Paint.NET now supports all DDS formats (including BC7 Linear etc)

[alt3rn1ty]

Paint.NET 4.2.11 released

The last item on the fix list will be good for modders :)

https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/116451-paintnet-4211-is-now-available/

Changes since 4.2.10:

• New: XMP metadata is now preserved for supported file types (PDN, JPEG, PNG, TIFF, JPEG XR, HEIC, AVIF, WEBP)
• New: Belarusian (be) translation
• New: Greek (el) translation
• New: Slovenian (sl) translation
• New: Added a right-click context menu to the image thumbnail/tab. It contains commands for Copy Path, Open Containing Folder, Save, Save As, and Close.
• New: The items in the File -> Open Recent menu now have a tooltip with the full file path for the image
• Changed: The selection outline animation is now smoother (2x the framerate)
• Fixed: Saving with the HEIC file type is no longer limited to a max Quality value of 90. This limitation was in place because of a crash due to heap corruption, which no longer happens.
• Fixed: The NVIDIA sharpening setting will no longer cause trippy distortions in the canvas area
• Fixed an issue with loading very small TGA images, first reported here: https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/116100-tga-rle-truecolor-1x1-image-failed-to-load/. Thanks @null54 or the fix!
• Fixed: Error dialogs when opening images now consistently show the file path
• Fixed a PropertyNotFoundException error message when saving JPEG images with a particular ordering of metadata. This was due to a bug in Windows 7's WIC JPEG codec. First reported here: https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/116079-jpg-cant-save-some-file/
• Fixed clipped text rendering in the Curves adjustment dialog in some non-English translations.
• Fixed a crash when running the app with a DPI scaling setting of 500%
• Fixed a crash that would sometimes happen when running effects with very small selections
• Fixed some IndirectUI controls not honoring their default values if also initialized in read only (disabled) mode. Thanks @BoltBait for the fix!
• Fixed a memory leak in the effect system that was causing 1 orphaned thread per effect invocation
• Changed: Removed the use of NTFS Transactions, which was causing trouble with OneDrive. Microsoft has also deprecated this technology.
• New: Added /openCrashLogFolder command-line argument. This is intended for simplifying troubleshooting workflows.
• New: Added /forceUpdateCheck command-line argument. This is intended for troubleshooting scenarios to simplify acquiring the latest version, e.g. "just run paintdotnet:/forceUpdateCheck" instead giving a longer list of buttons to click on.
• Updated WebPFileType plugin to version 1.3.4.0, which adds XMP metadata support. Thanks @null54!
• Updated DDSFileTypePlus plugin to version 1.10.3. This fixes an issue with saving in the A1R5G5B5, A4R4G4B4, and R5G6B5 formats, and adds support for reading files that use a 'BC7\0' FourCC. Thanks @null54!

[alt3rn1ty]

4.2.12 released, a few fixes ..

https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/116513-paintnet-4212-is-now-available/

[alt3rn1ty]

A new version of DDSFileTypes plugin was released 6 days ago, so is newer than the bundled one in the most recent Paint.NET

It will be included in the next version of PDN, but for those who cant wait and know how to use it (See this post) ..

https://github.com/0xC0000054/pdn-ddsfiletype-plus/releases

Quote

Fix a color conversion issue when loading and saving sRGB files

 

[alt3rn1ty]

Paint.NET 4.2.13 released https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/116864-paintnet-4213-is-now-available/

Changes since 4.2.12:

• New: Added 2-bit per pixel support when saving as PNG
• New: Added 1-bit per pixel support when saving as PNG, BMP, and TIFF
• Fixed low-bit-depth saving quality (8-bit, etc.), as it would sometimes produce very bad results (e.g. only using 64 colors instead of 256)
• Fixed: Resizing an image at very large sizes (e.g. 32K pixels to 64K pixels) would fail due to an arithmetic overflow
• Fixed: Sometimes recently saved images would not have an updated thumbnail in File Explorer unless/until its window was manually refreshed
• Fixed: Sometimes saving an image to a network share would not work
• Updated bundled DDSFileTypePlus plugin to version 1.10.4.0, which fixes an issue when loading and saving images using the sRGB color space. This issue was reported here: https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/116572-dds-file-format-bc1-bc7-srgb-export-incorrectly . Thanks @null54!

[alt3rn1ty]

Paint.NET 4.2.14 released https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/117289-paintnet-4214-is-now-available/

• New: AV1 (*.avif) images can now be saved (not just opened), due to bundling of @null54's AvifFileType plugin (v1.1.4.0). Installation of Microsoft's codec from the Microsoft Store is no longer necessary, which means this also works on Windows 7 and 8.1.
• Improved performance and memory usage in the canvas rendering engine, especially when working with large images or images with many layers. This is most noticeable when scrolling and zooming.
• Improved CPU usage when a selection is active and when GPU accelerated rendering is disabled
• Improved CPU/GPU usage when a selection is active but the app is not (the animation is disabled)
• Reduced memory usage when working with images that have regions of solid color
• Fixed the Magic Wand and Paint Bucket tools so that they do calculations in the premultiplied alpha color space. This ensures that transparent colors (alpha=0) with different RGB values are treated as equal, and do not create borders.
• Fixed the Move Selected Pixels tool so that it fills the uncovered region with 0 (transparent), instead of a transparent version of the secondary color.
• Fixed: Backspace now works correctly in the Colors form: it does not execute Edit -> Fill Selection
• Fixed an issue where saving an image at 4-bit color depth (usually pixel art) was using an incorrect palette (reduced color count/quality). This was due to a bug in Windows Imaging Component (WIC).
• Greatly improved performance when saving images at 8-bit color depth
• Fixed an issue where very large images (e.g. 50000 x 50000 px) couldn't be saved at indexed bit-depths (8-bit or less) due to a bug in Windows Imaging Component (WIC). More information on the forum: https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/116950-error-when-saving-a-big-file/
• Fixed an issue where BMP images couldn't be loaded if they had the .PNG extension (there's an Android screenshot utility out there which does this ...)
• Improved: Ellipse Selection Tool's now tessellates at a higher resolution, resulting in smoother circles at small sizes
• Fixed a rare crash in the Gradient tool ("The tool must be in the Drawing state ...")
• New: Added a list of the DLLs that are loaded into the process on the Settings → Diagnostics page. This is to help troubleshooting scenarios.
• Fixed an issue with copying large images to the clipboard: if an image would take up more than 4GB, it could not be copied because the DIB and DIBV5 formats cannot be larger than that. Now, the DIB and DIBV5 formats are not placed on the clipboard if this happens.
• Fixed an issue with Effect plugin tooltips which was preventing the menu item from being easily clicked (thanks @toe_head2001 for the fix!)
• Fixed an issue that was preventing Effect configuration dialogs from working correctly in the Visual Studio designer (thanks @toe_head2001 for the fix!)
• Added diagnostics information to most error dialogs. This is to help with troubleshooting.
• Fixed: Scanning will now apply the DPI (resolution) from the scanner to the image, if possible
• Updated bundled DdsFileTypePlus plugin to v1.10.7.0. See the pdn-ddsfiletype-plus change log on GitHub for more information. Thanks @null54!

 

DDSFiletype plugin v1.10.7 includes ..

• Add support for saving the L8, A8L8 and V8U8 formats.
• Rename BC6H / BC7 Compression Mode to BC6H / BC7 Compression Speed.
• Rename the Normal BC6H / BC7 compression speed to Medium.

[alt3rn1ty]

https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/117699-paintnet-4215-is-now-available/

4.2.15 update :

 

• New: "Tolerance Alpha Mode" toggle button added to the toolbar for the Magic Wand, Paint Bucket, and Recolor tools. This permits switching the algorithm for color comparison between premultiplied (default) and straight. "Straight" will distinguish between transparent pixels with different color values, whereas premultiplied will see them as equivalent.
• New: Holding Ctrl while using the Color Picker tool will sample from the merged image (vs. just the current layer)
• New: The file name in the title bar will now have a prepended asterisk when it has unsaved changes
• Changed: The image close 'X' button can now be clicked for images that are not currently active
• Changed: In the Text tool, Ctrl+(Backspace, Delete, Arrow Keys) has been improved to work more like Microsoft Word. Thanks to @Bruce Bowyer-Smyth for the patch!
• Fixed: The Rectangle Select tool, when used to draw a constrained, fixed ratio, or fixed size selection, will now correctly clamp the rectangle to be within the canvas
• Fixed: Layers -> Move Layer Up/Down/Top/Bottom was not working for images with fewer than 3 layers
• Fixed: Edit -> Erase Selection will now fill with transparent black (#00000000) instead of transparent white (#00FFFFFF)
• Fixed: Custom Shapes will now be displayed in a consistently sorted order
• Fixed: ".pdnSave" ghost files should no longer linger when saving to the desktop. This was due to a bug in Windows and File Explorer.
• Fixed crashes due to DXGI/Direct3D "lost device" or "device removed" errors that can happen for various reasons (duck/undock, driver update, low memory, etc.)
• New: Plugins can now use the IArrayPoolService, a wrapper around .NET's ArrayPool, to optimize their array allocations
• Updated bundled AVIF FileType Plus to v1.1.6. See the pdn-avif releases page on GitHub (https://github.com/0xC0000054/pdn-avif/releases) for more information.

[alt3rn1ty]

Paint.NET 4.2.16 update - Includes an update to the bundled DDSFileTypesPlus plugin

DDSFileTypesPlus topic https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/111731-dds-filetype-plus-04-18-2021/page/6/

"Release version 1.10.9.

Changes:

Fixed a regression from version 1.10.7 when loading DDS images that exceed the Direct3D limits."

 

https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/118127-paintnet-4216-is-now-available/

• New: Effect -> Color -> Quantize, which applies palette reduction to 256 colors or less, along with dithering. This is the same algorithm used when saving images at 8-bit color depth or lower.
• Fixed and improved palette generation when saving at 8-bit color depth or less
• Greatly optimized performance of palette generation and image quantization
• Added option to choose between Octree (default) and Median Cut algorithms for palette quantization when saving at 8-bit color depth or less
• Fixed a crash in Move tools when the selection was 0-width and/or 0-height
• Added tooltips w/ shortcut keys to the Tools dropdown in the toolbar
• Fixed IndirectUI ColorWheel rendering (thanks @toe_head2001!)
• Fixed a crash in the Text tool when using Ctrl+(Left,Right,Backspace,Delete) (thanks @Bruce Bowyer-Smyth!)
• Changed: New layers are now filled with #00000000 instead of #00FFFFFF
• Fixed a crash when working with selections (OutOfMemoryException)
• New: Effects can now access the Document's DPI via EffectEnvironmentParameters.DocumentResolution
• Fixed drawing of the color palette in the Colors window when using some non-standard DPI scaling settings (e.g. 1.15x)
• Fixed a crash when using @Ed Harvey's Threshold plugin
• Fixed the return value from PdnRegion.GetBoundsInt() so it's not anchored at (0,0) unless it should be
• Fixed premultiplied-to-straight color conversion on some code paths (thanks @null54!)
• Updated bundled AvifFileType plugin to v1.1.11.0, which includes performance optimizations and bug fixes. See its GitHub releases page (https://github.com/0xC0000054/pdn-avif/releases) for more info. (thanks @null54!)
• Updated bundled DDSFileTypePlus plugin to v1.10.9.0, which uses an updated version of DirectXTex (2021-04-06). (thanks @null54!)

[alt3rn1ty]

v4.3 released ..

https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/118660-paintnet-43-is-now-available/#comments

DDSFileType and WebP included plugins also updated :

Changes since 4.2.16:

• New: The app has been migrated to .NET 5, and performance has been greatly improved as a result.
• New: ARM64 is now natively supported, which improves performance on devices such as the Surface Pro X.
• New: .NET no longer needs to be installed on the system because the app now uses self-contained deployment.
• New: Portable ZIPs are now available. Please note that portable installations do not currently update automatically.
• Improved performance of most effects and other compute-intensive tasks by about 20% on average, due to .NET 5's improved code generation (JIT).
• Improved startup performance for the Microsoft Store release. Previously, .NET Framework's NGEN was unavailable for Store apps, but now .NET 5 enables self-contained deployment along with ReadyToRun + crossgen, which serves the same purpose.
• Improved performance: Many areas of the app have been optimized to use SIMD (SSE2/3/4.1, AVX2) on x86/x64:
  • Drawing on an image with a large number of layers is faster
  • Drawing with the Gradient Tool's alpha mode is faster
  • Drawing with the Recolor tool is faster
  • Drawing with the Eraser or Clone Stamp tool is faster when using a color whose alpha value is less than 255
  • Drawing with the Overwrite blend mode is faster
  • Drawing with the Shapes tool is faster, due to improved compositing performance
  • Drawing with a brush tool without antialiasing is faster
  • Tile compression has lower overhead due to being optimized for SSE2 and AVX2
  • Working with complex selections is faster
  • Many other optimizations all throughout the application and rendering engine
• Improved performance of loading custom Shapes by ~16x on 2nd and subsequent app starts.
• Improved performance of the Magic Wand tool by a substantial amount.
• Improved performance of the Paint Bucket tool by a substantial amount.
• Improved performance of the Paint Bucket when changing the color or certain other toolbar settings by not recalculating the stencil buffer for the filled area. Changes should now be visible immediately.
• Improved performance of Polar Inversion by 3x, mostly as a corollary to fixing a bug that was causing hangs, and a little bit due to .NET 5.
• Improved performance on systems without HyperThreading by reserving 1 core for the UI. Performance is also improved on systems with it by utilizing more of the logical cores.
• Improved performance while installing or updating the app, due to no longer needing the "Optimizing performance for your system" stage (NGEN has been replaced with ReadyToRun via crossgen).
• Improved memory usage when custom shapes are installed so they don't litter the heap with hundreds of thousands of boxed value types (e.g. floats and points).
• Improved selection antialiasing quality by using a 4x4 super sampling filter instead of a 3x3 super sampling filter. The code has also been optimized to use SSSE3 on x86/x64.
• Improved: Effect and File Type plugins can now be organized into folders. The plugin loader will recursively search for DLLs up to 1 folder deep.
• Fixed a bug when saving with "Auto Detect" bit-depth which was causing fidelity loss on some images that already had 256 colors or less. This was reported here: https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/118401-images-already-with-256-or-fewer-colors-being-dithered-when-saved-with-palette/
• Fixed: There were some issues with zooming in/out using the keyboard, where the anchoring point was not calculated correctly, causing the canvas to drift in the wrong direction.
• Fixed the inability to use middle-mouse panning after using a selection tool and pressing delete before releasing the mouse button.
• Improved: Plugins are now loaded into isolated AssemblyLoadContexts, which improves stability and resiliency to various problems with versioning, loading dependencies, plugin bugs, and incorrect plugin installation.
• Fixed a crash when trying to draw a fixed-size rectangle selection that was larger than the image.
• Fixed a bug with the Tolerance slider where both 58% and 59% would be displayed as 58%, due to a rounding issue. The correct value was actually being used, it just wasn't being displayed correctly.
• Added a /disablePlugins command-line argument to aid in troubleshooting various issues with app startup and incorrect plugin installation.
• New: Additional directories can now be specified for plugin discovery, which (e.g.) enables the use of OneDrive for storing plugins. See here for more info: https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/118583-feature-request-set-custom-app-files-plugins-folder/?do=findComment&comment=586013
  • Note that this does not work with the portable version of the app, but you can install plugins next to the app so it isn't necessary.
• Updated the bundled AvifFileType plugin to v1.1.15.0, courtesy of @null54, which includes support for multi-layer AVIF files, and adds native support for ARM64. See the project's GitHub Releases page for more information.
• Updated the bundled DdsFileTypePlus plugin to v1.10.10.0, courtesy of @null54, which adds native support for ARM64. See the project's GitHub Releases page for more information.
• Updated the bundled WebPFileType plugin to v1.3.7.0, courtesy of @null54, which adds native support for ARM64. See the project's GitHub Releases page for more information.
• Changed: FileType.IsReflexive() is now deprecated via [Obsolete], and is no longer honored. However, the Save Configuration dialog will no longer try to generate previews for FileTypes that do not specify any file extensions for loading, which is what this method was being used for.
• Known Issue: Due to crashing, GPU accelerated effects (Gaussian Blur, Motion Blur, Radial Blur) on ARM64 will actually use the CPU for rendering.

[alt3rn1ty]

After such a big overhaul in 4.3, 4.3.1 bugfixes :

https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/118697-paintnet-431-is-now-available/

Changes since 4.3:

• Fixed an issue with using Explorer's "Open With" menu on Windows 7, 8.1, and some editions of Windows 10
• Fixed image thumbnails in Explorer's Details View only having a generic document icon instead of the Paint.NET icon
• Fixed a spurious, harmless error in Settings -> Plugin Errors
• Fixed a race condition that could cause a crash
• Fixed not being able to use Ctrl+C to copy text from the Setup Downloader, which is especially important for troubleshooting

[alt3rn1ty]

And another update 4.3.2

https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/118729-paintnet-432-is-now-available/

Changes since 4.3.1:

• Fixed a hang at app startup on systems using certain locales, such as Thai (th-TH)
• Improved performance of Settings -> Tools, which used to take 6-7 seconds to open. Now it takes about 1 second, thanks to @Bruce Bowyer-Smyth
• Fixed ReadOnlyBoundToNameValuesRule for IndirectUI-based plugins. It was not initializing correctly, although it would work correctly afterward.

 

[alt3rn1ty]

v4.3.3 released

Windows 7 and 8.1 users take note, 4.3.3 will be the last supported version for those OS https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/118933-paintnet-433-is-now-available/

Changes since v4.3.2:

• New: The app has been migrated to .NET 6, which has improved both rendering and startup performance
• New translation: Catalan (ca)
• New translation: Corsican (co)
• New translation: Thai (th)
• Changed: The /createMsi command for the installer has been removed. Instead, you can now download MSIs directly from the GitHub releases page.
• Improved various UI controls for Dark Theme, e.g. scrollbars (Win10 v1809+ only)
• Fixed the way various UI controls look on Windows 11, e.g. buttons and drop-down lists
• Fixed the View -> Zoom to Window command when using the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+B), which was resetting instead of toggling the zoom level
• Improved performance during the "extracting" stage of the installer by migrating away from Nullsoft Scriptable Installer System (NSIS)
• Reduced the download size on ARM64 by about 33%
• Fixed a rendering bug in the Dents and Polar Inversion effects, as reported here: https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/118746-paintnet-update-changed-the-way-the-dents-distortion-filter-works-causing-unwanted-artifactsglitches-was-this-an-intended-change/
• Fixed a memory leak in the selection renderer that was consuming gigabytes of GPU memory, resulting in crashes. Thanks to @Zagna for finding this and testing the fix! https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/118806-paint-crashes-if-you-do-a-selection-glitch-and-then-history-jump-forward/?do=findComment&comment=587772
• Fixed some GDI object leaks, particularly with the Save Configuration dialog, which would eventually result in a crash. Thanks @rechlin for finding and reporting this! https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/118785-crash-due-to-running-out-of-gdi-objects/
• Fixed a memory leak in Settings -> Tools. Thanks @otuncelli for finding this! https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/118785-crash-due-to-running-out-of-gdi-objects/#comment-588468
• Fixed an issue that was preventing new plugins from loading their native DLL dependencies as specified in their .deps.json file
• Fixed the app crashing after an effect plugin crashes when you choose to restart the app
• Fixed a crash while drawing a selection, right-clicking on the History window before releasing the left mouse button, and then clicking to redo a history entry, as reported here: https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/118806-paint-crashes-if-you-do-a-selection-glitch-and-then-history-jump-forward/
• Fixed a text rendering bug in some parts of the UI, mostly in Effects, as reported by @midora over at https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/118866-paintnet-43-footnote-of-indirectui-control-in-filetype-shows-artifacts-after-scrolling/
• Fixed the "untitled:" file name argument prefix, which was preventing Window Clippings from being able to send screenshot
• Fixed some registry keys that were not being deleted during uninstall
• Fixed the PdnRepair utility on Windows 7
• Fixed some inconsistencies with the MSI as compared to v4.2.16 which were causing problems for some deployments
• Updated the bundled AvifFileType to v1.1.17.0, courtesy of @null54, which updates the AOM version and fixes a crash when reading large EXIF blocks. See its GitHub releases page for more info.

[PacmanPilot]

I wish I would have found this post a year ago, as Gimp and/or that DDS plugin was just too buggy.

I went off the grid for 6 months to move and I crank my PC up, Gimp encourages an update, and the damn program wouldn't open DDS file.  Again. 

Maybe that DDS plugin for Gimp (dated 2013) by Shawn Kirst needs to be updated?

Not sure, but forked out the $8.00 for MS Paint and no problems at all.

Quick questions for this old dog... any YouTube tutorials on how to open as layers in MS Paint, as I used to do in Gimp, so I can merge my Blender file with the MSFS ...PLANE_ALBD file?

Cheers!

[alt3rn1ty]

I dont use MS Paint so cant advise with those questions

But if we are talking about Paint.NET tutorials are here https://forums.getpaint.net/forum/18-tutorials-publishing-only/

and there's one on layers in the latest documentation https://www.getpaint.net/doc/latest/WorkingWithLayers.html

 

Edit: Reference G.I.M.P - These days it comes with built in DDS support, adding that old plugin will not work and probably conflicts. Bad news is DDS support with the built in is still based on the old google code plugin, and needs further development to make it compatible with everything these days. G.I.M.P dev made the effort to include rudimentary DDS support, but it is not their main focus and needs newer developers from the open source community to join in.

So the best option if you still want to use G.I.M.P, is save out (export) your work in a lossless format like png, load it up in Paint.NET, and then use Paint.NET just to save it out as your desired DDS format texture file.

Not ideal if you want to batch process a bunch of files, but helluva lot cheaper than the last option .. Photoshop, with the Intel Texture Works plugin for DDS.

[PacmanPilot]

Thanks for replying. Brain fart, as I did download Paint.NET.  Reminds me A LOT of how I remember the old MS Paint looked.

GIMP is out as I was only using it to create the DDS files, but I'll use Photoshop and Paint.NET for my livery editing. I also found a free Nvidia DDS plugin for PS too.

Thanks again!

[alt3rn1ty]

Well the NVidia DDS plugin is quite out of date and does not support all DDS formats that modders use these days .. but if you are running an older version of Photoshop and dont need the extra formats then it should be ok (it sufficed for many years for a lot of the Bethesda community modders).

Best plugin for Photoshop by far though is as previously mentioned Intel Texture Works Plugin

How you install it though very much depends on what version of Photoshop you are running, I cant help there these days, I no longer have Photoshop nor am I up to date with using it.

That plugin for Photoshop is the same code as the Paint.NET DDSPlugin is based on, and supports not only the newer BC7 texture formats, but also a few older ones (which the old NVidia driver does not handle as well as the Intel Texture Works plugin does), Intel Texture Works has had a lot more recent development and bug fixing to address some very old issues with some of the lesser used DDS formats aswell as using the newer formats.

If you have not experienced it before, have a read about it here https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/tool/intel-texture-works-plugin.html

Anyway good luck with your texturing, whatever solution you use

[lmstearn]

Happy new year!

While searching for text effects, found this, BoltBait's Plugin Pack has quite a bit including things like polygon stars, custom shapes, feather edging, flames, Meme Maker, and a whole lot more.

Also, the regulars here probably have already come across a "sister site" with a magnificent tutorial on Post-Processing Screenshots in Paint.Net, the before and after shots at the end provide a good demo of what Paint.Net can do.

[0xC0000005]

DDSFileTypePlus developer here.

Version 1.10.11 has been released on the Paint.NET forum and GitHub, it will be included with the upcoming Paint.NET 4.3.8 update.

This version adds support for saving the DXGI_FORMAT_R32_FLOAT format, which is used for height maps by Bethesda's Creation Kit for Fallout 4.

On 12/2/2021 at 9:12 AM, alt3rn1ty said:

So the best option if you still want to use G.I.M.P, is save out (export) your work in a lossless format like png, load it up in Paint.NET, and then use Paint.NET just to save it out as your desired DDS format texture file.

You could also use the DirectXTex texconv utility to batch convert the PNGs to DDS. This may be faster, and should allow you to use 16-bits-per-channel PNGs (Paint.NET only supports 8-bits-per-channel).

On 10/27/2019 at 4:48 AM, alt3rn1ty said:

Had a message from IrfanView programmer, and I dont think it will be supporting DirectXTex new formats any time soon.

Its a bit of a tall order for Irfan to overcome (he would need the code for plugins to be in C or C++, whereas C# has been used and conversion from one to the other is too complicated to attempt .. In other words its too big a job just to support a couple of new dds format texture types in a Viewer which is not really focussed on just that job)

DirectXTex is an open source C++ library. My Paint.NET plugin uses a C++ DLL that wraps DirectXTex so that it can be used from C#.

Finally a small tip:

If you make Paint.NET the default program for opening DDS files it will allow BC7 DDS files to show thumbnails in Windows Explorer, as Paint.NET will take over the DDS thumbnail rendering from the OS.

Ironically, Microsoft's built-in DDS thumbnail handler only supports the DirectX 9 formats:  BC1 (DXT1), BC2 (DXT3) and BC3 (DXT5).

[alt3rn1ty]

3 hours ago, 0xC0000005 said:

DDSFileTypePlus developer here.

Version 1.10.11 has been released on the Paint.NET forum and GitHub, it will be included with the upcoming Paint.NET 4.3.8 update.

This version adds support for saving the DXGI_FORMAT_R32_FLOAT format, which is used for height maps by Bethesda's Creation Kit for Fallout 4.

You could also use the DirectXTex texconv utility to batch convert the PNGs to DDS. This may be faster, and should allow you to use 16-bits-per-channel PNGs (Paint.NET only supports 8-bits-per-channel).

DirectXTex is an open source C++ library. My Paint.NET plugin uses a C++ DLL that wraps DirectXTex so that can be used from C#.

Finally a small tip:

If you make Paint.NET the default program for opening DDS files it will allow BC7 DDS files to show thumbnails in Windows Explorer, as Paint.NET will take over the DDS thumbnail rendering from the OS.

Ironically, Microsoft's built-in DDS thumbnail handler only supports the DirectX 9 formats:  BC1 (DXT1), BC2 (DXT3) and BC3 (DXT5).

Love updates to your plugins, thank you for the tips and popping in here.

[0xC0000005]

v4.3.8 released.

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Changes since v4.3.7:

• New: Layers -> Toggle Layer Visibility menu command (keyboard shortcut: Ctrl + comma)
• Greatly improved performance for the Line/Curve and Shapes tools
• Improved performance for the Move Selected Pixels tool when using Bicubic resampling
• Fixed tooltips not going away when menu items are activated by the keyboard (Effects, Adjustments, and File -> Open Recent)
• Added a FolderChooser control type for IndirectUI-based plugins (thanks @toe_head2001!)
• Fixed compatibility for Ed Harvey’s FastFX PencilSketch effect plugin
• Fixed a performance bug in the canvas renderer that was causing tiles to be copied to the GPU more often than necessary. This mostly affected performance when drawing or modifying selections, and when scrolling or zooming.
• Fixed a small memory leak with the allocations made for Win32 synchronization primitives (critical sections and condition variables)
• Updated the bundled AvifFileType plugin to verison 1.1.18.0, which fixes some issues with EXIF metadata handling. (thanks @null54!)
• Updated the bundled WebPFileType plugin to version 1.3.11.0, which fixes some issues with EXIF metadata handling. (thanks @null54!)
• Updated the bundled DDSFileTypePlus plugin to version 1.10.11.0, which adds support for DXGI_FORMAT_R32_FLOAT. This is used by Bethesda’s Creation Kit for Fallout 4. (thanks @null54!)

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Version 1.10.12 has been released on the Paint.NET forum and GitHub, This version updates DirectXTex to the March 24, 2022 release.

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Paint.NET v4.3.11 has been released.

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Changes since v4.3.10:

• New: Title bars now respect Dark Theme in Windows 10 20H1+
• Updated the bundled WebPFileType plugin to v1.3.12.0 (thanks @null54!)
• Updated the bundled DDSFileTypePlus plugin to v1.10.12.0 (thanks @null54!)

[alt3rn1ty]

Thank you 

Your plugin has made Paint.NET really useful for the modding community, even if they dont use Paint.NET for every graphical manipulation of the texture image, but only use it as a comprehensive DDS file saver. For hobbyist modders on a budget who cant afford Photoshop its a really big help to load up the finished image and then save it as the final dds file in the correct format for the game.

[Akira13645]

The most recent version of Paint.Net still seems to produce visibly worse-looking output with BC7 even in "Slow" mode than the free standalone Nvidia Texture Tools Exporter does with BC7 in "Normal" mode.

[alt3rn1ty]

Paint.NET 4.3.12 released

https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/120669-paintnet-4312-is-now-available/

Changes since v4.3.11:

• Fixed a bug when using Crop to Selection where the image would scroll away to the corner
• Fixed a rendering bug in the brush tools that would cause some sections of the brush stroke to be rendered twice, making them darker
• Added the PdnBaseForm.IsAppThemeDark property so that plugins with custom UI can more easily be dark theme aware
• Fixed a rare crash in the rendering engine due to a race condition
• Fixed a crash when using multiple monitors plugged into multiple GPUs from different manufacturers (e.g. AMD vs. NVIDIA), while moving the window between monitors (NotCurrentlyAvailableException)
• Updated the bundled WebPFileType plugin to v1.3.14.0 (thanks @null54!). See its GitHub releases page for more info.
• Updated the bundled AvifFileType to v1.1.20.0 (thanks @null54!). See its GitHub releases page for more info.

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Paint.net 5.0.4 has been released. https://forums.getpaint.net/topic/122540-paintnet-504-is-now-available/

DDSFileTypePlus has been updated to version 1.11.8.0, which adds gamma correction for mipmap generation.