Every retexture mod starts the same way: the texture you want sits inside the game's files, locked in an archive, in a format your editor cannot open. The workflow is always three moves — extract, convert, edit — for the engines modders ask about most: Unreal, Unity, Skyrim/Fallout, and GTA V.
The middle step exists because of DDS (DirectDraw Surface). Games ship textures as DDS because graphics cards read its block-compressed data directly: tiny files, instant loading. That same advantage is why Photoshop and GIMP cannot open DDS without a plugin — and why PNG, which every editor opens with alpha intact, is the standard middle format.
Before you start: tools and one rule
You need the game installed, an extraction tool for your engine (below), and an editor — Photoshop, GIMP, or Paint.NET. Everything here is free except Photoshop; GIMP covers the whole workflow.
The one rule: only extract and edit textures from games you own, and check redistribution rules before publishing a mod — most communities, including Nexus Mods, enforce this strictly.
Step 1: Unreal Engine — FModel and .pak/.utoc files
Unreal games pack content into .pak archives (UE4 and earlier) or .utoc/.ucas containers (UE5). The tool for both is FModel, free and purpose-built for browsing Unreal content.
Open FModel, point it at the game's content directory, and filter for texture assets (.uasset). Export the one you want: it arrives as DDS — usually BC7 for current titles, BC3/BC1 for older ones, often with a full mipmap chain.
Two notes: some games encrypt their .pak files, and FModel will ask for an AES key — community-documented for most popular titles, unpublished for a few. And export the texture itself, not a screenshot: only the exported DDS carries the full resolution and alpha your edit needs.
Step 2: Unity — AssetStudio and .assets bundles
Unity games store textures in .assets files and AssetBundles. The tools are AssetStudio and AssetRipper, both free.
Open the game's data folder in AssetStudio, filter by Texture2D, and export. Desktop builds export as DDS; mobile builds use ASTC/ETC instead, which needs its own tooling. Unity normal maps arrive as BC5 or BC7 — the BC5 ones are covered below, because they look wrong until you understand them. AssetRipper is better for exporting a whole game's textures at once.
Step 3: Skyrim and Fallout — BSA Browser and .bsa/.ba2 files
Bethesda games pack textures into .bsa archives (Skyrim) and .ba2 archives (Fallout 4, Starfield). The tool is BSA Browser, free and single-purpose.
Open the archive from the game's Data folder and extract what you want — or the whole textures folder, since one armor pack can mean hundreds of textures. Expect mostly BC3 for diffuse textures with alpha and BC5 for normal maps.
If you use Mod Organizer 2 or Vortex, extract to a working folder outside the game directory and keep the originals untouched — your mod manager installs the finished textures later.
Step 4: GTA V — OpenIV and .ytd files
GTA V stores textures inside .ytd files, which themselves live in .rpf archives. The tool is OpenIV, the long-standing GTA modding suite.
Open OpenIV, enable Edit mode, and navigate to the .ytd holding your texture — liveries, clothing, and props each live in their own .ytd. Export it as DDS: GTA textures are commonly BC3/BC1 with mipmaps, and UI sprites and decals are where alpha preservation matters most.
Work in OpenIV's mods folder, not the original archives: if a texture breaks, you delete one file instead of reinstalling the game.
Step 5: The conversion — DDS to PNG
Whatever engine you extracted from, you now hold DDS files, and this is where conversion happens. Drop the whole folder into the Free DDS to PNG Converter and convert the batch at once. Each texture is decompressed to full pixels and saved as a PNG you can open in any editor, with the alpha channel preserved — transparency, masks, and cut-out foliage come through intact.
Batch conversion matters here in a way it does not for one-off conversions. A retexture project is rarely one texture; it is a set — diffuse, normal, roughness, and alpha masks that must stay in sync. Converting the set together keeps filenames aligned and avoids version drift. If a converted texture looks wrong, check troubleshooting first — most "broken" conversions are alpha or normal-map misunderstandings.
Expert section: mipmaps and why your PNG is the master
A DDS texture usually contains more than one image: a chain of pre-shrunk copies called mipmaps. Games use them to render distant objects cheaply without shimmering. PNG has no mipmaps, so conversion outputs the largest, full-resolution image and drops the rest.
That is exactly what you want: the full-resolution image is the master, the only level with all the detail. When you save back to DDS, the engine regenerates the mipmap chain from your edited master automatically. Editing a small mipmap instead bakes low resolution into every distance — the classic mistake behind retextures that look sharp in the editor but blurry in-game.
The related surprise is file size: the PNG will usually be several times larger than the DDS, because a BC1 texture stores each pixel in 4 bits while a PNG needs 24–32. The PNG adds no detail; it just stores the same pixels without GPU compression. Keep the DDS as your archive.
Expert section: BC5 normal maps and why they look purple
If you extract a normal map, the converted PNG looks purple and green. That is correct. A tangent-space normal map stores the surface direction's X component in red and Y in green; blue is reconstructed from those two (Z = √(1 − X² − Y²)). The Free DDS to PNG Converter rebuilds Z into blue by default for BC5 files, so the PNG you edit is a valid normal map.
Two consequences: never judge a normal map by eye — judge it by its in-engine lighting. And if lighting looks inverted after your edit, the engine likely expects the opposite Y convention (OpenGL Y-up versus DirectX Y-down); flipping the green channel fixes most such reports. Never send a normal map back through a lossy format; re-export to BC5 or BC7, not JPEG.
The modding round trip: editing and packing back
Editing is the familiar part: repaint, upscale, or recolor the PNG, keeping the alpha channel intact and the dimensions unchanged unless you know the engine tolerates a resize (most do not).
Saving back to DDS is where the free plugins earn their keep: the GIMP DDS plugin and Photoshop DDS plugin (via NVIDIA Texture Tools) export BC3 and BC7, as does Microsoft's texconv (texconv -f BC7_UNORM_SRGB -m 9 texture.png). Match the original format where you can — the engine chose it for a reason.
Repacking depends on the engine: rebuild the .pak with UnrealPak, install through Mod Organizer 2 or Vortex for Bethesda games, or place the texture back into the .ytd via OpenIV's mods folder for GTA V. Always test one texture in-game before converting your whole set back — a format mistake found on one file is a lesson; on two hundred, a lost weekend.
Troubleshooting: five things that look broken but usually are not
The texture looks black. Almost always alpha. Many DDS textures are mostly transparent (decals, foliage, UI), and previews composite transparency against black. Open the PNG in an editor that shows alpha and the image appears.
The colors look washed out. Usually an sRGB mismatch: the DDS was flagged sRGB and your editor shows it as linear, or vice versa. PNG viewers assume sRGB, matching most game textures — check color management before blaming the conversion.
The normal map lights from the wrong side. Flip the green channel (see BC5 above) — a convention difference, not corruption.
The PNG is enormous. Normal, for the bit-depth reason above. Edit from the PNG and archive the DDS.
The file will not convert at all. Usually BC7 from current Unreal/Unity titles, which some converters do not decode. Convert that one with texconv and continue — and check the file is actually a DDS, since some extractors mislabel formats.