Texture File

File Extension: .dds, .tga

The texture files are a Microsoft format called Direct Draw Surface which are images that can be rendered with a Model File or as is. The texture file DDS format is used for storing data compressed with the proprietary S3 Texture Compression (S3TC) algorithm which can be decompressed in hardware by GPUs.

Intel Texture Works is required to correctly save Fallout 4's DDS files. For diffuse textures (_d), use BC1 or DXT1 For normal textures (_n), use normal mode BC5, with inverted y (inverted Green channel) For specular textures (_s), use normal mode as well in BC5.

Tooling

• Elric
• Paint.NET
• Adobe Photoshop
• There are other software projects that provide tooling for working texture files.

See Also

• Model File
• Game Files Category
• Wikipedia DirectDraw Surface
• NVIDIA Legacy Texture Tools