TexFactory

TexFactory

TexFactory is a tool for batch-converting image files to and from the extended (DirectX 10+) DDS file format.

Background

While I was working on Frostbite modding in 2018, we needed a way to edit the DDS textures in the game data. My first instinct was to use the GIMP, but unfortunately, Frostbite uses the extended DDS format introduced with DirectX 10, which wasn’t supported by the community DDS extension for GIMP.

Modders who used Photoshop were able to use the Intel Texture Tools plugin for Photoshop, but I wanted to make texture modding possible for people who weren’t interested in purchasing or pirating Photoshop for themselves. When I came across the command-line texconv tool with all the fancy DDS tricks anyone could ever need, I wrote TexFactory as a GUI around texconv to make it more accessible to non-developers.

Because I noticed that most users wanted to convert a number of textures at a time, I designed TexFactory to be a batch tool right from the start. The user queues up a number of conversions, sets their parameters, runs the entire batch, and then can inspect whether each conversion was successful.

Bad Code Disclaimer

Back when I wrote TexFactory I wasn’t convinced of the value of the Windows Presentation Foundation for custom UI themes, so I stubbornly themed the UI elements myself with manual painting, reimplementing behavior (such as controls with scrollbars) where I had to.

Please, don’t do what I did - if you think you need to reimplement scrollbars just to theme them, give WPF a fair shot.