Converting Between FTEX and DDS

Contents

Contents:

Using FtexTool
Using File Monolith’s Mass Texture Converter
1. Convert an entire directory of FTEX files to DDS files

To convert the game engine’s FTEX texture file format to the standard DDS file format (so they can be manipulated in image editors/etc) there are two tools you can use: FtexTool or File Monolith’s Mass Texture Converter.

While for converting DDS back to FTEX only FtexTool supports this.

Using FtexTool

FtexTool is a standalone command-line program that accepts either a single file or a single directory as input.

Convert an FTEX file to a DDS file

Drag a single .ftex file onto the FtexTool.exe program icon.

If successful you’ll see a new .dds file created beside it.

Convert a DDS file to an FTEX file

Drag a single .dds file onto the FtexTool.exe program icon.

You should see a new .ftex and sibling .ftexs file(s) created beside it.

Convert an entire directory of FTEX files to DDS files

Drag a single directory that contains .ftex and their related .ftexs files onto the FtexTool.exe program icon.

If successful you’ll see new .dds files created within.

Other notes

FtexTool is recursive and will convert all FTEX found in every sub-directory of the input directory.

Also FtexTool doesn’t support DDS to FTEX conversion for whole directories. It only supports FTEX to DDS conversion when inputting directories.

For the sake of representing general use cases drag-and-dropping has been used in the steps but obviously being command-line based the program also supports CLI usage (see the tool’s Github readme).

Tip: if any of the above doesn’t produce the expected output check the troubleshooting section below.

FtexTool troubleshooting

Expand for more

If dragging a .ftex file onto the program and it doesn’t output a .dds file check that you have all the associated .ftexs (note the s at the end) files.
- Large textures with mipmaps will have have 3 FTEXS files, while smaller textures will have fewer. All the related FTEXS are required to be present in order to convert the FTEX to a DDS.
When dragging files onto the program make sure only a single DDS or FTEX file is dragged onto the program. Otherwise the program will throw an error and exit without converting anything.
When converting an FTEX to DDS check that you dragged the .ftex and not one of the .ftexs files onto the program.
If you’re instead dragging a directory onto FtexTool only single directories are supported for batch processing. If dragging more than one directory only the on that happens to be ordered first will get processed and the others skipped.
If you’re converting a 3D LUT texture from an FTEX to DDS make sure you’re on at least version 0.3.3 of FtexTool, which added support for BGRA volume textures.

Using File Monolith’s Mass Texture Converter

Mass Texture Converter is one of the included programs of the File Monolith suite that allows converting a directory of FTEX files to DDS files as a one-way conversion.

It has a GUI, a setting to toggle recursive directory parsing and allows choosing a directory to output the converted DDS files to.

However it only supports converting an entire directory of FTEX to DDS and doesn’t support converting DDS back to FTEX.

Convert an entire directory of FTEX files to DDS files

Open Mass Texture Converter.exe from the File Monolith program directory.
Beside the Input Folder field select the ... button and choose the directory that contains the FTEX (and related FTEXS) files.
Beside the Output Folder field select the ... button and choose where you want to output the convered DDS files to.
Click Convert Textures.

Typically you’ll see Mass Texture Converter suggested for converting all the game’s unpacked texture files to DDS, following use of File Monolith’s other tool, Archive Unpacker (with its Condensed Directory Structure option checked). However it can also be used like the above steps for smaller batch conversions.