custom book textures displaying in menu

[AlphaWoIF]

Its very easy to make a re-texture for a skyrim vanilla book i know because ive done it.

But creating new a custom book with that same texture and having it display correctly in the menu screen seems to be a massive headache that i have been unable to yet pull of .

anyone achieved this yet and how?

[AlphaWoIF]

Its very easy to make a re-texture for a skyrim vanilla book i know because ive done it.

But creating new a custom book with that same texture and having it display correctly in the menu screen seems to be a massive headache that i have been unable to yet pull of .

anyone achieved this yet and how?

Update

Scratch that ! i just pulled it off :)

[steve40]

Have you managed to do this without duplicating and editing the nif in nifscope? I posted some instructions in another of your topics a few minutes ago. Will post exact instructions later if necessary, when I get home tonight. No need to replace texture files or edit nifs :)

[tetradite]

Its very easy to make a re-texture for a skyrim vanilla book i know because ive done it.

But creating new a custom book with that same texture and having it display correctly in the menu screen seems to be a massive headache that i have been unable to yet pull of .

anyone achieved this yet and how?

Update

Scratch that ! i just pulled it off :)

 

How? I'd like to know!

 

I'm guessing you do need to edit the nif? If there's a way of doing it withjust custom dds I'll be massively grateful...

Edited May 3, 2012 by tetradite

[steve40]

In the Menu screen? Do you mean the Inventory menu, or the random loading screens? Edited May 3, 2012 by steve40

[AlphaWoIF]

Yes i used a duplicated book nilf that i directed at the custom textures i made but i could never get my custom book to load that model in the inventory screen. it was always just the vanilla book displaying .

So i tried a test and typed in highpoly in the ck all search, and found the highpoly texture for the dragonborn book and duplicated and renamed it . then it was available in the options dropdown menu on my custom book and it works great.

but i just seen the reply you left in the old thread i previously made and i like your solution more now that i know the whay books are setup thx.

Edited May 3, 2012 by AlphaWoIF

[tetradite]

In the Menu screen? Do you mean the Inventory menu, or the random loading screens?

 

 

Yes i used a duplicated book nilf that i directed at the custom textures i made but i could never get my custom book to load that model in the inventory screen. it was always just the vanilla book displaying .

So i tried a test and typed in highpoly in the ck all search, and found the highpoly texture for the dragonborn book and duplicated and renamed it . then it was available in the options dropdown menu on my custom book and it works great.

but i just seen the reply you left in the old thread i previously made and i like your solution more now that i know the whay books are setup thx.

 

To explain, I think I'm trying to do something slightly different to the OP. If I'm right Alpha you're just using the Dragonborn book nif unedited as a new "skin" for your custom book?

 

This is where I'm at, appreciate help from anyone:

 

- The nif I am using is plain vanilla, so the object is basically just a duplicated vanilla book

- The custom texture I am using is an edited DDS, which I have put into a texture set and applied to my book

- The appearance of the book is absolutely fine everywhere bar the invenory screen

- The inventory displays the plain vanilla version of the book

 

So, I figured, apply my texture set to a custom version of the highpolyversion that the game normal uses:

 

- Duplicated the vanilla highpoly, applied my texture set to that as well (appears correctly in CK preview), and selected my new version of the highpoly as the inventory art for the book.

 

Aaaand, the game still displays the vanilla in your inventory.

 

I'm suspecting that you can't use a texture set on an inventory view like this, that when it's displaying an inventory graphic it just bypasses the texture sets and puts up the vanilla nif. Anyone know if this is the case? If so I need to learn how to work nifs :(

[AlphaWoIF]

there are 2 types of books models you have to use inventory and world .

 

at the moment i have a nice set of custom texture spell tomes real world models that show up in the inventory as vanilla & a really nice readable custom texture book they has no world model so if it drop its its vanishes

the trick is to match the pair.

 

i did look in the ck texture sets for the vanilla textures but found nothing which made me think that the nilf holds the key here and is the main choice where the texturers are called from as i have nilfs doing that for all custom books ive made. i believe combining the 2 methods will solve all issues.

[steve40]

Hi guys,

 

I did some experimenting with the book forms last night.

 

As noted above, books use two models: a "World Art" model that appears when you drop the book, and an "Inventory Art" model that appears when viewing the Player inventory.

The "texture override" method that I described earlier, using a TextureSet instead of duplicating and editing the nif file, works if you do it on the World Art model. Unfortunately, for unfathomable reasons, as AlphaWolF found out, it didn't work for the Inventory Art model. So if you apply a TextureSet to the Inventory Art model and then select that model from the drop-down list in the Book Form, the game ignores the TextureSet and just looks for the default texture that is hard-coded into the nif. I presume this is a bug or oversight on Bethesda's part.

 

So as tetradite suggests, you have to combine both methods. You can save a bit of disk space by not having to duplicate the World Art model nif, but you will need to make a copy of the Inventory Art model nif and edit it in nifscope to point to your custom textures. Then, in the Book Form, you point to the vanilla World Art model, click the Edit button to the right, then click on the texture slot that you want to override (I forget now, I think it was Book01 slot?) and select your new World Art book TextureSet. Then close that subform and back in main Book Form, in the the Inventory Art drop-down list, select the duplicated/edited Inventory Art model. Now you will have a fully retextured readable book.

 

Woah...stop the press. I just found another topic, and from what I've read, they have been able to get the "texture override" to work with the Inventory Art :ohmy:

 

Dragten writes: "Then, you need to go to World Objects --- Static and find the model of the book you want to retexture.

It should be called something with "highpolybook01" or whatever. Dublicate it, and name it whatever you want, for instance "1_book_highpoly".

Double click the entry and you will get the window with all the properties like the ID, etc. There will be one called "Model". Click the Edit button next to it, and you will get a new window. There will be a list called Alternate Textures. There will be a few 3D name entries, you just have to find the right one of them and DRAG your newly made TextureSet into the slot.

Then just press "OK". Now, when you are making the book itself, under the property window for it, there will be a field for "Inventory Art". Its just a drop down menu with the list of all static objects. Click it and find the new book static we just made (the "1_book_highpoly".)"

 

Hmm... so the only difference that I see here compared to the way that I tried/described earlier (that didn't work for me) is that he DRAGS the TextureSet into the texture slot rather than clicking on the texture slot and choosing from the drop-list that appears. But the other poster, Astral, says that this method worked! I'll have to try it tonight.

 

Just on another point, I've found that when creating a TextureSet and when going to add my dds texture file, that if I type "*.*" as the filename I can then browse all files. So out of curiosity I selected a JPG as the texture. Guess what, the file opened and I saw my JPG as the texture in the texture slot :ohmy: . I haven't tested using JPG as texture replacements on any models yet.

 

One more thing, there is a book in the CK called Q&ABook. If you look in the "Book Text" field of the "Q&ABook" Form, it is actually a demo of all the text formatting codes that you can use when creating the book's text. There are also different language versions of this book too 8)

Edited May 4, 2012 by steve40

[tetradite]

 

Woah...stop the press. I just found another topic, and from what I've read, they have been able to get the "texture override" to work with the Inventory Art :ohmy:

 

Dragten writes: "Then, you need to go to World Objects --- Static and find the model of the book you want to retexture.

It should be called something with "highpolybook01" or whatever. Dublicate it, and name it whatever you want, for instance "1_book_highpoly".

Double click the entry and you will get the window with all the properties like the ID, etc. There will be one called "Model". Click the Edit button next to it, and you will get a new window. There will be a list called Alternate Textures. There will be a few 3D name entries, you just have to find the right one of them and DRAG your newly made TextureSet into the slot.

Then just press "OK". Now, when you are making the book itself, under the property window for it, there will be a field for "Inventory Art". Its just a drop down menu with the list of all static objects. Click it and find the new book static we just made (the "1_book_highpoly".)"

 

Hmm... so the only difference that I see here compared to the way that I tried/described earlier (that didn't work for me) is that he DRAGS the TextureSet into the texture slot rather than clicking on the texture slot and choosing from the drop-list that appears. But the other poster, Astral, says that this method worked! I'll have to try it tonight.

 

 

Yep, you're method was my method - same conclusion - rework the nif (damn it) because it's ignoring the applied texture set when displaying the inventory object rather than the world object (even with the texture set applied to both).

 

I just tried the dragging solution and dragging doesn't work, I mean literally, I can't drag into the model window (it just doesn't recognise it as a place to drag to, the mouse cursor has the no entry sign thingy) or any of the 3D Name slots.

 

Many thanks for the help, I think you've confirmed my suspicion that you just can't retexture the inventory object with a texture set :(