Introduction to PVRTexTool#

Document Overview#

The purpose of this document is to serve as a complete user manual for PVRTexTool. It includes installation instructions, functionality explanations, and some useful tips on how to get the most out of the application. The document also provides a list of all command-line options and covers information about the PVRTexTool plugins and library.

What is PVRTexTool?#

PVRTexTool is a utility for compressing texture assets, an important technique that reduces the memory footprint of the asset both on disk and in RAM, as well as reducing the GPU memory bandwidth required to sample compressed assets. Please see the PowerVR Performance Recommendations for more information. PVRTexTool can transcode to a variety of widely-used compressed texture formats; additionally, all core texture formats for OpenGL (and ES), Vulkan, and DirectX are also supported.

PVRTexTool also includes a number of additional features that can be used to pre-process the image data, such as:

  • Border generation

  • Colour bleeding

  • Normal map generation

  • Pre-multiplying RGB by alpha

  • Resizing

  • Rotating

  • Mipmap generation.

PVRTexTool is comprised of several distinct components:

  • PVRTexTool Graphical User Interface (GUI) - allows manipulation of texture data in an interactive graphical environment with immediate visual feedback.

  • PVRTexTool Command Line Interface (CLI) - allows easy batching of texture conversion and compression operations via calls from a script or batch file. Only the executable is needed.

  • PVRTexTool Plugins - allows various popular software applications access to PVRTexTool functionality. Plugins are available for Autodesk 3ds Max and Autodesk Maya.

  • PVRTexTool Library - allows easy integration with existing tool chains, via a simple C API and library for accessing PVRTexTool functionality.

The GUI, CLI, and library components are all available for Windows and Linux.

Note

For best compatibility, it is recommended that PVRTexTool is installed on machines running at least Windows 10 or Ubuntu 20.04.