About:

VTFEdit v1.2.5 - VTFEdit for v1.1 of the .NET Framework and all the files you need to run it (except the .NET Framework).

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• Installer (833 KB)
• Archive (743 KB)

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.NET Framework v1.1 (23,698 KB Executable) - VTFEdit is written in C++ .NET and as such requires the .NET runtime to run. The .NET runtime is also available as a Windows Update. v1.1 is required.

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• Microsoft

I just downloaded the program VTFedit and am tyring to convert VTF's into jpgs or bmps. Can anybody tell me the sequence to do this ? the program comes with no documentation. Thanks

To convert a single texture, open it up then select Export from the File menu. You can save as both .bmp and .jpg, but I recommend .tga as it is a lossless format and preserves the alpha channel.

To convert a bunch of textures, use the Convert Folder tool in the Tools menu. Just select an Input Folder (where your .vtf files are), an Output Folder (where you want your .tgs files to go), enter *.vtf as the filter and press Convert. If Recurse is checked, subfolders will also be processed.

and how do i convert some .tga to .vtf with keeping transparency? stupid half-life does not convert graphics to .vtf sprays saying "you do not have rights" or sth lke that even if i use admin's account!

The default settings should work (as long as your .tga has an alpha channel). My recommended spray settings are:

Normal Format: DXT1 - This is a compressed RGB format that VTFEdit will use if your texture doesn't have an alpha channel.

Alpha Format: DXT5 or DXT3 - This is a compressed RGBA format that VTFEdit will use if your texture has an alpha channel. Use DXT5 if your alpha channel is smooth or DXT3 if your alpha channel is sharp (i.e. you're alpha channel is only there so your spray can be non-square - so its 0 or 255).

Generate Mipamps: Unchecked. Sprays look best when you don't use mipmaps because they aren't LOD scaled. This will also allow you to generate larger animated textures because it uses less memory.

If VTFEdit is not generating an alpha channel then your .tga doesn't have an alpha channel. If you're using PhotoShop, make sure you only have one layer when you export, and that this layer has an alpha channel (you can add channels in the channels tab).

Hmm... I get this message when trying to import an image

Error:
nvDXTcompressRGBA() crashed.

Anyone know why?

nVIDIA's nvDXTLib is exceptionally unstable. The error means the library crashed; I can only recommend that you retry.

There is an update to the library which I will try to add support for in the near future. (Don't hold your breath though, each version seems to add as many bugs as it fixes.)

How can you make your VTF animated? When I upload an animated GIF, it doens't work.

Select Import from the File menu, then in the File Open Dialog, select each frame you want in your animation (hold ctrl of shift down to do this).

I tried adding direct support for animated .gif files, but there is a bug in DevIL which corrupts the image data after it is depalettized so you'll have to extract each frame in an external program before importing.

This looks awesome, Nem! I wanted to adjust Elexis' shirt vtfs! :D

Nem,
I am trying to create animated sprays my problem is when using imageready the export tab is grey out so I used photoshop saved the files as tga and when I try to use vtfedit I do not have the option of mutilple frames is there another version or is the version I have corupted.

Nem, Hi.
What adjustments should I put to create the animated crosshair for Source? I have already made animated VTF, but in game it works as static crosshair.

I'm not really familiar with editing Source crosshairs, but I assume you would also have to edit the crosshair's .vmt file to add the AnimatedTexture proxy. If you created a new crosshair, then I think you also have to use the cl_crosshair_file console command to select it.

Cant seem to get vtfedit to run. every time I try I get:

Application has generated an exception that could not be handled.

Process id=0xcb0 (3248), Thread id=0-xd8c (3468)

Tried uninstalling and reinstalling both vtfedit and .net framework, to no avail.
Any ideas?

This is a problem with your .NET framework install. There isn't much I can say to help, sorry.

Yep, you were right. Just installed .net 1.1 service pack 1 and now vtfedit works. Yay!

I NEED HELP! When i try to run vtf2tga i get a warning asying that vstdlib.dll was not found. Is it that pos vista?

Hey, i need help i get some errors if i try to launch VTFEdit and dont know why?

http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa230/Illumino/error.jpg
http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa230/Illumino/error2.jpg

Need help pls >>
and btw. its version 1.2.3, i tryed to reinstall but didnt work :/

Looks like a problem with your .NET installation, exactly what I can't be sure.

I tryed reinstall .net framework (all versions from 1.1 to 3.0)
and still the same error ~.~ Could you tell me a program that includes the same features as yours? I could really need one D:

Your best bet would be either Photoshop or Paint.NET with one of my plug-ins. See the Valve Wiki for other alternatives.

I have a sequence of png's because some other guy suggested them because they're lossless. I import them into the program with import and shift to select multiple items. The animation worked in program so I saved it as a vtf. Then I tried it out in game and no animation just the first frame. But I saved it as something similar to what my old spray was. so then I changed the name of the vtf I was saving and realized it wouldn't let me open the vtf I had made in game when I tried to pick it as my spray. Did I do something wrong? Would appreciate some help. Thanks for the program man. Also I changed the pngs ti tgas and same result.

For anyone who wants to know:

If you've had problems executing VTF Edit, but know that you've installed .Net Framework, you most likely need to run Windows Update so that you have the most updated version of crucial Windows files.

I have a GIf image, and using adobe image ready I have saved all of the frames. I then went into photoshop, and saved each as a tga. I used vtf edit, and the animation showed up, but when I put it as my spray, it is only the first frame. What am I doing wrong?

What about adding feature of only canvas resizing up to power of 2? The extra space added should become transparent.

Case: I have animated transparent gif with unequal uneven sizes and import causes obligatory resize corrupting image. It would be much better if a program allowed to put original image unchanged in a center of square of greater power of 2.

Of course, resizing can be performed manually, though it'll require some specific tool to resize animated gif, I suppose.

This is something I've been meaning to add for a while; perhaps I'll get around to it for the upcoming release.

As I expected I've found no free tool suitable for spray image preparation.

At last I created my own Script-Fu script for GIMP simplifying the process. It resizes image canvas to nearest power of 2 and then saves frames as separate PNG files.

The script (with embedded tutorial as header comment):
http://zprog.narod.ru/projects/tf2/prepare-spray-frames.scm

Web tutorial:
http://zprog.narod.ru/projects/tf2/spray_tutorial.html

Hey nem. I've been using vtf edit for ages. Best thing since sliced bread ;D . Only problem is I can't remember how to make transparent sprays into vtf's . The original picture is 256x256 and is a tga file (32-bit compression). I've done it once or twice but can't remember now. Thanks again for all you work :D

When I import multiple impages, using the CTRL key to select them, I select them in the order I want them to appear in the final animated .vtf file. Often, VTFEdit will rearrange them into a different sequence and I cant seem to find the pattern. I've tried various naming schemes hoping numeric order would override VTFEdits "sequencing choices" but it doesnt seem to affect it much. The files I was working with were .jpgs and .pngs and the problem didnt seem related to either of the files types or any mixture of them.

To be clearer, I select files 1-6 in order, 1,2,3,4, etc. After I choose my resize options,etc. and VTFEdit imports the files, the images might be in 6,1,2,3,4,5 or 1,6,2,3,4,5.. The rearranging usually happens to the first or last image in the sequence.

Thoughts?

ps. I have noticed that the file I want to be the first in the list has to be the last one chosen.

VTFEdit uses the frame order returned by the standard Windows file open dialog. These is not much I can do about this order, however, I find if you name your frames in lexicographical (alphabetic) order, things work out.

I'm having the same issue as sonicanatidae. No matter how many frames I have on my list nor their names, the last one always becomes the first one. I tried to manually fix the problem by typing their names in the correct order but the interface doesn't allow me to type more than 260 chars; so clicking on items seems to be the only way to select a large number of items. This is particularly problematic in my case because I'm using this material in a special entity that doesn't cycle through all the frames.
I guess one simple solution for that problem would be adding an option like "import from a list file", in the file menu, where the user would point a .txt file with the names of all the frames in the proper order. What about that Nem?

Meanwhile, on simple workround for this issue would be selecting the entire list starting from the second element and then CTRL clicking the first one as if it was the last one. So in sonicanatidae's example, you can just select 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (temporarily selected as 6, 2, 3, 4, 5) and then selecting 1 to have the correct result. That worked for me.

Ok I need some help. I have this logo I have and its in a VTF formate file. And every time I give my map to someone. That logo will not show to them and only to me. I know its in my PC and I can see it. Put what I need to do, so others and see it??

See BSPZip. (Also Pakrat or Map Analyst.)

When exporting a .VTF to .TGA for some reason the alpha channel isn't preserved. It works for .PNG though which is odd.

for some reason, both the Photoshop plugin and VTFEdit are missing options in the export VTF window. For example, the "No Compression" option is not there along with several others. They have simplay been replaced with several "Unused" options instead...How do i fix this?

Sorry for bump

I removed those options because they are not used by the Source engine. They are used internally by vtex only.

Can someone please help me, I converted my .tga file to a .vtf, but i don't know where to save the .vtf to use it in hammer.

P.S. I am trying to use the texture for ep2

Is there currently any way to choose your own mips, rather than have them all derived from the highest level using those the functions?

I'm not sure if this is just user error or a bug, but I'm having trouble resizing images through import. For some reason, I can't get VTFEdit to resize a 1280x1024 image (basically a wallpaper) to 256x256; it's always resizing to 256x1024, which tells me that the resize isn't happening for the height of the picture (it's in JPEG format). I have Resize and Clamp active, with Height and Width under Clamp set to 256; Resizing occurs to the nearest power of 2 (I assume filter isn't really all that crucial in the resizing). I'm not sure what's wrong, but I think something's happening in the wrong order.

See this page.

Nope, sorry.

Looks like VTFLib isn't clamping the width or height of a texture if it is already a power of two. I'll try to get a fix out soon; in the mean time I recommend you resize the image in an external program. Thanks for the heads up.

Could you add a feature to insert/delete frames from animated textures?

How do I add a delay to the frames in the animation. They seem too fast :l

You specify the frame rate in the .vmt as illustrated here.

How do I optimize my animated vtf's for smaller file size? I have a four image .tga sequence at 128x128 and no matter what I do the exported vtf-file is always 128,2 kb which is 0,2kb too much afaik to work in-game(l4d).

I tried making the vtf smaller (120x120) then tried to add black borders to all images, but I assume vtf is created as a raw bitmap file so those won't help. The image is already 2 colored and 64x64 is too small.

DXT has a fixed compression rate (unlike other formats like PNG and JPEG); additionally, the Source engine only supports widths and heights that are a power of two. Consequentially, the only ways to decrease the size of your spray are to disable mipmap generation (highly recommended), to disable thumbnail generation and to decrease the size of the spray by a half or a quarter etc.

If an alpha channel is not necessary, DXT1 requires half the information that DXT3 and DXT5 do.

Alright check this

I see people all over the place asking how to convert .gif to .vtf..

But I want to go the other way around. How do I do this? Or is it impossible?

Disregard that last post I found a way to satisfy my needs. I exported all the individual frames and then used another program to import all the frames and make a new .gif.

But maybe you should include the ability to export to gif in the next patch, if there's a way?

Does this command even work anymore for delaying the frames fps? animatedtextureframerate" 30 I've even downloaded other pre-made sprays with the vmt already edited but in-game and vtfedit.. it doesn't work? :(

Need some help guys, I am modfying uniform files in the new Kuma War 2. I have opened the existing vtf files and exported the contents to png and jpg. I then have used fireworks to edit the images flattening the layers when I was done. I did not modify the image size or any other attributes. I then re-imported the completed graphic into vtfmod and then save it out under the original file name.

After loading them back into the client software and entering the game only the german version I did worked. The US uniforms now are invisible on the parts I edited. Anyone ever ran into this when editing an existing vtf in HL2 engines?

If someone could point me to my flaw I would appreciate any help you can give. Oh and P.S. I set the transparency to Alpha in the completed image files.

Thanks guys,

7th Swabian

Yes you would need to export it to PNG format from vtfedit to keep any transparency, then use an image editor like GIMP which is free to save that file out to Gif.

Anyone know how to get the images to delay instead of being so fast? There is a command but I think it either doesn't work anymore or the game I'm using it on doesn't like how the script looks like and removes it and sets it back to default (the vmt file). I'd rather not use a lower resolution for this and just copy the same images over and over either.

The AnimatedTexture .vmt proxy doesn't work?

See here.

Can you add an option for adding a frame?

Also the option to auto resize the frames would be nice. Just a pain to have to resize each image before I can import them.

I've looked there before and have tried a few different things. Either I don't understand how to properly write it out or tf2 doesn't use them? That's what someone told me but not really sure if that's true. It seems like most people I meet that make sprays don't know how to use this delay stuff either or it doesn't work as they just use the same image over and over to delay it that way which sucks.

i am having a problem with the microsoft download it is saying that it is not vaild to win32???

can you help me in this hell

EEhh.. The program works fine, but i seem unable to convert folders from .DDS to .VTF files...

Any Tips for me??

No, no. VTFEdit works fine, and using the proxy method of modifying the VTF's animation speed via the VMT file works fine as well. You can even see this when you look at it from within TF2's multiplayer options. It animates as you would expect a normal VTF texture to animate.

The issue here is that Valve has chosen to limit the VTF format with respect to sprays and sprays ONLY. If you were creating the VTF for use on a player model, or a wall texture, or whatever else, it would abide by the settings put forth in the VMT file. However, these limits imposed upon the sprays means that the spray will be displayed one way, and one way ONLY.

This helps to keep (cheaters, I guess?) people from modifying it in such a way that may give them an advantage.. Because of these limits, the spray will animate at a set speed, you cannot tell the spray to ignore the z stacking order, or influence the way the spray is affected by lighting, etc. etc. It is set up to be a single-use option, so really nothing you put into the VMT will be honored by the game. The only reason it needs a VMT is so that it can display properly in the GUI. Once you use it as a spray on a surface, it's applying its own set attributes to the texture.

I hope this helps. :)

As discussed here:

http://www.facepunch.com/showthread.php?p=16859574#post16859574

VTFs generated through VTFEdit from a PNG source seem to generate a "Error reading material data".

Does anybody know if this is true, or why this happens?

Edit:

And on a similar note, I recently discovered that PNGs saved with VTFEdit are corrupt, as well for some reason. :S

So you can edit the speed but once your in-game on a server the settings in the vmt file don't work for editing the animated spray speed? If I understood correctly.. If I'm wrong in understanding and it does work then perhaps could I have one you created so I can see how to place the proper coding inside of it to edit the speed?