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Prelude
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This is the prelude to the tutorial before we begin. This includes detailed information regarding what software you will use and answers the most commonly asked questions.
- The first part is about locating and extracting the textures using Telltale Explorer.
- The second part is about using the Telltale Texture Tool.
- The third part is about editing these textures and putting them in-game.
Textures are images which are applied to models. These models include, but are not limited to characters, objects, maps, items, menus, etc.
These are the textures files for the Telltale Tool Engine. More details can be found here.
I will often refer to them as either "Telltale textures" or "D3DTX files/textures".
Where are the Telltale textures files? I only find TTARCH files or LENC files in the game's directory.
They are located inside those TTARCH files. However, they cannot be opened with normal archive software like 7zip or WinRAR. For that case we use Telltale Explorer.
[Direct Draw Surface](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectDraw_Surface) is a Microsoft file format like PNG or JPEG. However, unlike them, this format supports multiple texture layouts, surface formats and mipmaps (or mips). Additionally, it supports compressions, which reduce the size of the image by 4-6 times and are read efficiently by the GPU.
Telltale's texture files can only be read by their engine, while DDS is a more common format. D3DTX stores a lot more information than a DDS file.
The tutorial will cover most of this. The idea is:
- You extract the pixel data from
D3DTXto another format likePNGorDDS. - Edit the files.
- Convert the files back to
D3DTX.
JSON files will be generated when you convert the D3DTX file for the first time. They are very important, because they store additional useful data that is lost during the conversion. In any case, DO NOT DELETE THEM!
- For extracting use
Telltale Explorer. It has a GUI with a built-in image viewer and filtering options. There is alsottarchext`, but it is outdated. - For converting use the
Telltale Texture Tool. - For editing use
Paint.NET,GIMPorPhotoshopwithNVIDIA's Texture Tools Exporter. - For advanced editing (super rare cases) use the
NVIDIA Texture Tools Exporteror the legacyDirectX Texture Tool. - For debugging purposes use Lucas's
Telltale Inspector.
Telltale Explorer can open TTARCH and can only export DDS or PNG images.
However, Telltale Explorer does not support all textures and they will appear broken.
Telltale Texture Tool cannot open TTARCH files, but it can preview the D3DTX files more accurately and it exports their DDS counterparts more precise.
Most importantly, importing the edited textures would be impossible without this tool.
TL:DR Telltale Explorer - use it to export files. Telltale Texture Mod Tool - use it to edit D3DTX files.
Usually the answer to that question is - the one you are most comfortable with. If you do not have experience with any of them, I recommend Paint.NET on Windows or GIMP on Linux. Both will cover 99.9% of the cases.
Note
Photoshop, while it is commercial, has access to the NVIDIA Texture Tools.
Paint.NET has a lot of surface formats support, but it lacks some editing tools and some legacy surface formats.
GIMP has support for some uncommon surface formats which cannot be found in Paint.NET and it is a lot more powerful.
-
Telltale Explorerfor extracting textures. -
Paint.NETfor editing. -
Telltale Inspectorfor debugging.
This page should answer anything regarding the textures themselves.
- Prelude (0/3)
- How to find and extract textures (1/3)
- How to use Telltale Texture Tool (2/3)
- How to put the textures in the game (3/3)