BLP Compression, help please

[nickel510]

I've been researching how to make map sizes smaller, when I came across this post by MekC
"WC3 Viewer is a good tool to compress blp files. Download it, open it, convert the blp to tga. Then convert it back again and set the quality to something between 35 - 50. This can compress it arround 80%"

However, on this very cool tutorial about map size management, they suggest using BLP Paletter to compress your BLPs.
http://world-editor-tutorials.thehelper.net/cat_usersubmit.php?view=67501

So my question is, what is the most efficient program/way to compress blps? And while I'm asking, is MDX Squisher really the best way to compress MDXs? Any other helpful hints for shrinking down imported skins and models? (please don't suggest widgetizer for reducing map size, I've tried it and it deletes all doodads and destructables in my map).

Thanks a lot. + rep for answers.

 

[D4RK_G4ND4LF]

BLP Lab is pretty good (tool section)
but there are two types of compression and one of them crashes macs (afaik it was the jpeglike compression which unfortunately is the better one of them imho, but only if you compress more than a certain percentage [ask paladon about that, he found out about it in his battle tanks map])
but the most efficient way to compress textures is to scale them down (or don't use them at all, there are enough models in the mpq anyway)

there is another tool to reduce the size of mdl files (so you would have to convert to mdl and back again) but it also reduces the quality of animations and I don't remember the name (but you might find it on xgm.ru)

 

[nickel510]

Thanks, +rep