How To Make Oblivion Comic

[TheMightyElo]

Hey everyone,

 

I am not sure if this the right place to discuss this, if it isn't then I can move it (or someone can move it for me?)

 

There are many people on TESnexus that are able to create some truly beautiful screenshots. However, you not many people post comics or comic strips, which I kind of find disappointing. So, I am hoping with this thread to try to start a discussion on how to make comics using the Oblivion game engine.

 

Now, this is not supposed to be a discussion on how to take a screenshot. We already have one of those, if you don't know where it is, it can be located right HERE . This is supposed to be more on like...what makes a good screen shot? And how do I make it into a comic? So, some subject that could be over are what are the best mods for a comic; such as facial expressions, poses, how to make certain characters appear, etc. Also, the more technical aspects can be covered, such as how can oblivion be tweaked in order to make it look better. Even something as simple as how to make your camera fly.

 

However, there is more to than taking a screenshot. There is also dialogue, word bubbles, image manipulation, panels, and more! What are the best programs to use? What is this thing call a "thought bubble"? (just to let you know, I am being sarcastic).

 

Now, unfortunately, I am not very good when it comes to modding Oblivion and other technical stuff. I mostly write, draw a little bit, and have some experience with digital art programs. I do have some experience with making some comics (mostly out of hobby, nothing professional). So, while I can't offer you what are the best mods to use and technical information, I can offer you some advice on how to make a comic. A lot of it may be pretty much self-explanatory and much of it you might have already heard of before, but I hope it helps.

 

Step 1: Choose Your Type!

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but the process of making a good comic begins similar to taking a good screenshot. You may by chance come across a great place for a picture (or idea for a comic), but most of the time it starts off with writing down ideas first. Yes, that is what I said, writing. Isn't odd how the first step of creating a comic with a video game starts off with not touching a keyboard? (I use pencil and paper when I brainstorm).

Depending on what kind of comic you are making, there are different methods in making them. For simplicities sake, I will split them up into two categories; the comic strip and the comic series. A comic strip is a “one page comic.” The entire comic is can be anything from three to eight panels. Hell, it can even be only one panel. Example, Garfield! Gag comics are often in the form of comic strips. A comic series is just as sounds, a series of comics. The story needs to be told using separate pages. Example, comic book! So, the main difference between a comic strip and a comic series/book is that a single comic strip can stand alone and tell a story, while a comic series needs to have several pages to tell its story. While several comic strips may have an over-arching story, each comic strip can stand by itself. A comic series cannot do this. So make your choice!

Step 2: Brainstorming *Think harder, mate! Think harder!*

 

Once you decide on what kind of comic you want to make. Now comes the part where you have start using that brain of yours (don’t pop a blood vessel). If you have an idea that needs the to be developed, one way to help it along is to ask yourself questions. Who is in it? Where does it take place? What are they doing? Why are they doing what they do? For example, long ago, I made a comic strip that was a parody of Dante’s Inferno. Below is a little summary…

 

Who are the characters: Dante and Virgil.

Where are they?: The entrance to Hell.

What are they doing?: Traveling to Hell.

Why are they doing that?: Dante must past through hell to reach heaven and Beatrix.

 

Asking yourself questions about the elements in the comic is another great way to help develop it. Lets take another example. A young woman must travel to the other side of an island to run an errand for her father, but has to be back home before sundown. Sounds simple right? Well, what if I say…

 

What exactly is the errand? Is it to deliver a package?

Why does she have to go and not someone else?

Why does she have to be back before sundown? Will her father be upset if she is late?

 

Asking questions about you comic does not only help to create stories, but also help detect any plot holes or missing pieces.

 

Step 3: Rough Draft/Sketch

 

That’s right, drafting and sketching! And you haven’t even touched the computer (unless you absolutely NEED to)! Now this may be just personal preference, but whenever I want to do something with Photoshop, blender, or gimp, etc, I like to sketch out a little bit what I want first before actually working on the picture. This can be really helpful when making a comic with Oblivion. It does not have to an AMAZING drawing. If it were really that could, then I have to ask, WHY THE HELL ARE YOU MAKING COMICS WITH OBLIVION?! You should just be making your own comics! Ok…moving on.

First off it can help getting you panels, characters, and speech bubbles in place. It is also a good way to see if you can fit the story or events in your desired number of panels. You might realize that you may actually need to use more panels in your comic strip to fit everything in smoothly.

I could go on longer about this, also about the placement of comic panels and the proper use of space bubbles, but I am in a hurry (and a little lazy) so you can just do some searching on the net (Deviantart is a great place for short tutorials).

 

Step 4: Prepare to Mod!

 

Don’t let the title confuse you. You are using your mods just yet! This is probably one of the most important parts. Before you start playing oblivion and taking screenshots, figure out what mods you need and if you need to change the games visual settings. Nothing is worse than to get taking a bunch of screen shots for a comic and then realized the picture quality could have been better if you did “A” or you don’t know what mod to use to have a character dance. Also, make sure you know anything technically related that can help your performance. For example, getting rid of the cross-hairs in the middle of the screen. Or how to detach the camera to make it fly around the area. Also, what commands you need to know, etc.

 

Sadly, this is where I fall short in the tutorial, because I am not an expert on Oblivion modding or make Oblivion comics (at least not yet).

 

This is where I leave it to you guys! What exactly needs to be done to make an Oblivion comic! If you want, I can edit this tutorial as more tips are given!

 

Speech Bubbles!

 

I know I maybe skipping ahead, but I need to post something to keep this thread going! So, here are some links to how to make speech bubbles with GIMP and Photoshop! I would have made the tutorials myself, till I realized that these people did a much better job at explain the process that I ever would have. Enjoy!

 

http://asifalittlezonked.deviantart.com/ (Speech bubble brushes of all kinds for GIMP!)

 

A Gimp Tutorial

Gimp Speech Bubble

 

Another Gimp Tutorial

Gimp Bubble Tutorial

 

A Tutorial for Photoshop

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

 

Another Tutorial for Photoshop

Part 1

Part 2

 

A Baisc Comic Tutorial

Comic and Bubble Tutorial

 

 

 

Some Useful Tips (updated Dec. 28, 2010)

 

*Provided by SandsOfTime404* Thanks man!

tfc = Toggle Flying Camera; let's you detach the camera from your character and go wherever. Must have your view changed to third person or you'll only see part of your character, such as the torso or other body parts.

 

tm = Toggle Menus; removes the HUD, etc. so there's nothing but the image on the screen, much like a movie. This is nice for fullscreen shots or if you don't want to have to crop things out.

 

Other than that you can find a full list of console commands here. It lists things such as fw (Force Weather) and other nice things that seem simple but can greatly impact the mood of the shot, or simply alter lighting a bit.

 

*Provided by MalchikYij* Thanks a lot!

 

MalchikYij on deviantart and tesneuxs has made some oblivion comics, here are some useful tips he gave!

 

A must have program to capture screenshots is called FRAPS.

 

For a oblivion comic, one of the must have mods is "Actors In Charge". It provides animations of all kinds for your characters from reading, drinking, sleeping, or even dancing!

 

By using Fraps, fly camera, and actors in charge. He created these three comics! Very well done! Comic 1 Comic 2 Comic 3

 

Also, here is a direct quote from him on how he made these comics.

"I had to make 2 seperate character files and use Photoshop to edit the screenshots so it appears that they are in the same scene together (don't forget stuff like shadows, ambient lighting and stuff or they will look out of place). a lot of stuff is done in Photoshop that can't be done in game, like in the 3rd comic where the woman is pointing. I think I had to Photoshop her arm so it looks like she was pointing somewhere else. You'll probaly have to improvise a lot along the way. For example, in the 3rd comic you see a guard getting knocked over and appear to smash into a wall. It's using a combination of the guard NPC and me wearing the guard armour, plus reloading savegames. It took me a while to figure out the process but here's how I roughly did it:

1. Commited a crime so a guard would chase me into the house, then switch off the AI with a console command so he'll stop dead in his tracks.

2. For the panel where he's pushed back, I used the console command to kill him so he'll naturally fall dead, and used the best screenshot where he fell backwards.

3. The one where he was flying through the air, I'm pretty sure I killed the guard, nicked all of his armour and used a console command to raise my athletics skill to master, so your character will perform backflips when jumping backwards. So that's actually me in the guard armour, but since you don't see the face no one will ever know!

4. Last panel of that sequence was a normal dead NPC guard, just placed him against the wall."

 

*Provided by MadMike710* (Thanks!)

One annoy part of creating oblivion comic is creating the characters for the comic. It can be alright if only have one character and just use NPC for the rest of the comic. However, for more complicated comics that have several characters, the process of creating a character can very time consuming and tedious. Fortunately, here is a mod that skips the entire starting level, lets you create you character, and start the game in a jiff!

 

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2428

 

 

 

I hope this helped out! Enjoy!

Edited January 10, 2011 by TheMightyElo

[MadMike710]

I enjoy comic strips, especially Oblivion-related ones.

It would be nice to see some of those instead of the usual erotic images...

 

If I knew how to add images together, like this: Link then I would love to make one.

 

Or could I just make them a sort of slide show?

[SandsOfTime404]

It's fairly simple to assemble a comic strip in Photoshop, imo. The issue with me is that I lack the patience to painstaking set up a decent screenshot with multiple characters, only one of which I have total control over. Aside from that I'm not the world's best writer, so even if I threw something short together I doubt I'd be able to roll with it and make it something worth reading.

 

EDIT: Didn't see this in there, but for screenshots you need to use console commands:

 

tfc = Toggle Flying Camera; let's you detach the camera from your character and go wherever. Must have your view changed to third person or you'll only see part of your character, such as the torso or other body parts.

 

tm = Toggle Menus; removes the HUD, etc. so there's nothing but the image on the screen, much like a movie. This is nice for fullscreen shots or if you don't want to have to crop things out.

 

Other than that you can find a full list of console commands here. It lists things such as fw (Force Weather) and other nice things that seem simple but can greatly impact the mood of the shot, or simply alter lighting a bit.

Edited December 24, 2010 by SandsOfTime404

[MadMike710]

I just remembered something I saw on another forum (I think, it could have been this one) a while ago, it was a thread where you posted a screenshot and you or somebody else gave it a caption, the funniest one wins.

 

I think that's how it went. Something like that would be fun. :)

[majikmonkee]

I just remembered something I saw on another forum (I think, it could have been this one) a while ago, it was a thread where you posted a screenshot and you or somebody else gave it a caption, the funniest one wins.

 

I think that's how it went. Something like that would be fun. :)

Yeah I've seen some of those before. I agree, most screen shots seem to be erotic Oblivion pictures, a change would be nice.

[SandsOfTime404]

We need more landscape pictures. Hell I should start doing them. If I'm caught outside at night in Mania I spend 30 minutes ogling at the sky anyhow.

[ffa1mf]

I find quite a few situations when playing Oblivion very humorous. I don't post all that often, but have posted some shots that I found funny. I too wish more people would post a cartoon strip or just a shot with a good one liner. I hope this thread will maybe inspire some others to post some great scenic shots (there are so many - I too wind up just looking at the screen because the image is so spectacular) or a good situation they have run across. I think it is a great way to pay some thanks to those modders who have done some spectacular work as well by posting a shot of something from their mod.

[TheMightyElo]

I made some edits to the comic guide in the very beginning of the thread. Thanks SandsOfTime404 and MalchikYij, you guys rock! :thumbsup:

 

This does bring me to another question though (or a few...I guess). MalchikYij stated that he used photoshop inorder to get put several of his characters in the comics. However, I thought there was a way to make the characters to created appear in front of you, and you can manipulate them as you wish. Does anyone know what I am talking about? I think it has to do with the construction set.

 

Another question I have is how to create characters. Is there an easier and faster way to create a character than to start at the beginning of the game, go through the entire starting level, boost the starts on your characters, etc? The whole process can really be annoying for people who have to create several characters for a comic.

[MadMike710]

Another question I have is how to create characters. Is there an easier and faster way to create a character than to start at the beginning of the game, go through the entire starting level, boost the starts on your characters, etc? The whole process can really be annoying for people who have to create several characters for a comic.

 

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2428

[TheMightyElo]

Another question I have is how to create characters. Is there an easier and faster way to create a character than to start at the beginning of the game, go through the entire starting level, boost the starts on your characters, etc? The whole process can really be annoying for people who have to create several characters for a comic.

 

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2428

 

Thanks!

 

Also, for all of you modders, what do you do if you realize that you need a certain mod, but you don't have it installed or running? For example, you created a character and using oblivion mod manager to run your mods. However, you realize that you forgot to activate a certain mod after you started playing the game. Can you save you game, activate that mod, and start playing again? Or do you have to start from scratch and create the character all over again?