Sealwarrior

Oh wow..... I am such a slow poster... Thank you for your input Hana, it is much appreciated. The quality I am trying to achieve is optimal sharpness with minimal artifact corruption, just as you said. If there is anything else I should know about screenshot quality, I am all ears.

Alright, my test bitmap uploads are done.... One converted with MS Paint, the other with Paint.NET: I think I can see that the quality of the Paint.NET version is a little sharper in some areas of the capture, but I still would like the opinions of better trained and more experienced eyes.... For all I know I could still be doing something wrong. I have a very bad tendency for perfectionism, and sometimes I figuratively pull my hair out trying to make everything just right. Hopefully, that will be toned down as I gain experience in such things. I will also keep DaMage's post in mind as well about exporting in Jpeg as a finished image. While I was hoping to make the quality of the shots I uploaded on this site better, it may be a lot more work to get them the way I would like them now that they are already converted. I had used MS Paint at the time, and I was not satisfied with the results that were made. Unfortunately, I seem to have misplaced the original bitmaps for those images, as well as the collection that they were with, for the time being. I am sure I will find them soon, but for now I will focus on converting the ones I have on file. Regardless. from now on I will try and make the Jpeg exports the best quality I can make them before I upload, so thank you for the tip. I also wanted to thank you all for recommending GIMP, Paint.NET, Ifranview, and Faststone Image Viewer at this time, as having such tools will be a great boon to me in the future. The fact that they are free and have active communities is also a nice bit of information to know. My knowledge of such things is limited, and I am very grateful for the recommendations. Sealwarrior

Thank you all for the replies! I would have responded sooner, but real life responsibilities have been taking over my life for the past few days. Using the information that you all have given me, I have been able to make some progress. I have downloaded both GIMP and Paint.NET at this time. and I will be trying to convert some of the images I have. I have posted one image that I just converted to JPEG using MS Paint, and I will post the same image using Paint.Net's feature to see if there is any actual difference. Hopefully, I will be posting back soon.

Hello everyone, I have once again come out of my dark hole to ask the question that the thread topic poses: Is there a better way to convert bitmap images to JPEG without a significant loss of quality? Also is there a way to enhance the JPEGs I have already converted? I ask this now because I have a large library of bitmap images that have been languishing in cold storage on my hard drive for months. Converting them to JPEGs will certainly help to free up some space, as these are large files to begin with. However, I was more interested in doing something that is out of my usual comfort zone: Posting them here on this site. In order to be content with doing this, I wish to make them the best quality I can before I venture sharing. I have posted only a few of my screens here on a private album, but the quality of the JPEG conversions I made was so diminished that I was embarrassed to continue forward with it. If anyone has any suggestions whatsoever, I am all ears. Thank you. Sealwarrior

I know that you found a solution to your problem syscrusher, but I wanted to post this in case others had the same issue. This has actually happened to me as well, 5 days after I installed Skyrim (give or take a few days.) After an update to the Steam client, starting Skyrim would cause the launch menu to pop up as usual. When I selected the option to play the game, however, I would be greeted by the same launch menu no matter how many times I futilely clicked that option. I was able to fix it thanks to a quick search on Google, which prompted the discovery of this link: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20111121145847AAOfSi9 If you would just disregard the "Best Answer- Chosen by Voters" box and look at the post directly below that by Noah, it descibes a way to force an update to the Steam client. In this way, you do not have reinstall Steam. Using this method, I was able to once again play the game without being stuck on the launch menu prompt, and so far I have yet to run into it again. I think it is a nice alternative to reinstalling the client, but seeing after you did that without incident I am sure it is not too much of a hassle.

I believe that his name was Cyrus, the Redguard.

Just looking at these screenshots shows me the time and effort you have put into making this.... This is some truly awe-inspiring work Darkrider! I have a lore question regarding the first Imperial Battlemage, Zurin Arctus, or the Underking. After trapping the spirits of the ancient Blades, he apparently just vanishes, leaving Sancre Tor and the cursed warriors to their fates (according to Oblivions lore.) The world lore, however, mentions the Underking numerous times and in numerous incarnations (like in Daggerfall), but it still makes me wonder about the Battlemage's fate regarding what happened at Sancre Tor. Does your mod offer a revelation and/or insight into the Underking and his history after this point? Does he come back? Or is he just left out for the sake of lore accuracy?

Hmm.... I think I know how to answer this one. I believe that The Lost Spires has its own music tracks for its dungeons. You said the quieter song was very distinct, and softer than the other one that was playing. I want to say that song was from the plugin. Each new dungeon or area that you enter associated with The Lost Spires should have its own unique track once you enter it, and after it finishes the game reverts back to Oblivion tracks or any tracks you added to the "Dungeon" folder in Oblivion's music directory. If both tracks are playing, then something other than vanilla Oblivion's music system is in control of your playlist. Do you have the Enhanced Music Control OBSE plugin installed, by chance? This can be one of the things that can cause such a conflict. Honestly though, I would not worry about it. I do not believe this is anything major, just a glitch that may/may not hinder your audio enjoyment concerning The Lost Spires. It should not be game breaking, and you should still play just fine. Hopefully, this explanation helps. Sealwarrior

I want to second all of Hana's suggestions, and wish to add that the Oblivion ini should be regenerated after you install a new piece of hardware to your rig so the game can compensate for the change... Also, just out of curiosity, have you installled the Oblivion Graphics Extender OBSE plugin as well?

Darn.... So I am no longer a fish? The heavens have now deemed... No, doomed me to be under the sign of some guy who pours water for people? No longer can I be contempt knowing that the celestial powers that be will protect me in the water? No longer can I be satisfied knowing that the very oceans themselves and the dwellers of the deep are watching my back?? I just have some guy.... Armed with a jug of.... WATER???? What is he going to do for me, make sure I am well hydrated? Perhaps provide water for me to throw at those who would wish harm to me?? Perhaps provide a super soaker for the deed? Curse the shift of the firmament, and a curse to all of those in charge who just realized this!! (Emphatically shakes fist) On a serious note, I had no idea the astrological and astronomical powers that be would change this so soon, let alone today. Thank you for letting me know this, although I am a bit disappointed. The bright side of this is that people can look at this as a new beginning, I guess. My only gripe is that now I am an Aquarius. Why must I be under the "waterboy" sign? (sighs) I liked being one with our oceanic brothers and sisters.... In the cosmic and abstract sense, of course. Guess this means I am prone to shark attacks now...

Hello there L0new0lf, I also had to reinstall my copy of Oblivion recently, and also a few months ago. I decided to install FCOM on the latter reinstallation, and I had to pore over many threads and articles about things I did not fully understand at the time, like mod cleaning, BAIN, and PYFFI, in order to get the best possible experience. Sites like Tomlong's TESIV: POSItive were truly excellent resources in this undertaking. While I am no longer as green as I was, I am by no means an expert, but I hope I can provide some clarification. Part of 1., and 2. About this, I think what the user is supposed to do is drop the meshes to be PYFFied in the "In" folder, right click on the "oblivion_optimize" INI (not the "default" one) and select the "Run PyFFI" option. After the process completes itself, the meshes that were PyFFIed from the "In" folder go to the "Out" folder. If the process runs and nothing comes out of it, check the "default" INI. I think it should look something like this...: [main] ; default folder to toast ; should *not* end with a trailing slash folder = ./in ; default destination directory ; should *not* end with a trailing slash dest-dir = ./out ... In order for it to work as I just described. I guess that means not to change them then... I know the instructions say the destination folders listed should not end in a trailing slash, and this may be because if there is one present, the program would think there is another folder after the one listed. I can only guess that if someone were to do that, the PyFFIed meshes would just vanish as the program cannot find the specified location. 3. Er... My greeness is about to be exposed .... What I want to say is that if you follow the instructions for "Optimize and Repack a Meshes BSA steps" on Tomlong's site (http://tesivpositive.animolious.com/?page=pyffi) to the letter, everything will be fine. To be honest, I have no idea what a leading space is... Hopefully someone else can help you there. 4. From the official PyFFI thread on the BethSoft forums: Q - Is there a visual quality loss? A - No, PyFFI removes duplicate and empty data from the nif file. Here is the link for the thread, in case you don't have it: http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1123756-inforelz-pyffi-python-file-format-interface. A lot of questions and concerns can be assuaged here, believe me. I think backing everything up is a sound plan, and will save you countless hours of waiting/clicking/pulling your hair out PyFFiing and cleaning. Keep in mind also that when TES4Edit cleans a plugin, it makes a backup of the original in a pre-cleaned state. It would be wise to save those as well, if you find the results of the cleaning undesirable. Another thing would be to consult this page: http://cs.elderscrolls.com/constwiki/index.php/TES4Edit_Cleaning_Guide. It has explanations on a whole bunch of terms, and even a list of what not to clean (but be sure to clean everything else in you LO.) For PyFFiing mod meshes, try to keep an eye out for some that have already been done for you. A whole slew of mod updates have been released when the latest version of PyFFI came out for a further boost in performance ("Better Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary", "A Brotherhood Renewed", and the unofficial patch supplementals [not sure of this one, arg], to name but a few.\.) For instance, FCOM has optimized meshes for Warcry, Francescos, Bob's Armoury, etc, kindly provided by Team FCOM located here: http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/topic/1152645-relz-fcom-convergence-and-ufcom/. Hopefully that will save you some time. As for BAIN.... Please learn it. I cannot even begin to tell you how much it has made things easier for me, and how much stress it has taken away from installing and modding Oblivion. It is worth its weight in gold.... Or cookies. Whichever you prefer. I wish you luck doing this, and I hope you learn something in the process. I know I did, and I am thankful for it. Sealwarrior

Alright, it is now time to review the results of my reinstallation. To put it bluntly.... It did not work. Even with the vanilla installation of Oblivion GOTY, I still have no audio in game. @HeyYou You were correct in your assumption... Thank you for posting this, as I had a sinking suspicion the last few days that this might be related to my Windows install. How something like this could have happened is beyond me, as I had not made any major changes to my PC for quite some time. I think it would also explain some of those missing codecs from the K Lite instalation process as well, though I would not be able to explain how this would be so. I truly thank you and Qwaxalot for trying to help me, as the information the two of you provided was indeed invaluable. @Qwaxalot Thank you for posting the link for Bben's Reinstall Procedure, but I actually already have that down in my Favorites list. He made quite a useful resource, and I was able to use it for this reinstallation. @Greenwarden & Qwaxalot Um... I thank you both for your kind words .... It is nice to hear words of encouragement. Truly though, everyone here at TESA is incredibly helpful and benevolent, and I am glad (and surprised) that people would take the time to analyze my problem, insignificant though it may be. I thank you both again, and everyone else who aided me with this problem. Here are some s (x6 or 7 of course) for everyone! Please share them with Arion and Khett too, if you would. Thank you all for your assistance. I can only surmise that what is causing this to happen is an error or missing component in my Windows 7 install. Only surefire way to fix that would be a complete reinstallation of Windows... But unfortunately this will have to wait a few more weeks. I will have to do that sometime in the future when I have a free moment. For now though, I can use this time to complete a few games I have yet to finish..... The Witcher beckons.... Many thanks once again, Sealwarrior

@HeyYou and Qwaxalot, Thanks for suggesting the reinstallation of windows media player but I do not believe I can do that, as that too is integrated into Windows 7. I found these links detailing the "reinstallation process": http://www.softsailor.com/how-to/16394-how-to-uninstall-windows-media-player-12.html (Unintallation) http://www.softsailor.com/how-to/16402-how-to-re-install-windows-media-player-12.html (Reinstallation) I tried the steps listed in the above links, yet even this process proved fruitless as Oblivion still has no sound. There was another one: http://techie-buzz.com/hacks-and-mods/how-to-uninstall-windows-media-player-12-on-windows-7.html Although this was primarily for installing Windows Media Player 11 one Windows 7, it still had an uninstallation procedure. I did not follow this, however, as I was uncomfortable about modifying my registry like that. Additionally, some of the posts left by users detailed unintended complications resulting from this process. @HeyYou About the Installed Codec program you have refferred to me, I have tried to disable the codecs I had individually, in similar groups, and then at random (frustration was getting the better of me), but nothing worked. No matter what I did, I was not able restore audio to the game. I thank you anyway for your help, though. I am now out of ideas, and (finally) out of patience. There is only one thing to do that may or may not alleviate the problem, and that is a complete reinstallation of Oblivion. I am sorry that I was not able to figure out the problem on my own, and I thank you all who took the time to help me and partake knowledge that I will find useful in the future. I will post the results as soon as this is done. I thank you all again. Sealwarrior