Intel Texture Works Plugin for Photoshop - SNORM Support

Intel® Texture Works Plug-in for Photoshop - SNORM Support

Precompiled binaries supporting BC5 signed normal maps used by Fallout 76

describe:

Fallout 76 went from using BC5 unsigned normals (UNORM) as in previous games, to signed normals (SNORM). This offers some technical advantages, but it also presents challenges when it comes to freely available tools for exporting signed BC5 normals. No. Thankfully, al2950 on Intel Texture Engineering Plugin GitHub did the hard work for us and wrote a pull request that includes BC5 SNORM support. Unfortunately, Intel seems to have stopped developing their plug-in, so PR hasn't been merged yet. So I've done the (usually brief) job of building and distributing a version of the plugin that includes al2950's BC5 SNORM support. That's a long way of saying that you can now export textures from Photoshop to render correctly in Fallout 76.

illustrate:

Follow the instructions in the Intel readme file to download and install

When exporting normals, BC5 compression is divided into BC5_U (unsigned) and BC5_S (signed). BC5_S is used when exporting to Radiation 76.

Version:

Two versions are available, the first built using the Intel-guided CS6 SDK. However, since users in the GitHub repo reported later CC versions of Photoshop, I have built a second version using the CC 2018 SDK. Your mileage may vary, but I recommend starting with the CS6 version and if you run into issues and are using a later version of CC, switch to the CC 2018 version.

Require:

Windows 7 (32/64) or higher

Photoshop CS6 or higher

integral:

Intel GameDevTech as the original plugin

al2950 for writing PRs with SNORM support

Mikado let me build it and test it for me

Tools used:

Visual Studio 2012 Ultimate

Visual Studio 2017 Enterprise Edition

Intel SPMD program compiler

Adobe Photoshop CS6 SDK for Windows

Adobe Photoshop CC 2018 SDK for Windows

Build yourself:

To build this plugin yourself, follow the instructions on the GitHub page, replace the SDK of your choice (anything CS6 should do in the past), merge the pull request locally and build in Visual Studio 2012 or newer. You will also need to grab a copy of the Intel ISPC Compiler from the link below, put it in "..\3rdParty\Intel\Tools" as it is not included for any reason.

Link:

Intel GameDevZone Texture Works Plugin Page

Intel Texture Engineering Plugin Download Page

Intel Texture Works plugin for Photoshop GitHub Repo

SNORM supports pull requests

Intel SPMD program compiler

Microsoft DX10 Block Compression Reference

Copyright 2018 Intel Corporation

Licensed under Apache 2.0 - see license.txt for details.

Intel® Texture Works Plugin for Photoshop - SNORM Support

Pre-compiled binaries with support for BC5 signed normal maps as used by Fallout 76

Description:

Fallout 76 changes from using BC5 unsigned normals (UNORM) as previous games did, to signed normals (SNORM). This provides some technical advantages, however it also presents a challenge when it comes to freely available tools to export signed BC5 normals. There aren't any. Thankfully al2950 over at the Intel Texture Works plugin GitHub has done the hard work for us and written a pull request which includes BC5 SNORM support. Unfortunately Intel appears to have stopped developing their plugin so the PR hasn't been merged. So, I've done the (admittedly short) legwork of building and distributing a version of the plugin with al2950's BC5 SNORM support. Which is a long-winded way of saying that you can now export textures from Photoshop that will render correctly in Fallout 76.

Instructions:

Download and install as directed by Intel's readme

When exporting normals, BC5 compression is split into BC5_U (unsigned) and BC5_S (signed), use BC5_S when exporting for Fallout 76

Versions:

Two versions are offered, the 1st built with the CS6 SDK as directed by Intel. However as users on the the GitHub repo report issues with later CC versions of Photoshop, I have built a 2nd version with the CC 2018 SDK. You mileage may vary w …