Importing Fallout: New Vegas books into Fallout 3?

[QuentinVance]

Hello everybody!

 

I resumed working on an old mod I published a long time ago, and I noticed how Fallout 3 lacked the book variety that New Vegas had. I would like to import some of the books from NV into F03, but alas I have no idea on how to do that. I know that I should somehow extract them from one GECK and import them into the other, but honestly I have no idea how. A user did a samiliar thing for me a few years ago, and provided me with a .nif file that I just added to the "Meshes" folder to make it work, but that's as far as my knowledge goes.

 

Can anyone help me out? I tried searching if anyone had done the same thing already, but I couldn't find anything. It would be great if you could help me.

[M48A5]

Porting content from one Bethesda game to another is strictly a DIY project.

 

If the assets are already part of FO3, then those assets can legally be activated for that game. That is the only legal way assets from two different games can be used.

 

Otherwise you are advocating piracy.

[QuentinVance]

I'm not entirely sure I understand how modding an item from a game into the other could be "advocating piracy". If that were the case for literally importing three different textures to be used in the previous game, then I suppose every single mod, total conversion, and so on, is piracy as well. I mean, just searching for "New Vegas" in Nexus' Fallout 3 section shows plenty of stuff imported from NV to 3, and I don't think any of those would still be on the website if they counted as piracy...

 

EDIT: I think I understand what you mean - I'm supposed to own both games to import things from one into the other. If that's the case, then I do.

Edited September 15, 2020 by QuentinVance

[UnvalidUserName]

It's against the site terms of service. You can't use assets from one game on another. There is nothing stopping you from making your own version of those assets of course.

[QuentinVance]

Fair.

Let's say I'm trying to do just that right now: I want to extract the "Generic Pre-War Book" texture from FO3, edit it, and then add it back into the game. So far I have used FOMM to extract the .dss file from Fallout.bsa.

I have an image editing tool (GIMP 2 in this case). Upon opening the file, I only see a series of empty layers. It's a good start, but could be better. Anyone has an idea on how I can actually edit the textures?

 

And once done, is there a specific procedure to add them back into the game?

[M48A5]

I would like to direct your attention to this article written by the site owner: https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/377405-porting-content-from-other-games/

 

You cannot use FNV assets in FO3 and vice-versa and post the results here for download. That is why "A Tale of Two Wastelands" is not hosted here.

[QuentinVance]

Yes, I understand what you meant, now.

I will stick to creating new textures myself, since that should be allowed.

 

However, I still need to figure out "how do I extract/edit/import", even within the same game. I managed to extract the file I needed to edit, now how to edit or put it back in the game remains out of my reach. So if anyone can explain this part to me, it would be greatly appreciated.

[QuentinVance]

Update for anyone who might be interested: in the end, converting from New Vegas to Fallout 3 wasn't even necessary - the same textures from New Vegas are in Fallout 3, the game just doesn't use them.

 

I found this by simply extracting the textures for BookGeneric01 and opening the .dss file in Gimp. Everything is already there, the game uses the top-left texture while the other three are in the other corners of the image, never to be used.

I confirmed this by simply replacing the green ones with the others, and opening the model in NifSkope.

I have no idea why they scrapped this, but apparently they had the textures all along and just chose never to use them in Fallout 3.