Optimizing skins? How to make file size smaller

[Shanghai]

Just wondering. Is it when i use the export in FL and wc3 Viewer?

So i export as low quality then it gets lower size how i do?

 

[Shadow Daemon]

BLP Laboratory

You can use that to "optimize" BLPs (it removes all junk from file, not image), and it will reduce size by several kbytes and preserve the same quality.
Otherwise, you can resave your texture with lower quality options (current quality value is shown in the "file information" box).

 

[CloudWolf]

Theres also another way to optimise your skins if you want a little bit more control

Use the Warcraft 3 Viewer

Theres several things you can do to lower a skins filesize.

1. Open your .blp file in the war3 viewer, then export it to a TGA file. TGA's can normally be opened in most photo editing programs (photoshop, GIMP etc).

2. Open the image up in your photo editing program and note how big the dimensions are. If your skin is 512x512 pixels, you can resize it to 256x256, or even 128x128 if you want to really compress it. Once the image is at the size you want, save the skin in TGA format.

3. Using the war3 viewer, convert your TGA file to a BLP. When doing so, the program will give you the option to set the quality. The lower the quality, the less the file-size. You can normally set this to about 50% - 60% without loosing too much quality

4. Once converted back into a BLP, just import it into your map as usual!

hope this helps!

 

[nickel510]

Excellent, thank you cloudwolf. Now... What does the master have to say about compressing models?

Also... *cough* I'm a little cheap so whats the cheapest way to open up the skins and shrink them? Photoshop is expensive O.O

 

[Raven0]

Warcraft 3 Viewer is free and is available on this site.

You can't compress models

 

[Goolygot]

You can make models smaller filesize by using optimization, optimize in mdlvis (google for it).

 

[nickel510]

Warcraft 3 Viewer is free and is available on this site.

You can't compress models

I was referring to the MDX squisher, I don't know the proper terms for this stuff, just wondering if MDX squisher is the only way to shrink down model size or not, since Cloudwolf has listed 2 ways to shrink the skin size.

Also, I was asking how to re-size the skin without photoshop, IE a free program. I've gone through Wc3 Viewer and see no way to do it in there. Help please

 

[Revilo]

http://www.gimp.org/

 

[Raven0]

or Irfanview

 

[PurgeandFire]

I was referring to the MDX squisher, I don't know the proper terms for this stuff, just wondering if MDX squisher is the only way to shrink down model size or not, since Cloudwolf has listed 2 ways to shrink the skin size.

I'm afraid MDX Squisher is as far as you can go in terms of compressing models without model editing. (afaik mdlvis does about the same thing) Via model editing, you would probably only need to reduce the polies. (assuming you already squished it/are going to, but it is not too easy of a task unless some polies are just lying around or are unneeded) If you want freeware for this, you can use Oinkerwinkle's tools and remove unneeded polygons, although I'm not sure you'll be in luck for that as most modelers won't leave things like that.

Overall, models won't take up a lot of space unless they are high-poly, but even then the textures might be taking up more space. Squishing is good because it doesn't have any side-effects on your models (it simply removes excess junk), but modifying texture quality/size will probably be the best way to go to save space.

 

[nickel510]

Great answers guys, thank you. Just one more question (at least for now) how many times can a model be squished until mdxsquisher does nothing? Its hard to tell since it doesn't actually reduce file size outside of the game.
Thanks in advance.

 

[-Grendel]

it squishes only once

 

[nickel510]

it squishes only once

Then why do most people say something like 'don't squish the mdx too many times or a great loss in quality may result'?

 

[PurgeandFire]

MDXSquisher deletes unused and unnecessary data from the .mdx file. Once that data is gone, it is gone, so squishing it again won't have an effect.

The thing about MDXSquisher is that it does not result in any quality loss, as it doesn't affect anything like that. I think you might have gotten that mixed up with textures, because if you keep compressing it, the texture quality will gradually become more worse.

 

[nickel510]

Thanks a lot, now I get 2 more questions! First, can you use the Mdxsquisher or Mdlvis on Portraits?
Second, does squishing the model more then once do anything? Guuest said here that compressing the model multiple times and then editing it would result in a loss of quality, but he said multiple times before editing, not after, so its unclear if he was saying that mdx squisher was effective to use on the same model more then once or not.

Thanks in advance.

 

[PurgeandFire]

Repeatedly using this program on an MDX and then editing
it again may result in a loss of quality, so you may want
to avoid overwriting your original files.

It seems that it only makes a noticeable effect once you edit it again. Basically, keep one unsquished so you can edit it, and then after fixing or adding whatever you need, you can make a squished version.

Overall, I think squishing too many times can have an effect on the model, but it probably isn't anything too noticeable. You can keep squishing a model, but it probably has less of an effect each time you squish it.

 

[nickel510]

It seems that it only makes a noticeable effect once you edit it again. Basically, keep one unsquished so you can edit it, and then after fixing or adding whatever you need, you can make a squished version.

Overall, I think squishing too many times can have an effect on the model, but it probably isn't anything too noticeable. You can keep squishing a model, but it probably has less of an effect each time you squish it.

Thank you! And do you know anything about squishing portraits?

 

[PurgeandFire]

Yes, it should work. I'm pretty sure you can squish any mdx.