smaller ones automatically. However, the problem is that after long tests with the different available algorithms and sharpening strengths I still think that at least the 2nd and 3rd of the smaller mips could look better if created manually. Is there a way to do so?

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It depends what are you trying to do and what skills you posess. If you are a programmer, you can just load DDS image. Then lock specific mip-layer, update it(e.g. copy something over it, or modify pixels arbitrarily), unlock, save. – alariq Jan 31 at 19:12
Thanks, but what do you mean with "lock"? Using the Nvidia Plugin I can only save mipmaps in Photoshop. Opening hwoever, does not really work (e.g. no transparency is supported which I often use). Basically my problem boils down to the lack of a software that allows to really edit mipmaps - no only create & save them from existing images. – pad_ares Jan 31 at 22:44
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The DirectX SDK has a texture tool that I believe lets you do this. Have you tried it? – Panda Pajama Feb 5 at 19:24
As I mentioned, I did not know your skills, so if you are not a programmer, then my recommendation with "lock" is actually not usefull, sorry. – alariq Mar 6 at 15:46

1 Answer

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+50

I have had some luck by using GIMP 2.8.2 and the DDS plugin for GIMP. It allows for opening, editing, and modifying the main image and the sub-levels, and then saving them. The levels are presented as layers in GIMP. I don't have any experience for the quality of the exports, as I've only actually had to use one level of mips in my own projects.

GIMP here: http://www.gimp.org/

DDs plugin: http://code.google.com/p/gimp-dds/

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This works perfectly. I would prefer to use Adobe Photoshop (as it would better fit our workflow) but if this does not come up as an answer I will gladly award the bounty for this answer. – pad_ares Feb 7 at 3:05

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