no-vtf 2.0.1

Valve Texture Format Converter

no_vtf

Say no to .vtf – convert it to one of the standard image formats.

Motivation

• cross-platform – runs on any machine where Python is supported
• console-only – runs without a graphical interface
• full HDR support (including compressed HDR)
• parallel conversion – uses all available resources to speed up the process
• proper decoding of the ARGB8888 format
• formally described .vtf file format (via Kaitai Struct)
• regression suite against crafted .vtf files and reference output

Installation

Application bundle

For Linux and Windows running on x64, there are application bundles with the Python interpreter included.

• no_vtf-linux_x64.tar.xz (glibc 2.31 or newer required, i.e. Debian 11, Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, …)
• no_vtf-windows_x64.zip (Windows 8.1 or newer required)

./no_vtf ...  # Linux
no_vtf.exe ...  %= Windows =%

Bundles are ready to be used offline – the FreeImage library is already included.

Package

If you have Python 3.10 or newer, you can install the package from PyPI directly:

python3 -m pip install no_vtf

python3 -m no_vtf ...

Or install it into a virtual environment:

python3 -m venv no_vtf-venv

source no_vtf-venv/bin/activate  # Linux
no_vtf-venv/scripts/activate  %= Windows =%

no_vtf ...

Before the first conversion, the FreeImage library will be downloaded to support the process. Further conversions are supported offline.

Usage

General invocation

no_vtf [OPTIONS] PATH...

PATH can be either file or directory. Multiple paths may be provided.

Tip: With bundles, drag-and-drop files or folders to be converted onto the application launcher (the file with icon and no extension on Linux and the .exe file on Windows).

Change output directory

no_vtf --output-dir /tmp PATH...

Override LDR/HDR output format

no_vtf --ldr-format png --hdr-format tiff PATH...

Further help

no_vtf --help

Supported formats

Input

All textures installed with Team Fortress 2 and Source Filmmaker can be converted with the supported format set.

• RGBA8888
• ABGR8888
• RGB888
• BGR888
• I8
• IA88
• A8
• RGB888_BLUESCREEN
• BGR888_BLUESCREEN
• ARGB8888
• BGRA8888
• DXT1
• DXT3
• DXT5
• BGRA4444
• DXT1_ONEBITALPHA
• UV88
• RGBA16161616F
• RGBA16161616

Output

The following formats were tested and optimized for use:

LDR

• PNG
• TGA
• TIFF (default)

HDR

• EXR (default)
• TIFF

It is also possible to select other formats supported by Imageio.

Known issues

Color space

Color space of LDR textures is inferred from the context in which the texture is used in-game. Since this context is not available when converting the .vtf files directly, color space metadata for the output images cannot be set.

Color space of HDR textures is always linear. It would make sense to set this metadata when converting into the TIFF format, but for technical reasons, this is not done.

Opaque PNG

When using PNG, the alpha channel is not written when the image is fully opaque. This may pose problems in other programs. In Blender, for example, when such image is not packed and OSL is enabled, the alpha channel is shown as black. For this reason, TIFF is the default LDR format instead of PNG.

Benchmark

• Sample: 11 GiB of LDR .vtf files
• CPU: Intel Core i7-6500U

Size is the total disk usage consumed by the output. Conversion was done without extraction of all mipmaps.

Compressed PNG, parallel

Time is the wall clock time.

• 1 worker: 9.71 minutes
• 2 workers: 5.45 minutes
• 3 workers: 4.18 minutes
• 4 workers: 3.77 minutes

Uncompressed, sequential

Time is the total CPU time spent in user and kernel mode.

• PNG: 10.35 minutes
• TGA: 2.69 minutes
• TIFF: 3.27 minutes

In all three cases, the size was 33 GiB.

Compressed, sequential

Time is the total CPU time spent in user and kernel mode.

• PNG: 5.9 GiB, 12.56 minutes
• TGA: 14 GiB, 3.77 minutes
• TIFF: 6.9 GiB, 8.81 minutes

Development

For more resources, check out the Nox sessions in noxfile.py and the build system in builds/.

Linting

python3 -m pip install nox

python3 -m nox -R
python3 -m nox -R -- --fix

Pre-build steps

# compile .ksy files (requires Kaitai Struct compiler)
# only necessary if a .ksy file was modified
ksy/compile.sh