Open, edit, and save League of Legends .tex textures directly in Adobe Photoshop

✨ What is RitoTex?

RitoTex is a native Adobe Photoshop File Format plug-in (.8bi) that teaches Photoshop to speak Riot Games' .tex texture format. Once installed, .tex files behave like any other image:

File ▸ Open  ……  pick a .tex  ……  edit like a PSD
File ▸ Save As  ……  type  skin.tex  ……  done

No exporting. No converting. No round-tripping through .dds. It also reads and writes .dds, so it's a one-stop texture pipeline for League modding.

🎮 Native .tex Open / Save As

🧱 BC1·3·5·7 + BGRA8

🗺️ Mipmaps auto or from layers

🧬 Normal maps flip & normalize

🔔 Update check GitHub Releases

🚀 Features

	Feature	Notes
🎮	Native .tex open & save	Registered as a real Photoshop file format — File ▸ Open / Save As
🟦	.dds support	Full DDS load/save via DirectXTex (BC1–BC7)
🧱	BC1 / BC3 / BC5 / BC7	DXT1, DXT5, two-channel (normal maps), and high-quality BC7. Optional Floyd–Steinberg dithering on BC1/BC3
🗺️	Mipmaps	Auto-generate, or build the chain from Photoshop layers
🧊	Cube maps	Cross / layer layouts (DDS)
🧬	Normal-map tools	Channel flip (X/Y) + renormalization
🔍	Compression preview	Compare original vs compressed before saving
⚡	Intel ISPC encoder	Fast, multi-threaded texture compression
🔔	Built-in update checker	Quietly checks GitHub Releases, links you to the new version

📦 Installation

Requires: 64-bit Adobe Photoshop (CS6 or newer).

1. Grab RitoTex.8bi from the Releases page (or build it yourself — see below).
2. Drop it in your Photoshop File Formats folder:

   C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Photoshop [version]\Required\Plug-ins\File Formats
   

3. Restart Photoshop.

That's it. .tex now shows up in Open and Save As.

🎨 Usage

Open a texture

File ▸ Open → pick any .tex or .dds. It decodes straight onto a layer — no prompts, no "load alpha as…?" dialog. BC1/BC3/BC5/BC7 and uncompressed are all auto-detected.

Save a texture

1. File ▸ Save As, choose RitoTex.
2. Type a filename ending in .tex or .dds — the format is auto-detected from the extension.
3. Pick compression (BC1 for RGB, BC3 for RGBA), mipmap mode, and dithering.
4. OK.

⚠️ Block-compressed formats require width & height to be multiples of 4 (a League requirement).

Dithering

Enable Error Diffusion Dithering to reduce banding on BC1/BC3. Choose Perceptual (luma-weighted) or Uniform error metrics.

🧩 The .tex format

┌──────────────────────────────── 12-byte header ────────────────────────────────┐
│ off  size  field         value                                                   │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── │
│ 0x00   4   magic         "TEX\0"   (54 45 58 00)                                  │
│ 0x04   2   width         uint16  (little-endian)                                 │
│ 0x06   2   height        uint16  (little-endian)                                 │
│ 0x08   1   unk1          (reserved)                                              │
│ 0x09   1   format        0x0A=BC1 · 0x0C=BC3 · 0x0D=BC7 · 0x0E=BC5 · 0x14=BGRA8 │
│ 0x0A   1   unk2          (reserved)                                              │
│ 0x0B   1   has_mipmaps   0 = none · 1 = present                                  │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── ┘

payload:  mipmaps stored SMALLEST → LARGEST, full-resolution image last

📁 Full format notes, the SDK map, and the reference-backend audits live in docs/.

🔔 Update checking

RitoTex checks GitHub Releases for a newer build — quietly and respectfully:

• 🧵 Runs on a background thread — never slows down opening or saving.
• ⏱️ Throttled to once / 24h per machine (HKCU\Software\RitoTex).
• 🔕 Fails silent when you're offline or rate-limited.
• 🔗 Link-only — it never downloads or runs anything; it just points you to the release page.
• 🤫 Won't nag: dismiss or "skip this version" and it remembers.

The check is kicked off on the first Open or Save As of a session (from ReadStart / WriteStart).

🐞 Debugging the update check. The checker traces every step to the Windows debug channel. Run DebugView (Sysinternals) as admin, enable Capture ▸ Capture Global Win32, and filter on RitoTex/Update. You'll see lines like spawning background update worker, latest tag = v2.1.0, installed = 2.0.0, and UPDATE AVAILABLE.

Release builds throttle to once/24h, so re-testing needs a reset:

reg delete "HKCU\Software\RitoTex" /v LastCheckUnix /f

Debug builds bypass the throttle entirely — every launch hits GitHub. (Or define RITOTEX_FORCE_UPDATE_CHECK to force it in a Release build.)

Build the debug plugin with .\dev.ps1 (Debug|x64, defines _DEBUG). It copies the same Plugins\x64\RitoTex.8bi that build.ps1 produces — so whichever script you ran last is the installed one. Re-run build.ps1 to get the throttled Release build back.

Design details: docs/UpdateChecking_Design.md.

🛠️ Building from source

Requirements

• Visual Studio 2022 (v143 toolset) + Windows 10 SDK
• Adobe Photoshop SDK — expected at ..\PhotoshopSDK (the build script also accepts an in-folder copy or a preset PHOTOSHOP_SDK_CS6)
• Intel ISPC compiler (bundled: 3rdParty/Intel/Tools/ispc.exe)

Build

.\build.ps1

Output: Plugins\x64\RitoTex.8bi

Project layout

The plug-in is split into small, single-responsibility modules. IntelPlugin.cpp is now just the class core + the Photoshop selector dispatch; everything else lives in its own file. See docs/ARCHITECTURE.md for the full module map and how data flows through them.

RitoTex-Photoshop/
├─ IntelCompressionPlugin/        # the plug-in
│  │  ── host layer (Photoshop-facing) ──
│  ├─ IntelPlugin.cpp/.h          # class core + PluginMain selector dispatch
│  ├─ PhotoshopRead.cpp           # .tex/.dds load + parse (DoRead*, composite layers)
│  ├─ PhotoshopWrite.cpp          # save orchestration + .tex/.dds format routing
│  ├─ Preview.cpp                 # save-dialog preview render + size stats
│  ├─ Scripting.cpp               # Actions / descriptor read-write (batch)
│  │  ── format / codec core (host-agnostic) ──
│  ├─ TexFormat.cpp/.h            # .tex header, format codes, DXGI↔tex maps
│  ├─ Codec.cpp                   # shared BC compress/decompress dispatch
│  ├─ ContainerWrite.cpp          # DDS + TEX file writers
│  ├─ CubeMap.cpp                 # cube ↔ cross / layer assembly
│  ├─ NormalMap.cpp               # channel flip + renormalize
│  ├─ LayerOps.cpp                # layer channel reads, mips-from-layers
│  ├─ PixelConvert.cpp            # Photoshop buffer (8/16/32-bit) → RGBA8
│  ├─ s3tc.cpp                    # DXT1/DXT5 CPU decode (.tex read path)
│  │  ── support ──
│  ├─ UpdateChecker.cpp/.h        # GitHub-Releases update check (WinHTTP)
│  ├─ IntelPlugin.r / .pipl       # PiPL — registers .tex & .dds formats
│  ├─ IntelPluginName.h           # name + version (single source of truth)
│  ├─ kernel.ispc                 # Intel ISPC BC encoder
│  └─ *Dialog.cpp                 # save / preview / options UI
├─ 3rdParty/                      # DirectXTex + Intel ISPC
├─ docs/                          # ARCHITECTURE, format notes, SDK map, audits
└─ build.ps1                      # one-command build

📄 License

Apache License 2.0 — see license.txt.

Built on the Intel® Texture Works Plugin (© 2017 Intel Corporation, Apache 2.0) with bundled DirectXTex (MIT).

Made for the League of Legends modding community by RitoShark 🦈

_{Riot Games and League of Legends are trademarks of Riot Games, Inc. RitoTex is an unofficial, fan-made tool and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Riot Games.}