For this tutorial, we will make a mod of the Evening, Ripped dress, since this seems to be everybody's favourite. Once you have unziped Tomb Ripper and installed the Photoshop Plug-In, you are ready.
IMPORTANT: Create backups of the files you edit. If something goes wrong, you can always restore. You can either backup the file you edit (.DDS file) or the .BIG file you extract the .DDS from. The .BIG files are indeed BIG, so backup the DDS files that are smaller.
Run Tomb Ripper, choose Open and select your game folder. It is most likely somewhere in C:\ Program Files\ Crystal Dynamics\ Tomb Raider Legend folder, unless you installed the game elsewhere.
It will take a while doing the indexing on the first start. When it is done, it will fill the list with numbers. From now on, the numbers are called ID's.
The next time you will run the program, the listing will take a couple of seconds.
Scroll the list and locate the ID 3657.dds, which is the Evening, Ripped dress. You should see the parts of the dress, as shown in the image on the right. If the dress is not located there (it happens in some versions of the game), look somewhere close (some ID's up or down).
Once you locate it, hit Extract.
Note: When you select the ID, you can also see some information about the .DDS file. You can see which .BIG file you are extracting from, which is good if you want to backup or restore.
Now save the .DDS file, so that you can edit it with Photoshop.
IMPORTANT: Create a backup of the .DDS file. If you make a mistake, you can always restore. For example, you can save the backup as Copy of 3657.dds.
Open Photoshop and load the 3657.dss file (or right-click the file and select Open With).
The NVIDIA DDS Read Properties window will appear. Leave the Load Using Deafault Sizes selected and hit OK.
The file will open. Make some changes. For a start, add some pink dots or something simple.
Now save the file. You can either Save and replace the file or Save As (and select the DDS file format) and give a name like 3657-black-dress-pink-dots so that you can remember what kind of editing you made.
The NVIDIA dds Format window appears. For the black dress*, you will select:
1. DXT1 ARGB (1 bit Aplha)
2. No MIP maps
The hit Save.
* Other outfits require the MIP maps. You will have to experiment with that. You can check the DDS Formats below for the some basic editing, like legs and gear.
Go back to the Tomb Ripper. With the 3657.dds file still selected, hit Replace. Browse and find the 3657-black-dress-pink-dots.dds file (or the name you gave when you saved the file). The program will give you the message Done. If you take any other message, it means you saved in the wrong format or you had MIP maps enabled.
(The Troubleshoot section below answers to the common problems that appear.)
Start the game and select to Replay a Level. Select the Evening, Ripped dress and load the level. You should see the pink dots on Lara's dress.
Tip: To avoid loading the dress zillion times, go to the Manor, change a dress and exit Lara's bedroom to create a checkpoint. The game will remember what you wear, so for further tests you can just fire up the game and go to the Manor.
