Screen Shots...

[TheRoc]

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this, but I am curious about the ingame screen captures? It is straight forward that I hit print screen and they are there in my content for uploading to Bioware, but are they held anywhere as a .bmp or .jpg that I can just grab and edit as I wish?

 

I was put onto Dragon Age by a young friend. I use mods and he doesn't. He's in a warzone and it is something we chat about when he is able to get the time. So he wanted me to send him some shots of my charcters and equipment. But I can't find them anywhere and it seems the program only allows me to upload them to Bioware - not helpful?

 

Thanks for your time.

[WastelandAssassin]

i'm not 100% sure about this, but if i recall correctly, the screenshots go to the same folder as the saves go

for me it's under My Documents -> BioWare -> Dragon Age -> Screenshots

i think that there should be a folder about your own screenshots, though i'm not sure

 

hope this helps :)

[Thandal]

WastelandAssassin is correct. Within that folder will be sub-folders for "Achievements", "Story", and "User". The first two are for screenshots the game takes automatically. The last one is where the ones you take with "PrtScrn" are placed. :thumbsup:

 

NOTE: DA adds metadata to the image (point in the game, EA Profile ID, character names, etc.) that will prevent it from displaying properly if you simply "post" the screenshot anywhere except the BioWare website. You have to open it and re-save it under a new name in order to have something useable elsewhere.

[Codifer]

All above is correct unless you have Windows 7 and encountered the same confusion that I did. Of course, I am easily confused.

 

When hit "print screen" while game is on I expected the screenshots to appear in the above mentioned file "User" This was not so when I first tried with Windoze 7. Screenshots go to a special file to be later loaded into Windoze "Paint" or some such and processed from there. About as handy as wearing your watch on your ankle. The worse news is that you can only do one at a time as that is all it is capable of saving (?).

 

The way I got around that was to go to "Options" in game and make an addition to the keybindings for "Screeshot" (or "Print Screen"?). I added "num pad 2" as a secondary key. The Print Screen key still sends the image to Windoze hell but "num pad 2" adds an image to "User" as many times as I would like.

 

Dunno. Seems to make more sense that way. And I don't even know why it works.

 

Cheers

Edited February 19, 2011 by Codifer

[Thandal]

Dunno about your Win7 rig, Codifer, but on mine things work exactly as WastelandAssassin and I described. I've had Win7 since well before I got DA, and haven't ever installed or played it on anything else.

 

Never had any reason to mess with the keybindings for the Print Screen function, and have no idea what "special file" yours were going to. Maybe you could do some more digging and put up deatails so we'll have more complete information?

 

Thanks! :thumbsup:

[Codifer]

Thandal,

 

Seems odd. I know that I was flummoxed at the time of first trial. The "Print Screen" function could vary from edition to addition and from time to time.

 

The Windoze 7 that I installed (last Dec) was purchased at Fry's and dubbed "Windows 7 Professional 32 bit OEM edition". (The OEM edition at Fry's was one half the cost of the full blown Windoze 7.) The OEM edition is intended for multiple corporate installs or for those who build machines for third party usage (as I understand it and I did try to research all confusion regards legality). The OEM version does not have pretty packaging or a manual or customer support from Microsloth.

 

I also bought "Windoze 7 for Dummies" and the "Windoze 7 Bible".

 

On page 386 (of Dummies) and in the troubleshooting section is a brief paragraph that I finally found:

 

 

quote

 

"My Print Screen Key Doesn't Work

 

Windows 7 takes over the Print Screen key (labled PrtSc, PrtScr, or something even more supernatural on some keyboards). Instead of sending the stuff on the screen to the printer, the Print Screen key sends it to Window 7's memory, where you can paste it into other windows.

 

If you hold the Alt key while pressing the Print Screen key, Windows 7 sends a picture of the current window - not the entire screen - to the Clipboard for pasting.

 

If you really want a printout of the screen, press press the Print Screen button to send a picture of the screen to its memory. (It won't look like anything has happened.) Then click Start, choose All Programs, select Accessories, open Paint, and click the Paste icon from the top menu. When your image appears, choose Print from the main menu to send it to the printer."

 

end quote

 

 

(I hope I did not just break some copywrite law)

 

After I have another coffee I will get the "Windows Bible" from the shelf (it weighs about seven pounds) and see what it says. As I recall, it had a more complete explanation.

 

The whole process did not make sense to me either. I think that the fellow at Microsloth who wrote that program section recently drowned while trying to make love, standing up...... in a canoe.

 

Changing the in-game key binding to "Num Lock 2" made life easier.

 

Cheers

Edited February 19, 2011 by Codifer

[Sync182]

I also bought "Windoze 7 for Dummies" and the "Windoze 7 Bible".

 

On page 386 (of Dummies) and in the troubleshooting section is a brief paragraph that I finally found:

 

"My Print Screen Key Doesn't Work

 

Windows 7 takes over the Print Screen key (labled PrtSc, PrtScr, or something even more supernatural on some keyboards). Instead of sending the stuff on the screen to the printer, the Print Screen key sends it to Window 7's memory, where you can paste it into other windows.

 

If you hold the Alt key while pressing the Print Screen key, Windows 7 sends a picture of the current window - not the entire screen - to the Clipboard for pasting.

 

If you really want a printout of the screen, press press the Print Screen button to send a picture of the screen to its memory. (It won't look like anything has happened.) Then click Start, choose All Programs, select Accessories, open Paint, and click the Paste icon from the top menu. When your image appears, choose Print from the main menu to send it to the printer."

 

Microsoft really did that with Windows7 - totally screw over every single user by changing the operation of PrtScn...? :wallbash:

 

*shakes head in disbelief then goes back to happpily using WinXP, where everything works as it should* :whistling:

[Thandal]

Microsoft really did that with Windows7 - totally screw over every single user by changing the operation of PrtScn...? :wallbash:

 

*shakes head in disbelief then goes back to happpily using WinXP, where everything works as it should* :whistling:

No, Print Screen in Windows 7 works essentially the way it always has under Windows. BioWare MAY have done a poor job of coding the RESULT of hitting PrntScrn under Win7, but ever since Win 3.0 (remember installing from floppies?) hitting that key has put the contents of the screen into a memory buffer for the user to "do something" with them.

 

For those who care, in the pre-Windows (e.g. DOS) days, it used to dump the contents directly to the "LPT1" port, (connected to which was usually, but not necesarily, "Line Printer #1". :laugh: )

[TheRoc]

Thank you team! One thing I know abouty these forums is that even if someone can't help, they certainly try. But most of the time someone CAN help.

 

I should point out that I have my game installed upon an external HDD and that was my obvious choice to seek my screenshots and well, as you well know, they are not there, they are on my C: drive where I didn't think to look! LOL

 

Thank you all so very much for your assistance - look! They are all there where you said they would be. :)

[TheRoc]

Thandal,

 

Seems odd. I know that I was flummoxed at the time of first trial. The "Print Screen" function could vary from edition to addition and from time to time.

 

The Windoze 7 that I installed (last Dec) was purchased at Fry's and dubbed "Windows 7 Professional 32 bit OEM edition". (The OEM edition at Fry's was one half the cost of the full blown Windoze 7.) The OEM edition is intended for multiple corporate installs or for those who build machines for third party usage (as I understand it and I did try to research all confusion regards legality). The OEM version does not have pretty packaging or a manual or customer support from Microsloth.

 

I also bought "Windoze 7 for Dummies" and the "Windoze 7 Bible".

 

On page 386 (of Dummies) and in the troubleshooting section is a brief paragraph that I finally found:

 

 

quote

 

"My Print Screen Key Doesn't Work

 

Windows 7 takes over the Print Screen key (labled PrtSc, PrtScr, or something even more supernatural on some keyboards). Instead of sending the stuff on the screen to the printer, the Print Screen key sends it to Window 7's memory, where you can paste it into other windows.

 

If you hold the Alt key while pressing the Print Screen key, Windows 7 sends a picture of the current window - not the entire screen - to the Clipboard for pasting.

 

If you really want a printout of the screen, press press the Print Screen button to send a picture of the screen to its memory. (It won't look like anything has happened.) Then click Start, choose All Programs, select Accessories, open Paint, and click the Paste icon from the top menu. When your image appears, choose Print from the main menu to send it to the printer."

 

end quote

 

 

(I hope I did not just break some copywrite law)

 

After I have another coffee I will get the "Windows Bible" from the shelf (it weighs about seven pounds) and see what it says. As I recall, it had a more complete explanation.

 

The whole process did not make sense to me either. I think that the fellow at Microsloth who wrote that program section recently drowned while trying to make love, standing up...... in a canoe.

 

Changing the in-game key binding to "Num Lock 2" made life easier.

 

Cheers

 

OEM usually means 'Original Engineered Machine' copy, meaning that legally, it is a cheaper version that cames pre-installed on a new system and that is the only way you can get a fully functioning copy at a greatly discounted price (which incidentally, Apple/Mac refused to do which allowed MS to dominate the market - not a better OS, but a better business strategy that worked and got many otherwise computerphobics buying PC's that were easy to use and opened the market immensly!). Many computer stores (perhaps that should be 'some computer stores'?) get around the OEM issue by saying, oh well, you just purchased a mouse from us, why can't I call that 'Original' - I got XP by buying a video card that I SELF INSTALLED. But hey, that is basically how OEM works in Australia.

 

As for your everyday printscreen issues, that is how all Windows OS's work. Basically, if you have a reason to take a screenshot, it holds one copy and you can either open a graphics (MSPaint is fine) or open a word doc and past it in. I don't know the full story, but I was once told that the reason was not to clog those early 8mb to 80mb HDD's with tonnes of graphics when writing a manual for say a new program (or a doc for a friend with a step-by-step 'how to' on using the net or say, an e-mail program).

 

E.g. As you typed your e-mail step-by-step for your students, you would have the program opened, take your screen, paste it directly into the document and resize or edit it. Type in the next step, grab a screen on that and paste, edit, etc. before going onto the next step and so on a nd so on...

 

In its time, it was a brilliant concept and I'd even consider it to still be - I have had many, many occasions for training purposes to make use of these features - for staff training in the use of our company's database, training staff on how to use Power Point (in conjunction with PP no less!) and that sort of stuff. Not to mention a doc for a seniors group on how to surf the innernet.

 

Many people don't look beyond the original intent of something and just think, "This is f***ed!" But it did work, and it still does really.

 

Thanks for you response too, but I'm still stuck with XP (I avoided Vista like the plague but will eventually go to 7 I think). :)