Load DDS Images (Batch)

Load DDS Images (Batch) is the node that turns a texture pipeline from "open each file by hand" into "point ComfyUI at a folder and walk away." It's the batch sibling of the single Load DDS Image node: it scans a directory, filters by filename pattern, and hands you the DDS files as image lists - with the format and color_space combo outputs that make round-tripping into the DDS Saver painless.

If you're re-compressing a folder of game textures, or running a normalization pass across an entire material library, this is the loader you want.

How it works

On the first run it does a full directory scan (the pack caches the results, so subsequent runs on the same folder are instant - auto-invalidated when the contents change). Files are then decoded with the bundled DirectXTex tooling, same as the single loader.

The two knobs that define the batch behavior:

• batch_size - set to -1 to load all files at once (the default). A positive value loads that many files per pass so you can process a 13,000-file library a chunk at a time.
• batch_index - which batch you're on. The tooltip says it plainly: connect an external iterator for automatic incrementing, or step it manually.

pattern is glob syntax, and it's worth learning because it's the whole point. *_a.dds grabs only albedo files; *_a.dds;*_n.dds grabs albedo and normals; ? matches a single character. Separate multiple patterns with semicolons.

Inputs and outputs

Required inputs: directory (absolute path), pattern (default *), include_subfolders, batch_index, batch_size, alpha_bleed. Optional: blur_radius (0–10, for smoother alpha bleeding) and invert_mask.

Outputs are all lists:

• image and mask - the pixels, ready for processing.
• filename and path - the source names/paths, so you can preserve naming on save.
• format and color_space - per-file combos that wire straight into Save DDS Image's format and output_color_space. This is the feature that makes "convert a folder, keep every file's format" a two-node graph.

Install

Standard for this pack:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/lilquail/ComfyUI-Leputen-Utils

Restart, then look under Leputen-Utils → DDS. It's Windows-first: the DDS decoding relies on the bundled texconv.dll, and on macOS/Linux you'll need to grab the matching libtexconv.* from Texconv-Custom-DLL releases and drop it in bin/.

Troubleshooting

• Patterns are case-sensitive on Linux/macOS but case-insensitive on Windows. A *_A.DDS filter behaves differently across platforms - keep patterns lowercase to avoid surprises.
• BC5 files crash the loader. The pack's known-issues list says BC5-compressed images can be saved but not loaded, and attempting it errors out and needs a ComfyUI restart. Filter *_n.dds carefully if your normal maps are BC5.
• Slow first scan? Normal. The README clocks a 13,000-file scan at ~2s once, then instant cache hits.
• Memory - with batch_size=-1 a big library loads all at once. If you're processing thousands of 2K textures, that's the moment to use a real batch size and an iterator.

The cache is the quiet hero here. Iterate over a folder, tweak a setting, re-run - the rescan is free, which is exactly what makes experimenting on 500 files tolerable.