DDS vs MBM

[akron]

I was wondering which texture format will be more resource-effective to use in KSP. I just started working on importing models to the game and I am wondering if there is a difference in the memory footprint of one vs the other. It seems like DDS is a popular format nowadays but I did not see the option to export DDS out of Unity. Can I just manually assign a texture through the Part cfg data file?

[NecroBones]

DDS will be better in the long run, but Part Tools can't create them. So what I do is let Part Tools export as MBM for in-game testing, and before release I use DDS4KSP to convert them to DDS.

[hoojiwana]

Exactly as NecroBones said. I use the Nvidia tools for Photoshop to make DDS files rather than DDS4KSP since I don't like the texture degradation that happens due to the multiple compressions/conversions that occur otherwise, it's not a big issue though. It doesn't particularly matter how you make the file, as long as the DDS has the same filename as the MBM. I seem to remember hearing somewhere here that if you export from Unity as anything other than MBM, the DDS file that replaces it may not be picked up right by the game. Not entirely sure if that's just something I'm misremembering though.

Edited February 1, 2016 by hoojiwana

[NecroBones]

So far I've only run into that problem when exporting as PNG (or was it TGA? I forget now). Exporting as MBM always seems to work, so that's a safe choice.

 

[akron]

Great info. Thanks guys!