Pixelation on textures in-game and in s4s

ah, dang. okay. i might try redoing the texture with lighter shades. thanks anyway

That depends if you edit the DDS file you will lose quality:

Now you want to know, how you should proceed. The answer is simple:

Do not edit DDS files!

PROBLEM
DDS is a lossy compressed format.

WORKING WITH DDS
As soon you use an uncompressed/losslessly compressed format (PNG/TIFF/BMP) and try to convert it to a lossy format (DDS / JPG) you will lose a bit of image quality.
If you re-open your DDS, edit it, and resave, your graphics program (GPU) is going to make a round trip and reduce quality.

WORKFLOW SOLUTION
1. Edit the original PNG or your master file in 2D Software (photoshop/gimp/affinity etc.).
2. When done, export to DDS
3. Each time you work from a lossless or uncompressed master like PNG  and then export to DDS.
4. If you baked the texture in Blender? Save it as PNG or TIFF in HQ quality (to use the highest possible quality)
5. In this case, you can go for HQ resolution quality (double of the original resolution) if you want, and proceed with steps 1 to 3.


RECOLORING
If you want to recolor an existing texture?

1. Export DDS and convert it to PNG (quality loss)
    Alternative: Export as PNG from S4S (less quality loss)
2. Edit PNG and export it back to DDS
3. The fact is you will experience a bigger quality loss if you don't have the original files.
4. Hence why I save them for personal use as png, recolor it and save them even as png (but I have a good graphic card)

Why is EA using DDS?
Every good Gaming company is using the DDS format.

PNG stores images in a compressed, lossless format that is optimized for storage on disk and for printing media. The pixel quality is higher and the texture looks way smoother and better. This one is good for editing and such!

DDS stores textures in formats that are native to the GPU, and hence optimized for GPU consumption. DDS compresses quality with some loss and reduces the file size.
As we know, EA does that to optimize textures for the GPU and to make sure, it runs smoothly on computers.

You may know that you can use uncompressed textures in Sims 4. For that, you need a better graphic card (GPU needs to be stronger recommend to go for 2048 TI and higher)

Check what kind of DDS format you are saving.
If you want to preserve the quality? Keep in mind this file will be bigger, you need to use the DDS Format with 8:8:8:8 equal to PNG.

HQ vs EA Quality
I highly suggest you deliver in this case an HQ and an EA-sized version for low-spec PC users. (50% less of HQ texture)


DDS Formats
DDS has many different internal formats. Only a some of them are lossy, the rest are lossless.
DXT1-DXT5 modes are compressed lossy formats (plus some less common ones like BC4U, BC4S, ATI2 and BC5S).

Compression Ratio of DDS Formats
DTX1 = 8:1
DTX3 = 4:1
DTX5 = 4:1
8:8:8: 8 = uncompressed 32-bit equal to PNG (file is larger)

Want to know about the other DDS-Formats? Here is a link, in case anyone wants to know the difference! Here you go!

DDS Types

Hope this explains the usage of DDS in Sims 4 and shows how you should proceed.   Maybe this info should be added to the Tutorial how to work with DDS?