SSE Photo Diary of the Dragonborn

[GhostyTowno]

So I was thinking...

There are so many beautiful sights in Skyrim. So many memorable moments that you want to just capture in time and never forget. The beautiful landscapes, the awe-inspiring landmarks, rare experiences shared with friends found along the way, endless dungeons filled with mystery and wonder, there's a lot to experience in the world of Skyrim. So, what if you really could capture these moments?

My idea is that anywhere, anytime, you can press a key on your keyboard and pull out a photo diary, similar in function to the Journal of the Dragonborn mod. However, instead of merely functioning as a text-based journal, this full-fledged sketchbook allows the Dragonborn to stop and sketch his/her current surroundings directly onto the pages. The sketch is not made manually by the user, but merely takes a still screenshot from when the button was pressed and simulates the idea of sketching it for immersion purposes. Drawing a photo could perhaps require a quill and inkwell. Perhaps you could sit down first as well, but I'm not sure how that would work in certain situations. If you want to delete a photo you just rip the page out of the sketchbook and use it as kindling in a campfire.

There is a limit of one photo per page each consisting of a screenshot inside that has been automatically resized appropriately, and each photo has a small text box underneath where you may dub the photo with a title and a small description, and each page also automatically tells the time and day within the world when the picture was drawn based on the Skyrim calendar. The screenshots would obviously not include HUD details or anything that would break the immersion, they'd just be laid out exactly like photos for wallpapers and such. I don't think there'd be a way to auto-generate the photos through a sort of artistic sketch filter or paper style filter to make them look more drawn and organic, it sounds way too complicated and most likely the beauty would get lost in translation regardless.

This idea in general sounds very complicated and impossible even just using resized screenshots. However, there are two big reasons this sounds interesting to me. Number one, I like the idea of being able to document interesting, beautiful, memorable and important things along my journey. Being able to lay out poignant and nostalgic memories for each character in a personal linear keepsake that I can pull out and look through any time and personally detail with my own thoughts at the time sounds very interesting to me.

My second idea that sounds interesting to me is being able to put these pictures on display in your home using picture frames that are manually built onto the walls using immersive Skyrim-based materials. It wouldn't make sense to have a camera and a printer, not even with Dwemer technology I would imagine. However, there could be a new artist type NPC added to the game who you can pay a visit to and they will resketch any specific photo you choose from your journal onto a roll of paper for you to take home and hang for a generous handful of Septims.

A few possible locations for the NPC would be the Bards College of Solitude, the Books of Skyrim bookshop of Solitude, or perhaps they merely live at a humble village and they do it as sidework to support their family in some little room with a modest setup. There could also be several different types of wood used for the picture frames based on the different trees of Skyrim. Anyway, details, details, none of this matters if it can't be done regardless. I'm curious, is there a way this could be done in any capacity, no matter how transformative or simplified?

Thanks for reading.