What is a DDS file when skinning?
 

Whast is a DDS file.. How can it be opened and is it nescessary!

so the textures works when texture compresion is on

It is only necessary if you are using Texture Compression. Texture Compression just makes the image look cleaner and sharper but gives alittle bit more lag than normal. I can afford to use it, so when I make weapon skins, I create a .DDS file incase anyone else is using Texture Compression as well.

Ok so I can just rename it, dont have to open it or anything?

plug in i believe needed for photoshop

you do not need them for player skining unless you are doing an overwight of a game skin. they are need for wepon skins if you want to see them with tex comp on.

in otherword there is no point in renaming them as they are just another picture file so would only contain the image that was there already. you can get dds plugins from the nvidia web site.

You will need a plugin for Photoshop to get the DDS extension to work. Simply renaming dosen't work like that.