Need the skinny on changing Billboards, Posters, and Pictures

[shoeshine74]

I was hoping to implement some Underdog nostalgia (GoGo Gophers, Tennesee Tuxedo, Commander McBragg ect.) into the wasteland. Kinda like Tenamil did with the Dragon Ball Z pictures mod. But I'm having trouble finding the right files. Are they .dds files? Is there a big difference between changing Pictures, Posters, and Billboards? Can I pull it off with the Creation Kit, NifSkope, and Gimp? If anyone can shine some light on this that would be great. Even a tutorial specific to this would be awesome. Thanks

[radiumskull]

If it's a texture in-game, it's going to be a DDS file. Changing any image on any game model is changing a texture, so they have that in common. I don't know what DDS tools are available for Gimp, if any, but with that, you're set.

 

Now you just need to comb through the vast amount of fragmented information across the 'net so you can figure out the needs of your specific task. That's where the real work lies, unfortunately.

[shoeshine74]

Thanks, If they are I know I can make the .dds files I need in gimp. I've done it before for an old oblivion mod. I'm assuming that when I find the .dds files that I want to replace, I can save them to the side and name the new ones whatever the old ones were. I thought they would be in textures but no such luck.

[PoliteRaider]

You'll have three files for textures.

 

nameoftexture_d.dds is the diffuse map, which is the map which shows the colours and patterns on the object. This is usually where you'd place your art design.

 

nameoftexture_s.dds is the specular map, which is the map which shows how light interacts and reflects from the object. You're unlikely to need to change this if both your old and new texture are meant to be the same material.

 

nameoftexture_n.dds is the normal map, which is the map which shows the 3d distortions to the object, useful for adding small dots, bumps and holes. Again, unlikely to need changing if your new object is meant to be the same shape.

 

Check out this tutorial from Elianora.

 

 

Edit: You might be having trouble finding the files because by default they are stored inside the .ba2 archive and need to be extracted. You'll need this program to extract them.

 

http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/78/?

Edited July 2, 2016 by PoliteRaider

[Deleted15964729User]

If you wanna do straight retextures of the billboards you just need to find their original filestructure and put your files there instead. Most posters and billboards are in \DATA\Textures\SetDressing\Signage\ and \DATA\Textures\Props\. \DATA\Textures\Architecture\ might also have some. I'd wager that most use a common normal and specular map so you'd probably only need to change the diffuse textures. If I were you I'd download a mod that already does this to get some clues to which files to change. Mind you it might be that some use material swaps to replace vanilla ones in which case you'd need to ask for permission if you want to use their work as a framework for your mod.

 

You won't need the Creation Kit if you just edit vanilla textures (unless you want to pack it in archives to make it available for consoles that is). You can use GIMP or Paint.NET which supports diffuse texture without any addons.

[shoeshine74]

Awesome! I think I got all I needed to keep me busy for a while. Thanks Everyone! :thumbsup:

[PoliteRaider]

Good luck and have fun! :D

[shoeshine74]

Ok, extracted the ba2's I needed and found them in the mix. So I just replace the d.dds files by making pics the same size and save under the name and rename old ones? Because in the tutorial Elianora is changing .nif files. Or is that just for custom stuff? Little lost

[RaffTheSweetling]

At first I thought you needed to change the .nif file to do the retexture. But now I'm thinking you don't.

Some .nif files don't even show the filepath to the textures, in their information, so the only way to assign those .nifs the textures was through the custom materials file using "Material Editor" and the CK.

Once I realized that, It occurred to me that you can simply create a new materials file or a copy of the one you want to mod, and just use the CK to create a unique object form ID, set a custom material, and use the custom material to point to the texture you created, without needing to mess around with the .nif file at all.

I think this means I should go back through my early assets and get rid of the .nifs I made, because they probably aren't needed when I eventually upload it here.

Feel free to correct this if I am wrong, anyone. But I believe this is correct.