PVRTexToolGUI and ASTC Evaluation Codec

PowerVR Insider
1

Dear Forum members I’m strugeling a little bit with the combination of these 2 tools. Maybe one knows better.

I have PVRTexTool installed and for short tests, I also enjoy the GUI editor to click my texture together.
I have astcenc installed and working in terminal.
I’m testing everything on a OSX machine but also need to be able to run it on Linux.

Now 2 Questions:

  • I want to build astc textures from the GUI editor, but the Editor tells me “Error: astcenc not found. Please download and place in PATH” where does the editor search for the tool, what kind of PATH does the tool refer to, or where is this path set?

  • I like to get a pvr Texture File with PVRV3 headers but using ASTC compression, how are these 2 linked togehter, how do you get the PVRTexTool to compress with the astcenc but use its own header.

I’m thankfull for any help or hints as I didn’t find much in the docs describing how these 2 tools work together.

2

Hi Patric,

[blockquote>where does the editor search for the tool, what kind of PATH does the tool refer to[/blockquote]

The message is referring to the PATH environment variable. On a Unix-like OS (e.g. OS X and Linux), you can query the current PATH value with the following Terminal command:

[pre]echo $PATH[/pre]

If you add the ASTC directory to this variable, TexTool will be able to find the compressor. You can add it to the PATH with the following command:

[pre]export PATH=$PATH:/the/astc/directory[/pre]

Doing the above will only add it to your path for the current Terminal session. If you would like to set it permanently so TexTool can find the tool without launching TexTool from the Terminal, you can follow the steps in this guide: http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/appleosx-bash-unix-change-set-path-environment-variable/

[blockquote]I like to get a pvr Texture File with PVRV3 headers but using ASTC compression, how are these 2 linked togehter[/blockquote]

TexTool will use ARM’s compressor to generate the compressed image. TexTool will then generate an appropriate header for the data when it is saved out to PVR or any of the other supported container formats.

I’ll discuss this issue with the documentation team to improve future revisions of the manual

3

Hello Joe

Thx for the fast response, but then I still have a problem, I set the evironment variable PATH for astcenc already but pvrtextool does not recognize it.

[pre]PATH=$PATH:/Applications/astc-encoder-master/Binary/MacOS[/pre]

That was the last action right before comming to cry here.
Then I also tried to have the astcenc stored in /usr/bin/ what also works for Terminal use but both dont change anything in PVRTexToolGUI

Anything obvious I’m missing?

4

Ok as you said, environement works in Terminal, In GUI tool I dont get it working.
[pre]
PVRTexToolCLI -i myFile.png -o myFileASTC8.pvr -f ASTC_8x8 -m -q astcmedium[/pre]

Created texture works perfectly in engine and header is the PVRV3, so works for me as the whole compression goes on a linux machine anyway, GUI was just me running the Testcases.

Thank you

5

Hi Patric,

I’ve spoken to the TexTool lead about this again. It seems that ASTC compression hadn’t been tested with the OS X PVRTexToolGUI before the release. Due to the way OS X handles environment variables, it’s a little trickier to get the GUI to find the ASTC binary compared to Windows and Linux. We’ll look into resolving this issue in a future release.

I’ve filed feature request BRN57797 in our tracker for an option to be added to the PVRTexToolGUI Preferences dialog for the ASTC compressor path.