InsanitySorrow

Here you go DDS Plugin Normal Map Plugin Ok so usually you grab an image that is bigger than what you need and re-scale it to a smaller size, this keeps your detail while chaning to a new size. Now if you do it the opposite way some images can and will become blurry and loose some quality, really there is not much you can do, but you can try adding a few filters to it like running the sharpening filter on it. This will at least bring back a small amount of quality.

Not developed an XP levelling system Hmmm, I did not finish the Bloodmoon quest, got pre-occupied with hunting artifacts

Glad to be of help, I am still thinking on that last one. Been rather busy playing OBlivion today

General information: 1) You could give your AI package some conditions for the NPC to meet, just make sure these conditions are contained within grid A, I would say make a check: GetItemCount Key <0 or something to trick the AI to stay. Its Oblivion that makes them want to continue. A marker would also work, just tell them to walk to GridMakerA and stay there. 2) NPCs will always try to find the shortest route around any given area. This is actually controlled by the pathgrids that are set up, most of the time the pathgrids are set up so the NPC can traverse the area, but then a specific path is put in which is the shortest route through. The only way around this is to make the NPCs go from marker to marker along your route.

It will be a little tricky becuase you have to set markers and so forth, but its not as tricky as you might think. Once you know the basics of: AI Pathgrids Dialogue Then you should be able to do what you want with your NPCs

Yes you understand correctly, NPCs can be placed anywhere and aslong as it is pathed they will no where they can/cannot walk to get about. When you create a new cell you will need to create the pathgrids along with it, this is not as important for places just for the player, unless you intend on having companions. But for an area where NPCs will reside/use then its an important step. When you copy a cell the pathgrids are copied also, so there is only a need to adjust them if you make significant changes. Otherwise they can be left alone. So yes all pathgrids can be changed, this is something I will cover with a tutorial

About NPCs and AI Class Description: The NPC and AI class has been designed to give beginner/less experience modders a good handling on creating NPCs and developing AI for them, which is needed for mods looking to introduce new NPCs into the world of Oblivion. The class will cover as much information as possible and att he same time keeping it easier to read and understandable for beginners and more experience modders alike. Homework: Homework is introduced with each lesson. The point of the homework assignments is to give students an opportunity to practice what they are learning while still being guided by the class. If you are aiming for the NPC,AI Class medal then this is something that is required. Points: As you complete each class and the homework you will be awarded with points, each student has to earn the 120pts on offer in order to earn the NPC, AI medal. Smarty Says: Once you have completed the classes and graduated, all students are welcome to make any changes they see fit to the NPCs and AI created within the classes.

NPCs & AI: General Questions and Answers As you make your way through the classes there are bound to be questions that are not answered, if you find you have questions but cannot find answers then please post here and I will get back to you with an answer. If your question requires a more in depth discussion then please start a new thread for it and we can discuss your issues there. If you find you have questions that are not about NPCs or AI then please post in our Study Hall.

Here I would suggest downloaded the .exe installation file, its easier to use

Glad you got it all sorted out Your steps sound a little more complex than my tut, but you only get back what you put in. At least your having fun with it

Hope it helps, if it does not then post back and I will dig up some additional information for you Also to all would-be users, the additional information Rider requested has been added to the tutorial:D

Sure, Tilting it back makes the image darker in the preview box, this makes the texture darker in-game, works the other way for the lightness. As far as I am aware this works like the colours on an alpha, but it does not apply any time of shine to it though. Ok so what you are doing here is moving the mouse back for lightness and forward for dark, I think the plastic look is coming from too much white, possibly as a shine effect. Best thing to do is drag the mouse toward the lower right until you can see good shadow contrast.

Why thank you Greenie And up you could make tapestries with it, just do as Rider said above and you will be good as gold

Quote Thanks IS. Trying to find all the settings in the Corel 3.0.12 that I have Is proving difficult. I got further in DX Studio. I`m still waiting for CS4 to finish downloading. When it does (maybe sometime next month, ha ) I`ll be more ready to actually spend more time with this. Great stuff though. Thanks, hope it works out well for you

Thank you, I think that is the reason why its a little more complex than other tutorials. I am planning to make the first section easier Glad you like the normal map section, I had to learn how to do it before writing this tutorial

It actually sounds as though the normal maps shot, try making your own normal map. It should fix your problem.

Additional: Tutorial Resources: Here are a few additional resources that can be used to help you through the tutorial. These are here for additional help and are not required for the turorial. Painting Tutorial Resources Contents: 512x512 base Background [black], Tutorial Painting Texture and Normal Map and a 512x512 Painting.Nif. Additional Notes: Posted by: RedDragonDreamer

Third: Nifskope Magick and in-game Ok so now we have our two new textures is time to apply them to a model using NifSkope and prepare them for use in-game. Download TES4ArchiveUse it to Extract MeshOpen Nif and apply new textureEdit texture source Final Notes Note: The mesh used in this tutorial may not perfectly display the texture we made, Ie it may show the black borders. If so just search through the other meshes for something you like. Also note that this does not explain how to place the files in you Oblivion folder, I took it as you already know this. I have a final note on this to help regardless, so lets crack on and enjoy preparing our mesh Step 1: First thing we are going to do is extract our mesh from the Oblivion - Meshes.bsa so we have something to apply our texture too. So go ahead and Download TES4Archive, I prefer this to all other .bsa programs, but if you prefer something else use it. Now once that is downloaded, extract the TES4Archive.jar file, double click on this to open it, you should see this: Step 2: Go to >File>Open, navigate to your Oblivion data folder and you will see all the .bsa files. Open up the <span style='color: orange'>Oblivion - Meshes.bsa</span> Once you have double clicked it the program should start loading it and you will see this: Step 3: Now that we have opened the.bsa we are now going to find and extract a painting mesh, but first make sure you are seeing something like: Ok so we are going to be working with meshes only, so where you see the meshes you will see a little + sign next to it, click it to expand the mesh list. Now after that navigate to the clutter menu, this is where most paintings are usually stored, so our best chance is here. The painting we want is a castle one, more specifically its one from Anvil, so click to expand CastleInterior and then AnvilCastleInterior to get to where we want. The painting we want is Ancaspaintinganvilstreet01c, so click it. Now its time to extract our mesh. Step 4: Extracting the mesh is really simple, now that we have clicked on the mesh we need to tell the utility to only extract it, so on the right hand side of the utility you will see two options and a button. Check the extract selected files Now click the extract files button and it will ask where you want to place the file, for me it will be the desktop, but that is for this tutorial. Thats that part done and now we are finished with TES4Archive Step 5: Ok so now thats done, find your new .nif and double click to open it up, you should see something similar to this: Click on the little white arrows next to the text, they are positioned on the left. These arrows expand the rows, so do this untill you get to this point: Now the row I have hightlighted belongs to the texture we are going to change, the one above is for the from, but since we did not make a new frame texture we will leave it as the default one. On the line you see hightlighted you will see a small purple cog on the left of the texture line, click it and it will open a prompt to select a new texture. Navigate to your newly created texture. Double click the texture and nifskope will apply it, you should see something like this now: The final thing is to adjust the texture path, becuase most players will have different places where Oblivion is installed its best not to set the path to a specific drive. Instead, delete all before Textures, this way the game will pick up that its stored in the textures folder, even with different Oblivion installs Final Note: Now in this tutorial we did not cover placing the mesh and texture into our Oblivion folder. This is a simple step and most paintings are saved in the clutter folder, so just move your files to the relevant folders to something like this: MeshesClutterXXX.nif TexturesClutterXXX.dds Where XXX denotes the name of your mesh and texture. They do not have to be placed like this, its just more common thats all. You can also pick a different paintnig .nif than the one I used, this was purely for the tutorial and to get the best one you will need to try different .nifs.

Second: Basic Normal Map This tutorial applies to any normal you want to create, this is a universal tutorial for creating basic normal maps Step 1: So now we are going to create our normal map. The normal map is used to give our texture some more detail, with a detailed normal map you can give the surface of the texture a bump effect where the ridges etc stand out and look more detailed. The normal map also controls how the texture responds to some of the games shaders, for example it controls how the texture reflects the light. Normal maps are saved as a .dds texture just like in our previous section, the major difference is that it is saved with a _n suffix. Now make a copy of the texture we made in the previous section and add a _n suffix to it. After some changes this will become our normal map. Step 2: Open up GIMP and your _n texture. So now were are going to add an aplha channel to our image, this is an important step becuase it is this that controls how the light reflects off our texture. >Image>Layer>Transparency>Color to Alpha In the Alpha window we now want to change the colour, you will see a white box with the text "From" next to it, select this box and change the colour to black or put this in 000000 This should now change to black, if not do it again , click Ok to close both windows. Your image will now look ghostly compared to its what it was. This means you are doing things right, so lets continue. Step 3: Now we have an image that looks good and has an odd black and white alpha channel So now we need to apply the normal map filter, (download link) and install. Ok with the filter installed, Filters>Map>Normal Map Click it and a nice litte dialogue box should pop up: Step 4: Now we have a few steps to complete before we can save our normal map. So now our normal map filter menu is open, click the 3D preview button to open another box: Hold the Left Mouse Button over the preview window and drag the mouse upward so the Quad tilts back.Click the light bulb icon at the top left, now move you mouse either back or forward to adjust brightnessClick the sphere icon so you can rotate the image again Note: Tilting it back makes the image darker in the preview box, this makes the texture darker in-game, works the other way for the lightness. As far as I am aware this works like the colours on an alpha, but it does not apply any time of shine to it though. Best thing to do is get a nice grey look to the image, this should give the best effect in-game. Best thing to do is drag the mouse toward the lower right until you can see good shadow contrast. So now we have the lighting done we need to change a few settings in our normal map window: Wrap: Check Filter: 3x3 Scale: 6.00000 Height source: Alpha Alpha channel: Unchanged DU/DV map: None Click ok on the normal map window, and we shall now save our normal map. Now its time to save, >File>SaveAs>, Make sure you select .dds as the file type, and select DXT3 for our compression. Then save, overrite your texture if it asks. Thats that done, you should now have 2 seperate textures, now its time to get this in-game.

Creating a new Painting [GIMP] This tutorial will guide you through the basic steps of creating a new painting for Oblivion. The steps will teach you the basics, but there is no harm in taking time to really look at the features. Choose your imageLoad up GIMP Create a base backgroundSet up your imageResize ImageApply Clothify FilterCopy image over base backgroundPosition and touch upSave File Create a basic Normal MapExtract Painting .nif from .BSAApply new texture to the NifSave .NIF with new texture First: Main Texture The first thing we are going to do is create our texture, obviously without it we cannot do anything else Step 1: The very first step to this tutorial is to find the image you want to use for your painting. This can be absolutely anything you want, for this tutorial I am going to pick an image from Morrowind. Step 2: The next thing you want to do is load up GIMP, now we are going to create a base background. The main reason for this is that a .dds texture needs to be a multiple of 2 for it to save, so that kinda explains the reason for 512x512 or 256x256 image sizes. Ok so now lets crack on a bit, create a new image, so file and new. Set the image size as follows: 512 pixels 512 pixels The final thing I am going to do is change the background colour to black. This is purely something I am choosing to do but you do not have to, I find it helps make the image a lot tidier and easier to blend edges that are not quite right. Step 3: Now open up your chosen image, once that is done, re-size the image to 512x512, don't worry if its not perfect since it will be going over the top of our background. Once its re-sized we shall apply the nice fancy filter to it. Ok navigate to: Filters>Artistic>Clothify This will bring up a little option box, just click ok and carry on with the default settings. If you want to you can try out different settings before moving o You will now notice a nice little effect has been applied to your image. This will give the image a more of a painting look. There are other filters you can use instead which will produce different filter effects. Anyway you should have something like this: Step 4: So we have our nice new image with funky filters, so now its time to apply it to our background. Copy and paste the whole image over the top of your background. Position so you can see all your image and it looks nicely aligned. You should have a result like so: Now is the time to adjust the image, make sure all edges are tidy and the image is nicely aligned. If you followed me earlier and applied a black colour to the background then you may notice [Depending on the image] that it looks good. if so we shall continue on. Step 5: Now that we have our painting we will need to save it before we can use it. So we need a .dds texture. Go file, save as. A new dialogue box will open up, here name your file and click the select file type box and navigate to .dds. Click it and the our image file type will change. Click save, now another box appears, this is where we will choose our options, but first: Settings are DXT1 and click the Generate Minimaps checkbox. We are going to Save as DXT1 because there's no transparency. Ignore the GIMP message that pops up and complains about mipmaps, that is due to the plugin and not the image, Since it is saved as 512x512, a multiple of 2. Additional file save notes by DarkRider

Its quite a shock to hear that, I never knew ID was up for sale. As far as I was aware they were going strong. Well its only for the better so its a good thing.

Welcome to the Alliance I hope you enjoy your stay and learn a lot while here

Quote Hmm, there's something I wonder, though. Hel Borne's map frame doesn't have a plain square to fill the frame to apply a texture on. Would it be hard to make a simple square-like form and then apply the texture on it? I just noticed the same thing, I cannot model so I don't know how hard it would be to apply the square.

It should be easy to turn that into a texture, a bit of Photoshop work to resize and then export to .dds

Haha, forgot about the havok switch