Oblivion Books Help, please!!!

[LuciferM]

(Will probably be used as a tutorial when problem is solved)

 

ive seen the code for the mysterium xarxes and grinned when i saw it was an image file.

 

this got me wondering.. could i make my own book with my own daedric graphics in it?

yes, i answered myself, and so my problems began

 

lets start from the top, firt of all i made my image in photoshop. saved it as various filetypes bmp, tga and jpg. i noticed that the MXarxes image was a dds, so the first thing i did was go out and get a converter. the first problem i ran across was that i had made my iamge 490x650 in accordance to the code i got:

 

Mysterium Xarxes

<IMG src="Book/MysteriumXarxesPg1.dds" width=490 height=650>

 

and apparently these dimensions were not a power of 2 (which they needed to be for the converter to work) so, i figured 'what the hey' and streched my image tot eh correct dimensions the converterwas requesting. hurrah, my first victory, i now have a .dds file, though very streched, particularly on the height scale. i thought that because of the "width=490 height=650" part of the coding, it would resize anyway. i tried to load this up in my mod with no joy. just a blank page.

 

i have tried various filepaths:

 

My Book

<IMG src="C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Data\Textures\Book\dvpag1re.dds" width=490 height=650>

<IMG src="Book\dvpag1re.dds" width=490 height=650>

 

and obviously all the different filetypes i saved it as earlier. nothing. the book works i knwo that much because ive typed in it and its come up in game.

 

if theres anyopne out there who knows how to put images in books, please, help me! and others by making it a tutorial known throughout the modding world!

 

i'll give anyone who comes up wit the first solution a mention in the book.

 

pleeeeease help!

 

[email protected]

-Lucifer Mortora

[Guest Tessera]

Is it possible to work it backwards..? Sort-of reverse engineer the files that already exist..?

 

What I mean is, could you take a .dds file from one of the existing books... which should already be the proper dimensions, then convert it, rework it in PShop and then save it as a new file..? Then just convert it back to .dds as a new book page..?

 

Just pulling at straws here. I've never tried it personally, but it seems logical. I know that people have modded the book jackets in this manner (with some pretty cool results), so why not the contents as well..?

 

If you figure this out, let us know. I'd love to create a mock-up of the "50 Years Of Playboy Playmates" book for the bedside table in my Skingrad house... maybe call it "Breton Babes Monthly" ...bwaa haa haaa.

 

;D

[LuciferM]

Is it possible to work it backwards..? Sort-of reverse engineer the files that already exist..?

 

What I mean is, could you take a .dds file from one of the existing books... which should already be the proper dimensions, then convert it, rework it in PShop and then save it as a new file..? Then just convert it back to .dds as a new book page..?

 

lol, i wish, you see i dont actually have the MX .dds file, because its not actually on my HD. Photoshop also doesnt save .dds files.

 

i've downloaded a plugin for it but it just made it worse. it asked for filesizes to the power of FOUR.

 

it probably would work but im not sure if photoshop can open a .dds file.

 

thanks for the suggestion though

[Guest Tessera]

it probably would work but im not sure if photoshop can open a .dds file.

 

thanks for the suggestion though

 

Aye... I know PShop can't handle .dds files directly. What I meant was to first convert an existing .dds to a .tga, then monkey with it in PShop, save it as a new .tga file and then finally convert it back into a .dds using a third-party utility (nVidia DDS Tools would be one example).

 

Admittedly, it sounds like a PITA.

[lilleku]

i think that Nvidia has a plugin that makes Photoshop able to open and save .dds files...

 

ah, here i think it is: http://developer.nvidia.com/object/nv_texture_tools.html or http://developer.nvidia.com/object/photosh...ds_plugins.html

i have not tried this myself, but its the best help i can give.

[LuciferM]

Aye... I know PShop can't handle .dds files directly. What I meant was to first convert an existing .dds to a .tga, then monkey with it in PShop, save it as a new .tga file and then finally convert it back into a .dds using a third-party utility (nVidia DDS Tools would be one example).

 

Admittedly, it sounds like a PITA.

 

if you read the first line, i dont have any origional .dds files ;P

 

asfor those plugins, ive already said, tried em both.

 

EDIT:

ive jsut gone onto TESCS for morrowind and looked at the abc's for barbarians book which also has pictures in. they are .tga files so technically the principle should be the same, im going to try experimenting with .tga but ive tried before and it hasnt worked

[LuciferM]

And if any of you are curious...

I present to you a taster of what ive done.

 

http://img335.imageshack.us/img335/9132/ob1aw7.th.jpghttp://img335.imageshack.us/img335/594/ob2tm0.th.jpghttp://img93.imageshack.us/img93/1192/ob3cx5.th.jpg

(if you click on the image and press back again it makes it bigger ;))

[Abramul]

Make sure it's NOT creating mipmaps, as they are likely what needs a power of 2.

 

Actually, after a bit of testing, it seems that non-2^x .DDS files can be created perfectly fine, with or without mipmaps. Granted, I'm using the GIMP.

 

http://gimp.org/windows/ GIMP binary for Windows. May need GTK as well, but it may be included. Not sure.

http://nifelheim.dyndns.org/~cocidius/dds/ .DDS plugin for GIMP.

[Guest Tessera]

ive jsut gone onto TESCS for morrowind and looked at the abc's for barbarians book which also has pictures in. they are .tga files so technically the principle should be the same, im going to try experimenting with .tga but ive tried before and it hasnt worked

 

Yes... the .dds files in question are compressed Targa (.tga) graphics, hence my suggestions. Also, I just tested the method that I suggested and it worked beautifully... there's now a copy of Playboy (called "Play-Elf") sitting on a table in one of my houses... LOL.

[LuciferM]

ive jsut gone onto TESCS for morrowind and looked at the abc's for barbarians book which also has pictures in. they are .tga files so technically the principle should be the same, im going to try experimenting with .tga but ive tried before and it hasnt worked

 

Yes... the .dds files in question are compressed Targa (.tga) graphics, hence my suggestions. Also, I just tested the method that I suggested and it worked beautifully... there's now a copy of Playboy (called "Play-Elf") sitting on a table in one of my houses... LOL.

 

christ well can you pleeeease add my msn and send me a tga of right filesize/type etc so i can just use it as a base and change it because i have NO origional .dds files seeing as my disc has gone missing. and could you walk me through how to get the book to see the image file?

 

its mostly the filepath script im having trouble with

 

please, i beg of you, i've tried oh so hard x_x;