56 replies to this topic

[greatfool1]

Introduction:
Welcome! The purpose of this thread is to house, improve upon, and make available a large number of screenshooting techniques, along with other character development tips from various people. Currently they include Shadow', Divine Avenger, Floydian1, trollf, Gadar, Spike4072, Kirel, ... and many others being added as time goes on. They have kindly given me permission to place and maintain their Guides in this thread.

I will say upfront that most of these techniques require that you run Oblivion on a PC. However, if you are a 360 User, click the link in the index below for the excellent Guide put together by colas on how to take screenshots on a 360.

And now, regarding generating faces in Oblivion, there is a great Guide by SeV and thread called: How to make a "Beautiful Character". The posts about this subject that are here, will also be transferred to that thread over time.

Here is a linked index to each topic in the Guides. Just click on the topic and you will be directed to that post in this thread. Please PM me if there are any problems.

I highly recommend that these first three Guides be reviewed initially as they contain most of what a screenshooter will need.

Original Guide by Shadow' including many links to Mods
Original Action Screenshooting Guide by Divine Avenger
Original Tips and Tricks by various contributors

If the above Guides do not contain what you are looking for, here is an index of all the subsequent posts on the original thread:

Action Summary
Animation After Trollf's AiC and AiM
Animation Creating
Animation Misc Tips: Directional Looking, etc.
Animation More Misc Tips
Animation Companions
Animation Facial Expressions
Animation Various

Armies
Blood Tweaks
Character Development
Ergonomics (Mice)

Face Transfers (also see Wrye)
Floydian's Sia's Mods in Use
Fog by trollf
Fraps, AA, HDR

Gadar's Tips
Graphics

ImageShack Linking

Lighting
Linking Images
Linking Image Tags

Misc
Naming Characters
Other Effects

PhotoBucket Linking
Photoshop 1
Photoshop 2

RGM?s Tips Tricks and Thoughts on Screen Shooting

Saving Screenies
ShowRaceMenu
Slide Show Presentation
Speech Bubbles
Screenshooting on a 360

TAI
TCL
Textures

Trollf's Trick
More about Trollf's Tricks
Even more Trollf's Tricks

TroubleShooting Animations
TroubleShooting ScreenShooting

Video
Weather
Whoosh
Wrye

So a very BIG thanks to everyone for their great contributions!

I still have a lot of posts and links to check and update. Also, I am sure some of the Mods are getting dated, so I will look to review these soon. PM me with any indexing/formatting suggestions, errors you find, etc. And of course, post any tips, mods, etc., that are not here already. Thanks!

Edited by greatfool1, 13 April 2008 - 08:33 AM.

[greatfool1]

FROM SHADOW:

THE MASTER?S GUIDE TO SCREENSHOTS, COMPANION EDITING, AND LOCATING MODS.
(voice of an old Chinese master) Greetings, Grasshopper.
I have here, the knowledge on how to take screenshots. I will share this knowledge with you.
Many thanks to Hannah and the others for putting together this guide.

(Screenshots by Hannah)
Taking Oblivion Screenshots 101
Contributors: Hannah, Archeopterix, LadyCallipyge, Lon Lon Link, CCNA, Monica21, Ronginus, and SC_Wolf

It is important to note that enabling screenshots in Oblivion is slightly different than it was in Morrowind. There are two .ini files for Oblivion, one in the game install directory and another in your My Documents directory. The one in My Documents is the one you'll need to change. Detailed instructions below:
-----------
1. Exit Oblivion
2. Find the Oblivion.ini file in My Documents\My Games\Oblivion
NOTE: Oblivion_default.ini in Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion is NOT the one you're looking for!
3. Make a copy of the .ini file. It is very important to make a back-up copy of the .ini file in case of errors.
4. Open the Oblivion.ini file in Notepad
5. Find the line "bAllowScreenShot=0" and change it to "bAllowScreenShot=1"
6. Save your changes and close Notepad
7. Start Oblivion as usual
8. When you want to take a screenshot, press the "Print Screen" key on your keyboard ? it's usually to the right of your F-keys. If successful, you should see a large message in the upper-left of your screen that says "ScreenShot: File 'ScreenShot0.bmp' created." Everytime you take a screenshot, Oblivion will create a new .bmp with a new filename (one number larger than the previous screenshot).
9. All screenshots are stored as .bmp files in the root of your Oblivion directory. Unless you changed the install directory during the installation of Oblivion, it should be in C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion
-----------

If You Can't Find the .ini File
If you cannot see your Oblivion.ini file, it is possible that your system is set to "hide" certain file types. To check and see if it's set up that way, go to your Start Menu -> Control Panel -> Folder Options. In the Folder Options dialogue box, click on the View tab. You should see in the left hand window a whole bunch of options. Look for where it says Hidden Files. If it isn't already selected, select "Show hidden files and folders." Just below this option, also be sure that "Hide extensions for known file types" is unchecked. Click OK. You should be able to see the Oblivion.ini file in your My Documents directory now.

Alternatively, if you are having problems finding the actual directory, you can use Windows' search function (Start Menu -> Search -> All files and folders). In the "All or Part of the file name" field type in (without the quotes) "Oblivion.ini". Make sure your C:\ drive is selected in the "Look in" field. Click "Search" - your computer should show you the file in the right-hand pane. Proceed from step 3, making sure to make a back-up file.

If Changing the .ini File Doesn't Seem to Work
If you're still not able to take screenshots after changing the .ini file, check to see if you have anti-aliasing turned on in your video options. If it is, turn it off (ESC -> Options -> Video -> Anti-aliasing: OFF) and you should be able to take a screenshot.

There may be other reasons for screenshots not working but the causes and solutions are unknown at this time.

Camera Tips
Press R on your keyboard to switch back and forth from first- to third-person view
Press and hold R and change the camera angle by moving your mouse around at the same time
A side-to-side mouse movement will rotate the camera around your player
A forwards-backwards mouse movement will tilt the camera angle above or below your character
The mouse scroll wheel will move the camera closer or farther away
You can equip your weapon and/or cast a spell in this position as long as you continue to hold R
Press the Print Screen button at any time to take your shot - be careful not to take them too close together or you'll accidentally capture the "screen shot created" message in your shot

To "remove" the User Interface (your stat bars, compass etc.), open the console by pressing the ~ key on your keyboard, type in "TM" (but without the quotes), press Enter, then close the console (press the ~ key again). This toggles the UI off. Turn it on again by using the TM console command again.

You can also use the TFC console command to use the free-flying camera:
Go into third person view, open the console, and use the "tfc" command to toggle flying camera mode. You can then move the camera around using the same keys you would normally use to move your character.

Next, the utility known as Wrye Bash will be revealed.
Download and FAQ here: WRYE BASH

This device can be used to import/export faces from your savegames. Use it to transfer faces, unlevel your saves, it has many uses.

You may even transfer the face of your choosing to your companion mods.
Here is a small guide by Floydian1 showing how it is done. Though it describes what is done with the Valeria companion, it can be used for ANY npc.

1. Get Wrye Bash
2. Wrye Bash comes with a blank.esp file, take a copy of this and rename to something like facelibrary.esp and stick it in your oblivion data dir.
3. Within Wrye Bash select this facelibrary.esp and import the faces you require from your saved games.
4. I'm using cosmetic compilation so I need an esm version of this file (you can run the esp version and esm version at the same time, your companions will use the esm whilst the save game characters will still use the esp), use Wrye Bash again to create an esm version of it and stick that in your data dir to.
5. Open the tes construction kit and in the data file menu select oblivion.esm, cosmetic compilation.esm, GG_valeria.esp (set this one as active) and facelibrary.esp) *note other companion mods might use other esm's as well be sure to select these.
6. Once loaded, save.
7. Look for Valeria in the npc list, in this case she was an imperial female and open her window, look for your character under what ever race it is and open that window to. Change Valeria's race as required then copy the face data over from your character, I find the hair and eyes don't copy over but the hair and eyes are listed in there windows so you can just select as desired.
8. Save, all done.
Now, we know of mods that are out there. There are many, many out there. Whether you seek new clothing, weapons, or a greater challenge, there will be a mod for you. I have gathered links to as many mods as possible.

WEAPONS & ARMOR
Final Fantasy VII Blades Complete 2.4 - Begins a questline involving Sperioth and the FFVII swords. Must-have if you are a FFVII fan.
Myths and Legends: Weapons 2 2.3.6 - Adds another 14 unique weapons to the game.
Myths and Legends: Weapons 2 UPDATE - An update for Myths and Legends 2.
The Forgotten Signs: Pegasus 1.5 - Adds a set of beautiful Pegasus weapons to the game. Dont let the no-screenshots fool you, this is a must-have mod.
Noble Plate Armor 3.0 - Adds a beautiful set of armor to the game. Perfect for Battlemages.
Noble Plate Armor 4.0 - An update for Noble Plate Armor 3.0
Sauron's Armor Chest 1.2 - Adds Saurons Armor from LOTR.

COSMETICS & FACIAL TEXTURES
Beautiful People 2.2 - A combination of several different eye and race mods including: Ren's Beauty Pack and Mystic Elves, Nequam's Ainmhe, Nequam's Elaborate Eyes, the Custom Race Fix by KyneTarse, KyneTarse's Vampire Hunter's Sight and Khajiit Night Eye toggles, Grimdeath and Syko Fox's Tang Mo, Capucine's Colorable Beast Hair, Trigger190's Bald Hairstyle, and Theodic Marthil's Skyrim Khajiit.
Improved Facial Textures 2.1 - This mod increases the overall facial texture through a complete facial texture overhaul.
Natural Faces DV 0.7 - An alternative to IFT. Also raises the resolution of facial textures.
Danis13 BEAUTY patch for MD Natural Faces 1.0 - A slight tweak to the original Natural Faces.
Cosmetic Compilations 1.22 - The alternative to Beautiful People. A combination of Capucine's Character Expansion v1.2, Jeepers Creepers Peepers v2.0, Ren's Beauty Pack v1.1, and shadytradesman's eyebrow fix for Imperials and Redguards.

COMPANIONS
Companion Neeshka 1.2 - Highly recommended. A very thought-out companion mod which includes a female dark elf named Neeshka.[/url]
Valeria Caresse Female Companion 1.6 - Adds a companion named Valeria Caresse to follow you around in your adventures.
AND Companion Gabrielle 0.86 - Adds a companion named Gabrielle to follow you around in your adventures.
Companion Ariana Trudenaux 1.1 - Adds a companion named Ariana Trudenaux to follow you around in your adventures
Vincente Malefactor Male Companion 1.6 - Adds a companion named Vincent Malefactor to follow you around in your adventures.
Ruined Tail's Tale Storydriven NPC Companion 1.0 - Popular companion. Adds an Argonian battlemage named Ruined Tail to follow you around. Complete with a background story and some more fun surprises.

CLOTHES & ACCESSORIES
The Witch's Frock 1.2 - Sexxy (with 2 xx's) little skirt for your female characters.
Dwemer Spectacles 3.0 - Adds various sunglasses and spectacles for your character.
Better Ring Replacer 1.0 - Replaces those ugly rings with better looking ones.
Better Amulet Replacer 1.0 - Like better Ring Replacer, but for amulets.
Capes & Cloaks 1.2 - Adds wearable capes and cloaks of different sizes to the game.
Catsuits 1.2 Adds 2 sexy catsuits to the game.

MISC.
Actors In Charge 0.8 - Allows you to choose from over 200 idle animations for your character. NOTE: This mod contains all of the animations found in Strike-A-Pose, therefore this would be the premeire choice for animations.
PJ's Spell Compendium 2.0 - Adds over 50 different spells to the game. A must-try!

"LIST OF MODS" THREADS
The List of Recommended Mods by the Community
List O' Mods
The Ultimate List of Thied and Assassin Mods (short)
List of Hunter Mods

There are many more mods out there. More than it is possible to list. For more insight on where to find these mods, look in places/things like Buddah?s list of links

The rest you will have to search for on your own. There are many fascinating mods to choose from out there including Eshmes, Growlf's clothing, etc. These are the places to look:
TES Files
TES Source
Planet Elder Scrolls
EricM Portal

May this knowledge serve you well, Grasshopper.
Send in your screens, and I hope the guide proves usefull.
~Shadow

Edited by greatfool1, 22 October 2007 - 04:34 AM.

[greatfool1]

Divine Avenger's Action Screen Shot Guide

The following are some console commands, settings, tips, and mods that will hopefully help you with shooting more impressive battle sequences and many other kinds of activities in Oblivion. (Of course, feel free to PM me with any of your "secrets" so I can add them to this Guide if you want.)

Essential Console Commands:
To open the console just hit the "~" key.
(If this does not work make sure you have this line in your oblivion.ini file:
bAllowConsole=1. If '~' still does not work and you are running Windows XP Media Center Edition - unplug the remote control unit from the computer.)

tai - this will completely disable the AI of any creature/npc. And imo, is the preferred way to "freeze" any character for a screenshot. Enter tai again to resume (toggle) action.
tfc - to activate the flying camera (toggle flying camera; type tfc again to deactivate it.)
tcl - removes collision from your character enabling simulated flight or to reach places that were previously unreachable. (toggles collision; type tcl again to deactivate it.)

Grab button "z" in order to lift bodies. This mod is a must for this: Click

With the console enabled, click on the NPC and type "tai" in order to set up your shot the way you want:
Example

Because the mace enchantment isn't powerful enough to blast the guards into the far distance. I had to use the "psb" console command, and then use the most powerful "Finger of the Mountain" spell as a body launcher - after pointing the cross hair at the guard's feet. The first time I cast it, I sent all the guards into the far distance laying on the ground dead. I ran out of attacking guards at this point, so I had to use the console command "player.placeatme" to add around 20 more. This time I was quicker on the "~", so I stopped them in the initial blast and then "tai"ed them all. Once frozen, I could just move the camera around for whatever angle I desired. There were a couple of guards that had weird stretched bodies so I just "tai"ed again and then resurrected and then another blast.
To finish the shot, I just swung my pc's weapon so it appears like the mace did all the damage rather than the spell.
Example

The Pahmer cat is not mountable so I had to use "tcl" and the animation mod.
Example

For the gargoyle I had to spawn him over the lava, then I had to "tai" him and use setscale to be a bit larger so that Asmo didn't look so large - then it was basically "tcl" to position my character correctly.
Example

After leading the Werecroc into the water it suddenly popped his head out of the water and attacked my character. I then had to quickly "tai" him and set up the shot with Asmo floating on his back. Trollf's animation mod will not work on creatures unfortunately as they are not capable of NPC animations.
Example

Shots with the REALISTIC RAGDOLLS AND FORCE V3 body lift mod:
The Unicorn is dead so grab the head with the "z" button and lift.
Then hit shift if you like for the sneak position.
Now while still holding "z" down hit the "~" button and type "tfc".
Then position the flying camera for the best view:
Example

This pic is just button "z" and then use your mouse to shake the body into different positions:
Example

Here are some shots with underwater "tcl" and "kill" from console (notice in 1st screenshot I had to "tai" my companions for this shot):
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3

Swing your weapon:
Example

Lift the dead body with "z" and hold it. Then use "tfc" and swing your weapon:
Example 1
Example 2

A shot with "tcl" and "kill" from the console (note that the sword is floating) so that the NPC freezes and will drop his weapon:
Example

Here is a shot with "tcl" and "tai", then the Actors in Charge mod, you can usually move around while in most animation poses.
Example 1
Example 2

For this shot "tcl", activate the Strike a Pose mod, allowing devoted Elder Scrolls fan to be under the table sleeping.
Example 1
Example 2

Here is a shot using the ANYWHERE SITTABLE mod and console command "tcl" and "tai" then sit anywhere.
Example

Shots using "tcl" then "kill" and then simple sneak mode.
Example 1
Example 2

Swim underwater then "tcl" him to where you want, and it looks like he is diving.
Example

In these two shots it's my main character and a companion - do the underwater "tcl" and the companion will do super jumps to keep at your level.
Example 1
Example 2

Underwater "tcl" then "tai" then move right in and you have just been swallowed.
Example 1
Example 2

Lighting Effects:
For dimly lit areas cast a daylight spell to brighten the area or use a torch when you can. (I see so many shots that are so dark you can't see anything.)

Also in the console, you can type "fw" for force weather immediately (or "sw" for set weather with a more natural transition to the desired weather) followed by any of these weather codes:
Clear - 00038EEE
Cloudy - 00038EFE
Fog - 00038 EEF
Overcast - 00038EEC
Rain - 00038 EF2
Snow - 00038EED
Thunderstorm - 00038EF1
OblivionStormTamriel - 000836D5
OblivionStormTamrielMQ16 - 0006BC8B
CamoranNatural - 000370CE
Default - 0000015E

(And finally if you still need to lighten the shot, and you don't mind editing your shot, use the auto-contrast and/or the auto-level feature in PhotoShop to very quickly and evenly lighten your shot. I prefer not to edit my shots, but that is a personal choice.)

Blood Effects:

Modify the Oblivion.ini file:
fDecalLifetime=10.0000 (This determines in seconds the length of time the blood stays on screen)
iMaxDecalsPerFrame=10 (This controls how many blood decals can be seen on the screen.)
bDecalsOnSkinnedGeometry=1 (This controls whether blood shows on NPCs)

To really increase the blood effects - use the More Gory Blood mod.

Also from this great mod's readme:
The settings for as much gore and blood as possible are (taken from the readme file of "4098-1.09C Gorier Blood", which can also be found on tessource):

Open: Oblivion.ini with notepad
find the following: (Ctrl+F)
bUseThreadedBlood=
bDecalsOnSkinnedGeometry=
fDecalLifetime=
iMaxDecalsPerFrame=
fMinBloodDamage=
*If its not there add the the line anywhere*
Then change the numbers after it to like:
fDecalLifetime=999
iMaxDecalsPerFrame=999
fMinBloodDamage=0.0001
bUseThreadedBlood=1
bDecalsOnSkinnedGeometry=1
(If you have a lower end pc you may want to lower the settings of decallifetime and maxdecalsperframe to something below 20 or 30)

MODS REFERENCED ABOVE:
Realistic Ragdolls and Force V3 (This version adds liftable bodies to the mod)
Anywhere Sittable
Strike a Pose - Version 2.1 By: Xiamara and Aleanne
Trollf?s Actors in Charge
More Gory Blood Mod

[greatfool1]

OTHER USEFUL TIPS AND TRICKS

From Floydian1: (Also see his section in Shadow's Guide above.)
If you have a character using Cosmetic Compilation, and want to load this character into OOO, here is how to do this:
(1) Use Wrye Bash, import the old Cosmetic Compilation face into an OOO game while using the Beautiful People mod. At this point you will end up with a bald/blindfolded character and will be unable to open the racemenu (via showracemenu) without the game crashing back to the desktop.
Important: Load up this save and save again.
(2) Using Wrye Bash again, apply the hairfix option to this new save; you should get a message telling you it's been fixed.

You can now load up the save and open the racemenu, changing the hair/eyes back as desired.
*****************************************************************************

Here is a very cool and informative video from Edoc'sil:
Video on how to use TAI, including an example using Actors In Charge, for taking a screenshot.
*****************************************************************************

Here is an extremely useful tool from Anytus for controlling the speed of your game's action:
WHOOSH.
WHOOSH gives the player control over game speed from an almost stopped 2% to a hyper 200%. I think many here will find it useful for getting action screenshots. It's also a lot of fun being able to do Matrix-like slow motion.
**********************************************************************

Also, if your screenshots are coming out too dark, here are some instructions put together by Badmagic in response to someone's question:
(These instructions are mostly applicable to ATI video cards, but NVIDIA cards will have a similar capacity.)

A simple way to increase the brightness and contrast is through your PC display properties panel. I can't give exact instructions as different manufacturers have different setups, but if you right click your desktop and left click on ?Properties? on that menu, you will see the dialog box for ?Themes, Desktop, Screen Saver, Appearance, Suites, Settings? etc.

If you click on the tab at the top called ?Settings? then on the box in that page called ?Advanced?, you will open a new dialogue box with more tabs in it. If you let us know what the tabs are called, we might be able to help you adjust settings - so when you are running games, they will be brighter and more intense in colour.

If one of the tabs is called ?CATALYST[R] Control Center? I can give you some settings to try in that, but if you have a different set of tabs we can look up what to adjust.

For CATALYST[R] Control Center, I would do the following.

Click on the tab labelled ?CATALYST[R] Control Center?
Click on the button on that page labelled ?CATALYST[R] Control Center?.
It sometimes takes a few seconds to appear but you should get a new application open with that name.

Click on the button labelled ?View? and select ?Advanced? from the list, this will give the application a more familiar tree structure to the different things it does.

On the tree to the left of the application you should see an option called ?Color?, click on this and the part on the right of the application changes to the ?Color? controls.

To enhance brightness, primarily I would click on the first drop down box and select ?Full Screen 3D? (This basically means while playing full screen games) then all you would need to do would be increase the number next to the ?Gamma? slider: the default would be set to ?1.00? so you could try setting it to ?1.25?, then apply the changes by clicking the ?Apply? button at the bottom, then close the application by clicking on the ?OK? button just to the left of ?Apply?.

Now start up Oblivion or any other full screen game and see if you like the changes' appearance, if its still too dark you can just go back and make the gamma number a little higher or if its too bright make it lower until you get to a comfortable level for playing.

Remember if you don?t have a tab called ?CATALYST[R] Control Center? as mentioned above, it just means you are using something else (probably Nvidia), and will need to find similar capacities in its interface.

Also:
Question: I've changed bAllowScreenShot to 1, but when i press print screen no screenshot is saved. (The ID doesn't say it was saved either.)

Answer: If you?re using anti-aliasing the in game screenshots don?t seem to work. If this is the case, I would recommend using Fraps found at the following location: FRAPS
(or turn off the anti-aliasing in the Oblivion game's Video settings.).
*****************************************************************************

Here are some great tips from Kirel about Lighting:
For exterior shots use the "set gamehour to XX" (where XX is a number from 0 to 23.99) console command to rotate the sun/moon around into the right position. Also if you're going to be posing for a while try "set timescale to 0" in the console to freeze time. I believe this also stops NPCs from doing things like going to lunch which helps to keep them off your set. I remember when I was posing this pic I was just about done and a woman came in and sat down in that same chair and started eating!

Something else I find useful is to set up NPCs off camera with torches. Open the console, click on them and type "additem 0002cf9f 1" followed by "equipitem 0002cf9f" if it's not dark enough for them to equip it by themselves. They'll equip the torch and then put it straight away again if it is too light so before they get a chance open the console again, reselect them (if needed) and type "tai" to disable their AI. This also has the benefit of keeping them in one place. In this pic I had a guy with a torch standing a little way behind the camera in order to get a little more light on his face.

For the truly dedicated you can place your own lights in game. You'll need to open the Oblivion.esm in the CS to get all the hex codes for all the different lights but taking the 'ARWhiteAmb200' light for example you'd do it like this: Stand where you want the light to be, open the console and type "player.placeatme 000a334d" which will spawn the light at your feet. In order to position them accurately you'll probably need to toggle collision ("tcl" in the console) and float around until your feet are at the right height. The problem with this method is since most lights don't have a 3D model you can't select them in the console to disable them, so if you position one wrong or change your mind you're outta luck, unless someone here knows a way of getting the reference without selecting it in the console. This pic used low level lights dropped into the basin of the shrine in front of him to create a little extra light on his face. I forget which lights they were though I'm afraid.

I do most of my lighting in post-production (for example this pic was all lit in photoshop) but I still find it helpful to have a good base to work from. Hope you find that helpful.

From Floydian1: Also if you have the drop lit torches mod installed you can just chuck a few torches around to brighten things up.

From Divine Avenger: The brighter torches mod helps too. Here are links for both mods:
Drop Lit Torches 1.0
Brighter Torches 1.2
**********************************************************************

Some other cool techniques from Gadar:

The following all use the tfc. I wanna be a spiderman:
If you use tfc and move the camera up or down till it makes everything looks upside down like this.

A more complex way is to make a room in the cs and turn it upside down or get a room from one of the interiors and turn that upside down so you get somthing like this. Make sure before you enter the interior that you put tcl or all the stuff like books will probably crash down to the ceiling as in the floor.

Combine the two and you can get somthing like this.
If you get the actor in charge mod then you can make somthing like this.

In the cs turn a room sideways and play the death animaton and you could get a character leaning on a wall like this.

Leaning on stuff:
Have the actors in charge mod and go to a table or some other flat surface. Use tcl and use sneak hand to hand attack (i think it was) and try to position yourself as best as you can so it looks as though your leaning on the table or whatever like this....alt view.
**********************************************************************

Here is a post from greatfool1 to show how to eliminate the ImageShack pop-up ads and also, how to embed a caption:
EXAMPLE:
So, my apologies Race, but your image is now an example of how to get rid of imageshack's (and others') ads AND how to embed a caption.
So Race gives us a common approach to posting, and this also shows how to clean them up. So from Race:

just for lols
http://img209.images...livion20lg2.jpg

Response to Race: Cool shot, Race! You know you can get rid of the ads on imageshack if you use the direct link format. That is, get rid of the "my.php?image=" and put in the direct path instead. Much nicer to look at.

Also, since you are doing narrative anyway, do this (where "xxx" = "url"):
[xxx=http://img209.imageshack.us/my.php?image=oblivion20lg2.jpg]Just for lols[/xxx]
(And of course replace the "my.php?image=" with the piece of the path shown in the direct link to nuke the ads.)

So you get this:
Just for lols
(and remember to change the "my.php?image=" to the direct location such as "img999/9876/"

[greatfool1]

... Anyway, what I really want to do is to take some action scenes (like the many good ones in this thread). I need to go figure out how to do it, just taking the still shots was a pain.

For action shots, make sure you have trollf's Actors-in-Charge 0.8 and also read Divine Avenger's Action Screenshooting Guide.

Focus on the console commands TFC, TAI and TCL especially. Avenger gives a lot of great examples in his Guide.

For more action shot trickery, see Trollf's Trick.

Also look up Director's touch (part of Actors-in-Charge) on NPCs and Companions. See Animation Companions

There are newer animations available. Links will be provided soon in the post following this one.

If I am missing anything essential in this short summary of how to get started in shooting action screenies, please post your thoughts and/or PM me.

This summary already assumes you know about getting the console started with the "~" key; and also TM to toggle the menu off/on (which is more a "cosmetic" tip anyway).

Edited by greatfool1, 17 August 2007 - 10:39 AM.

[greatfool1]

Edit:
Here is a thread by MarkQuinn that summarizes all the animations to date:
http://www.bethsoft....h...736468&st=0
*************************
Here is a link of what Karandras has recently bundled together that houses those animations:
http://rapidshare.co...se_mod.rar.html
*************************

I seem to be behind on the animation mods. I have JOJO, LAIN and EGF. Anyone know what I am missing?

Did you also get the animations from the Ramy mod?
There is also the StandingJOJOedit that I quickly made up and posted the link to in the last comment thread

Soul_Slayer, I found your posts on the last thread:

Plug-in for Poses
You'll need to download the animation for this to work, and place the folder that is just inside the fujosi-pose folder into your C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion\Data\meshes\characters\_male\Idleanims folder.

Here's the esp with the files I extracted see if you can get these to extract.

But all the links I had stored in the SS Guides thread for the others are already dead.

I personally downloaded most of the new animations, but don't have the links. Does anyone have current links for these:

LAIN and EGF and Ramy?*

* Your post will be forever immortalized in the Screenshooter's Guide - which some nice moderator already pinned! So thanks for that too!

I guess the Plug-in for Poses link is unnecessary, since the second one is the same thing, but includes the animations.

Ramys Enfant
EFGAddPose

I almost forgot, I found some new poses today.
Clicky

Thanks for sharing! I will put this on the above page too.

*********************************************************************************
Regarding the Japanese animations:

I believe EFGAddPose and JOJOEffect were both Japanese. If those were the ones then I don't know where you would find a link for them, but someone around here might. Nice shots by the way.
I understand what you mean about first person view looking odd. It is like you can see bits and parts of your arms in front of you that should not be there.

What I have found is that you have to be carefull not only in how you apply the animations, but in how you reset the animations as well.

Rule #1 never set the animation while in first person view.
Rule #2 always reset the animation in the same view as you set it in (in other words, if you set it in 3rd person, then you must reset it in 3rd person. If you set it while using TFC then you must reset it while using TFC)

It is also not a good idea to try and mix animations - setting JOJO and then setting EFG before you reset JOJO

The one that has given me the most grief is the sleeping pose where you have a blanket over you. If I make the mistake of trying to reset it in 1st person I end up with that little white blanket wrapped around my feet and it follows me every where I go. That is when I have to reload a save.

Yep it is the first animation in the third section.

The messed up chair is in Oblivion\Data\Meshes\SJOJO
It just needs to be rotated so it lines up right with the animation.

*edt*
Now that I think about it the one I have has 11 animations not 8. I got it from the link you posted. Maybe it was updated?

http://eq2.matrix.jp.../src/up5788.zip

It's your lucky day Gf1
I found the lainpose mod link
http://briefcase.yah...se.yahoo.co.jp/

Cool and thanks! I will add this to the SS Guides.

I wonder what the deal is here with these kind of mods. Can I just host them on my own website or is this illegal? Of course I would give credit, but I cannot read Japanese. These links seem to go bad real fast.

*****************************

Treetop Smoker

Picture(s)
Post #61
Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3

Comments: Nice use of those poses, I really like picture 2

Things that pop into my head: Have a link to your post with the animation at CI? My little search didn't find anything

Here is the link to those animations. Link Remember to add them through CS or replace it with an arbitrary kf file of Pose Mod.

Edited by greatfool1, 18 September 2007 - 09:34 AM.

[greatfool1]

Thanks to Breeze582000 a way has now been found to export animaions from Blender and make them work in oblivion. So now we can edit and maybe even make new animations with all free tools . Here is a link to his tutorial.

http://cs.elderscrol...ns_from_Blender

And my first screenshot using a new animation I made from it

[greatfool1]

Find some item in the direction you want her to look. Open the console then click that item. Up at the time you should see the items name(some dont have names) and a Hex ID.
Type player.look (the items Hex ID here)

To stop looking at it type player.stoplook

I carry a small junk item around with to drop for when I cant find anything better nearby

Screenshot example one
Screenshot example two

What is the command that makes my character look at the selected object?

Look

Look TargetRefID where the TargetRefID is the number value of the item you want to look at.
For example, you have object (########). To look at the object you select the npc/character you want, then type: Look ########, where the ######## is the number beside the objects name in the console when you select it. Your character or NPC should then start looking at the object.

To stop this, simply select the Npc/Character again and type Stoplook.

Here is a screenshot I posted earlyer on the forum, I decided to have a go on our beloved High Chancellor Ocato. So what I did was giving Ocato 75000 health and 75000 magicka. After a few moments of fighting I suprisingly knocked him out while shooting him with finger of the mountain. I used a spell called focus to cast a less macigka draining spell to keep him in the air. I then tcl-ed and used actors in charge to give myself (if I'm correct) floating lich animations:
Ocatoball got owned

If you make an npc or a normal one go and fight the npc and you can somtimes get some moves which you cant get from the AiC mod. I got a good one from Godric who is casting a summoning spell and doing somthing else with the weapon. Best thing about it is I didn't photoshop it.

Edit: updated my post on the first page and made an attempt to make it look tidy.

[greatfool1]

Does anyone know a good AIC animation to get someone on there back? I need it for part two of my story but all the sleeping ones are on the side. I have the story part done just haveing trouble getting all the screenshots I want right

Do you mean player or NPC?
anyway:
death animation perhaps or get up animations with face up...
besides you can always turn the console, click on NPC/player and type:
modav fatigue -1000
it will drain NPC's/player's fatigue for some time and there is a chance he'll fall on his back
last but not least, console's command 'kill' comes in handy sometimes (but not for the player of course ;p) - you can 'form' the dead body to the positions you like - type resurrect 1 to bring that NPC to life some time later if you need it
createfullactorcopy is the great command, because you can create player's copy that will look exactly the same - then kill it and shape his body suitably ;-]
well, it looks that there are many possibilities here... ;-]

Other tips from trollf:

You can create simple plugin that will add NPC to the game. Then you can import face of Reaver/Shadow using WryeBash into this plugin - that NPC will have face of character you'll chose. After that, you can benefit from companion share and recruit mod and force that NPC to use the same equipment as Shadow/Reaver and to follow your another character to any place you want. If you attack him, he will answer the same way. Happy shooting! ;-]
Dead NPCs can not play any idle animations.

I've never worked with WyreBash before, but could you use the console command "Player.CreateFullActorCopy" (Without quotation marks, of course,) then import your other person?

What about ragdoll by using the Z key?

ragdoll =/= idle animation
in other words: dead npc, ragdoll - yes, idle animations - no.

some things are only visible in proper light
O_O

Very cool shot, trollf.

That's a riddle: "What is she really doing?" I think gf1 is good at guessing these ;-]

OK, I am stumped other than she seems to be leaping at the same time as she is doing another animation - which I cannot figure out. I thought maybe "exasperated", but the hands don't go that high. Then I thought the one where you can speak with both hands emphatically, but the palms are not turned out like that. And yes, I tried to use your riddle as a clue to figure it out too...

And, as usual, I cannot guess it! But it does help me to learn lots more animations by trying.

some things are only visible in proper light
O_O

greatfool1, blai, Spike4072 -
no, no & no :]
that is only one of the animations in AiC 0.8 - no combined animations there... :]

OK Sir trollf, another guess - using the <Sleep> <Get Up> menu options to get to:
"Get up, bow, face down (single)" along with some TCL.

Btw, this is a great exercise because I can see that a lot of single animations you have in AiC 0.8 are very useful for some other antics I have been working on... I hadn't thought of using them before this.

EDIT: Oh, I hadn't seen your post right above this one, trollf. However, this animation I mention does seem to duplicate what you are doing - at least I think it does.

Flame Atronach h2h pwer attack?

I was thinking litch when you said cold. Thinking cold=dead.

Nice one, Spike! It does look like that one. Very tricky, trollf.

gf1: Damn, I was just getting to the <creatures> too!
Layla: Have you EVER guessed one of these right, gf1?
gf1: Yeah, once, I think it was the "Shut Up Layla!" animation!

bingo! at least I think so :]
When I said 'cold as stone' I didn't mean to point you in any other direction but I wanted to distinguish the difference of that anim from the one you posted ;-]
Floydian -
yep, but which ones exactly?
though it doesn't change anything b'coz TAI will work the same way (after freeze PC/NPCs will be moving forwards anyway)

Thanks trollf - a very educational exercise.
The looping (instead of, or in addition to, the single animations) would be great, imo, too because it would make it easier to freeze, then to use "Trollf's Trick" to capture the animation right where I want it. It would reduce the number of restarts necessary, it seems.

Well, I don't know. I usually place the character in right position then I have only one chance to catch a pose I want - so, looping anim doesn't help much here.

Oh, I probably would have used the single animations more in the past if they looped because for what I have in mind (some bedroom antics), it would be easier. They can still work as is, but if they looped, I could catch that right position much more readily - i.e., without having to restart the animation if I missed catching the right position with the console "~". I understand that with TAI they finish still, but with "Trollf's Trick" I can still stop them.

I doubt it. Notice that single animations move N/PC to another position. Starting position for N/PC is different than position of that N/PC after animation's end - it means the N/PC will start to play animation for the second time from different position that he was at the beginning. Still you'll have the only one chance to catch such an animation as getting to bed, because the second time it will start from the middle of the bed, the third time from the spot on the other side of the bed and so on - that's why I didn't force every animation to loop. The only animations with looping cycle are these that don't change position of N/PC at all (well, except running, walking and swimming and such, of course ;-])

:lightbulb: I see! Thanks for this thorough explanation - I will definitely be posting this to the Screenshooter's Guides thread.

it is very easy i made a new poster my self a while back
pic
You need nifskope and a dds plugin for photoshop or gimp
oh and also a BSA unpacker there seem to be a few so i dont realy know the best one to link to.

August, always good to see you! One of these days, can you please tell us how you get him in those positions on the bed? Also, those shots look so unbelievably personal - I have always been amazed with your screenies.

Oh oh I know fullactorcopy then killed him and posed him with the "z" key right?

Hehe! Thanks!

If I told you I'd have to kill you. ;3

@Spike, Lol no...but that actually might be easier to do...(I like watching him fly around the room like a drunken mage using levitation. XD)

Naw, just kiddin'. Always willing to share...I stumbled upon the idea by pure accident. (I was bored and felt like flinging Aroha around his manor...aren't I a noble being? Haha. And he landed up on the bed in a manner that just screamed his personality...and it just went off from there.)

Just a few things needed; a lot patience, a little creativity, patience...lots of free time, a save beforehand...and a Drain/Damage Fatigue spell (Whichever that doesn't have that god awful red glow) that lasts a good long while and takes away a lot of fatigue quickly.

Oh and Luck...Did I mention patience? (Some of the poses took a good long while to get right. So if you get a shot that looks good/sorta good...take as many screen shots of it as you can, because once you reload to the save just before...you'll never get the same pose again.)

Kneeling...
Leaning... Dos
Laying... on the bed (Or Wall)
Let's say...you wanted your character up on the bed...standing at the foot of the bed, walk into the bed(Backwards, forwards, sideways...whichever, jump at the bed if you want...) and cast the spell...your avatar is going to go 'tripping' over the edge of the bed and hopefully into the wall on the other side; bounce off and fumble around on the bed itself. (Or they might fall off... Or look like this... And... This...)

***EDIT: Agh! I knew I would forget something...Lol took me several minutes to realize it, but I remembered.

Your avatar/character's eyes will be closed after the damage/drain fatigue spell is casted, cause...they 'passed out'. To have your character's eyes be open. Just open your journal and wait for the image of your character on the right side of your journal menu to open their eyes, close the journal and voila...eyes are OPEN!

ALSO; unequipping and re-equipping any item ( weapon, clothing, armor..etcetc) WILL cause your character's head to quickly turn just a bit and then stay still...why it does this...I have no clue...and appears to turn/tilt in a random manner.***

And while pictures are worth a thousand words...a witty/sly caption brings life to it.

Mmm..hope I explained that well enough... having just woke up my brain isn't functing at 100%...Haha.

~August

Great tip, I noticed something like myself a while ago too, I had an enchanted blade with drain fatigue and whenever people fell over they could have some screenshotworthy stances, useful info tkx

When using Aic you can use the get in/out of bed animations while sitting on a chair or others sittable things, since the legs are disabled in the animation and the upper body still works. This one uses the Nightmare or uneasy sleep.

The vampire animations seem to work while sitting like the Vampire sleep animation on this shot.

Various bed and vampire stuff
....and I fell over like this
Got a numb bum
Where's the money?

Ascension works too
Somthing wrong with my heart!
uuuuuuuuh

[greatfool1]

I know that but how did he get the other NPCs to use it. I can't figure out how to force the NPCs do do stuff with the mod.

Neeshka: OK, I think you definitely have had enough Lucien. [DialUp #17]
For the Neeshka companion, you can use trollf's Director's Touch spell (by casting/touching from your pc to her) to then bring up the AiC menu to have her (the touched one) make a potion. For Lucien (based on Vincente companion), he does not respond to trollf's Director's Touch spell, so I used the Companion Rings from the Strike A Pose mod. (The above is the first instance for me where the Companion Ring to drink a potion mis-fired. I am glad it did here. Normally though, Lucien would be drinking properly. )

The later companions (Neeshka and the new Dremora companion) readily respond to Director's Touch. But the earlier ones (based on Vincente) do not seem to (at least for me); but trollf said this could possibly be fixed by loading AiC last in terms of mods. I have not tried this possibility yet.

So thats what that spell was for? I thought it just took space.

The Director's Touch spell gives your pc the capacity to touch an NPC or certain companions - who are then activated to do AiC animations via the AiC menus.

Trollf made an excellent YouTube video of this that you can watch from the link on the download site for AiC 0.8, if I remember correctly.

This shot is an example of non-vanilla OB characters and ways to animate them:
Eyja, Neeshka, and Lucien arrive at Layla's Skingrad house and before long are drunk again. [DialUp #1]
My pc Director Touched Neeksha and made her drink a mug. My pc gave Lucien a companion ring to drink from the mug. My pc also drank and this caused Eyja (the brown haired gal) to also start drinking, as I have had mixed luck getting Eyja (a modified NPC from the Romancing of Eyja mod) to get activated via Director's Touch. (Also, I TAI'd each character after each one got in the position I wanted and then had my pc go off screen.)

You can readily do this same thing with vanilla NPCs via Director's Touch and trollf's video demonstrates this.

[greatfool1]

The only problem I have is that I can no longer change my character's facial expression (in AiC). It worked for a little bit, then for some strange reason, went belly up. Any clues on what I may be doing wrong?

I don't know. Try uncheck the mod, load the game, save it & exit then in OBMM set AiC to load last (or first, I do not remember ;-]) - check the mod again and load your save game - maybe it will be more eager to work.

If not, you always have the console ;-]

try something like this:

player.GetDisposition player
player.ModDisposition player X
player.look player

where X is the positive or negative number (negatives give angrier look and positives make face happier),
first command checks your character's current disposition to himself (interval 0-100; 0 - very nagry, 50 - default (neutral), 100 very happy)
second command modifies that disposition,
and third command forces player's char to look at himself with given disposition

Well, maybe this will be helpful... That's how the face expressions in AiC work.

Very interesting, trollf. I will add this to the Screenshooter's Guide thread as it can be very useful at times. In fact, I just used the player.ModDisposition command last night to convince an NPC to give me something. (I was lazy and did not want to do the other things required to raise the NPC's disposition.)

But now I am wondering if I could have used AiC with Director's Touch, to change the NPC's disposition, or would this only work on one's own pc's disposition? I will try this out...

Scripts in AiC are versatile - it doesn't matter what the object is: PC or NPC - facial expressions in AiC should work on NPCs as well.

Thanks for your reply, trollf. Very cool - I will use that the next time I need to charm an NPC (or get him angry).

Possible ways to bare teeth:

I use the eating mod in Actor in charge mod as well as face animation like smiling for exemple ! :wink:

Just a suggestion but if some want to show some teeth you can usually can get good results by making an npc of yourself, get them talking to you or other npcs and use tai on your npc.

I did this with Gavid just by talking to him when he was sitting and tai'd him at the right time.

Hmm, I'm not sure if I should ask here, but is there a way to pose your characters face? Other than angry or happy?
I'd like to close my characters eyes, make her look sad, scared and so on.

A great question that I cannot help but respond to. It is not easily answered, imo, because those emotions can be complex. I want to have a section on this in the Screenshooters Guides, and some people have posted some great ideas about this subject there already. Here are some thoughts off the top of my head - though much more can be added by others, to be sure.

There are ranges of moods possible with Actors-in-Charge (see ScreenShooter's Guide opening post for link). I am sure you are aware of AiC moods as you mention happy and angry. But since it is a range, you can sometimes catch your character with other emotions by trying different settings.

Many of the animations using the hands will also show these emotions - like exasperated, cheering, cowering, etc. As morrowind_fanatic mentions, catching them blinking can work too. Also, the eating animation will give you various mouth expressions, as will the yawning animation. Catching them talking will also give you various facial expressions.

Having your character whacked with a weapon will also yield some cool expressions, as will dancing using the Actors-in-Madness mod and also PJ's Disco mod. Much of the time it is just a matter of luck and being really fast hitting the console key. Or just do a series of console key tapping until you get a cool look. You can also use the WHOOSH mod to slow things way down. Once you get an expression you want, you can then use trollf's Trick (SS Guides: Post #65) to retain the expression while you move your camera around for the exact angle you want.

The dancing animation in AiM is great for all kinds of posturing and you can combine it with AiC's facial expressions.

Here are some examples:

Exasperated (AiC):
So the inevitable late night coupling occurs for all - except for one gal... [DialUp #1]

Tired (via lighting):
With my Chillrend - very tired and trying to get closer like bb23 wants... [DialUp #1]

Surprised in battle (via lucky hitting of Console key and trollf's Trick):
It hurts like hell!!! I no longer think you are related to anyone I know and soon won't be in any case! [DialUp #1]

Afraid (via Cowering in AiC, lucky activation of altar, and console key):
She is so emotionally on-edge right now that she cowers from the blessing of an adjacent altar! [DialUp #1]

Really afraid (via console key, TAI on NPC when his arms went up, and moving pc behind him. Mainly all accidental):
Do whatever That Dude says! [DialUp #2]

Over doing it with Skooma (via a misfire using Strike-a-Pose's Drinking animation ring for Companions, a lucky hit on the console key, and trollf's Trick):
Neeshka: OK, I think you definitely have had enough Lucien. [DialUp #1]

Crying: (OK, I cheated on this one because I PhotoShopped a few tears and made her eyes glisten a bit - but it was simple enough to do):
She cries her heart and eyes out - all the while praying for strength to feel beyond this great sorrow. [Dialup #1]

So that was a long-winded way of saying that I know of no simple way to make a face look afraid or really sad. Maybe trollf :turtle: can weigh in on this, if and when he gets a chance; and of course, anyone else. I will make sure yours and this post goes into the SS Guides thread for future reference.

Thanks, you really gave me some advice there. I'll try using the WHOOSH mod and various animations with a face expression inlcuded.

Redid the kiss.. thingy
http://img294.images...30001476mk9.png

You're welcome.
That is really excellent with the kiss. I have also seen some great ones from Floydian1, Shadow', Treetop, and others.

This one is Eyja (of the Romancing of Eyja mod by madmole) talking - then TAI, then Layla moved in with TCL. Kissing is sometimes not easy to set up, so I really appreciate your shot.

Eyja starts to show some gratitude to Layla... [DialUp #1]

[greatfool1]

trollf, the author of Actors-in-Charge just posted this on the Pictures of Oblivion Characters thread in Mods in response to a question a few of us had. This led to his posting an incredibly useful trick - which I will forever call trollf's Trick. A big thanks for these posts, trollf!!!

Well, I think I have no other choice than to explain these things at last ;-]

First of all, animations have nothing to do with scripts. There are two types of animation files in Oblivion. Part of them usually loop by themselves and the rest of them play only once. First group contains such animations like: walking, running, swimming, reading books, mixing potions etc. These animations may be stopped at any time via scripts or another animation. And without performing another action they will last for an infinite amount of time ;-] But the second group (single animations) can't be stopped at once via scripts. And another (next) action must wait till they finish. This second group includes jumping, power attacks, dodging and many more similar animations.
Most of the animations in vanilla Oblivion belong to the second group - these are single animations and when forced to play they do that only one time. If you want to play them second time they must be forced to play again through proper conditions in Idle animations manager and scripts.

Only initial release of AiC was relied on by an unmodified and original animation files. From AiC v0.7 many of original files were edited with Nifskope by me thus they changed the way how the game handles them.
I optimized scripts in AiC as hell ;-] scripts work only when in menu mode. After that when any animation fires up itself, the scripts are no more :> I wanted to avoid the situation where dozen or more NPCs run through the screen with the same (and quite long) script attached to each of them. That could be performance hog and some mess with another animations could occur.

Of course, there is a way to edit every single animation file but any coin has two sides ;-] In this case, for example, you will be able to properly TAI jumping animation but such jumping will be played till you stop it. Besides, I have not tested how engine handles such animations when they loop this way but it is possible that some of them will be cut off at some point.

Well, I'll take such thoughts into consideration when I'll be working on the next version of AiC ;-]

I responded:

Much obliged, trollf.
There have been a number of times when I have wanted to TAI one of these single OB animations midstream - as obviously others have wanted too. If there was a way to insert a "pause" command into these types of animations when stopping them with the console via "~", that would be great! I obviously do not know the internal workings of the engine nor yours or OBs animations.

So if there could be a command that would pause an animation of this second (single) type - with the same effect that the "~" yields - i.e., everything stops - then click on the NPC and do TAI or something similar, that would pause the NPC's animation right at that point - that would be ideal, imo. Of course, I have no idea if this is possible without direct access to the OB engine, etc.

That is why I called YOU! Thanks again, trollf!

And I will say, with NO exaggeration - if it were not for your Actors In Charge mod, my screenshooting days would have ended many moons ago.

[greatfool1]

Heya all! This post of mine will tell you how to do this , this and This!

First of all, its not hard. Its very easy. The only problem you will have is a bit of lag.

First step : Find the ID codes you want for the NPCs. Here is a Full list Go to the Category, click "NPC" and then again click "Search"

Second Step : Find a good place. There are many places at the game that are suitable for the war. You can toggle grass and trees, to avoid the lag. To do this, Open Console (~) and type :
Toggle Grass -> Tg
Toggle Trees -> Tt

( Prefer a place without mountains or hills, so you have a good view of the Battle)
Third Step : Begin the spawns. When you take the Codes, you can use them : (~) Open Console and type : Player.Placeatme ********

*-> Code Number/Letter

Instructions : 1. Make sure the enemies CAN fight each other. (Example : Daedra Versus Imperials, Imperials Versus Other Guards will NOT work. Bandits and creatures would work too)
2. Make sure you dont do all the spawns at same place. Spawns at same place would work better but the lag will "kill" you. Simply do some Spawns at one place and move to another (Not far away)
If you have an Invisibility Spell it will be much better, you can hit Daedra and bring them to the guards, then hit spell and watch the fight.
3. Enable God mode and turn menu off. With all these NPCs around turn on/off the console will be hard so use (~) Tm for getting menus off and take screenshots during the battle without turn on the Console so you can pause the game. God mode is a must if you dont have an Invisibility spell, plus if you want many screens put the Gameplay Difficulty to max.
(~) Console -> Tm -> Menus off
(~) Console -> Tgm -> Toggle God mod
4. Make sure you will not spawn many "Mages" because the spell animation/effects will give you even more lag.
5. When you are making the spawns you can put the graphics to low settings, then bring the groups to fight, save - > Quit -> Turn graphics to high and load again.
6. Last and IMPORTANT. There are Many codes for one NPC, example -> Dremora who stands still. Dremora who fights. Dremora who spawn and die. The one you need is an Npc who attack at Everything (Apart from allies.)
Feel free to PM for questions.

GT.

My queen the troops await your orders....
On parade

WOW!!!! That must have taken many hours. When I was trying to line up just 10-15 deer for Layla's holiday story, it took quite a while - like you said, nudging them into the right place. And also, with TAI - it must have been really difficult when clicking on the Dremora you wanted to freeze, to know if you got the right one. Or were you able to type in their discreet IDs? I ask this because I noticed a lot of time just clicking on the NPC would not necessarily be the ID of the one I really wanted to TAI. :banghead: Did you find a short cut for this process, or was it all trial and error kind of approach - click, TAI, and then check to see if that particular one stopped moving? With that many Dremora bunched together, lining them up must have been hair-pulling to say the least!

Regardless of how you did it - a fantastic job!

To dupe NPCs you use the player.placeatme command. You can say any number, not just 1 instance of it also.

From Night Stryke's Console Command Guide - an incredibly useful Guide.
**************************************************
3. Player.PlaceAtMe NPC'sID #
This will spawn the specified amount of the specified NPC or creature next to your character. The NPC or creature will retain all of the AI that the original NPC or creature had, acting just like a clone of it. It has the same schedule, inventory, stats, and will sell the same things if it's a merchant, as well as complete designated parts of a quest that the original may have been associated with. Very good for when you just can't find an NPC for a quest and assume that they're probably dead.
Ex.: Player.PlaceAtMe AED40 5; spawns 5 Adoring Fans next to me (God, who'd want to do that?).
Links: A list of NPC IDs
A list of creature IDs.
Other applications: If you click an NPC or creature then type PlaceAtMe NPC'sID #, you'll spawn that NPC or creature next to the selected object. Could be used for something like spawning a few guards next to an enemy and having them take care of it for you.
Notes: The list of creature IDs is now in the post below this one.
***************************************************

In terms of getting Oblivion Planes to look purplish, or whatever, you could use the level adjust in PS or perhaps color replace. Not sure if you use PS though.

The very best to you in whatever course you choose, Crypto. Take care and check in and give us an update from time to time if you can. Thanks for your many great contributions here! :wave:
Interesting. I see from Night Stryke's Guide the following:
***********************************************
4. CreateFullActorCopy
This is kind of like the Player.PlaceAtMe command, but you don't need to know the ID. Click an NPC or creature then type in the command, and a clone of it will be created; you'll have to keep entering the command if you want more than one clone. The clone will share most of its AI, such as its schedule and combat, but it won't have any dialogue and can't be used to complete a quest. It really has no uses except for fun.
Ex.: N/A
Links: N/A
Other applications: If you click a summoned creature and type in the command, you'll get a real version of that creature rather than another summoned version. This real version will act just like if you'd encountered it in a dungeon, and it will fight you and any NPCs near it.
Notes: You can use this to clone yourself, but your clones will have no dialogue or AI, except for combat AI. This also may crash your game, depending on how many clones you make and whether or not they engage in combat.
************************************************

So Floydian1, when you used CreateFullActorCopy, did you then nudge the copied instance into place, followed by TAI, without having to click on the instance to get TAI to work? In other words, did the use of CreateFullActorCopy default the system to already being on that instance? Because what I noticed to be a pain was trying to click on the correct instance in order to TAI the right one. (This is what I asked you a few posts above that you may have missed.)

When I did a bunch of deer in a row, I used the player.placeatme deerID# 8 (or however many) - this gave me 8 instances, and some of them were already in the right place. Did you find any advantage to using CreateFullActorCopy vs. Player.placeatme?

some repost of mine...
and some answers to the previous thread...

hmm, let me think...
for example, you want to create a big battle between two armies - knight with shields on the one side and knights with two handed weapons on the other...
you can type placeatme command to spawn any npc then use 'companions share and recruit' mod to equip that npc with shield and sword - now, let the clonning begin... when you finish, use 'companins share' mod to equip one of those npcs with two handed weapon and clon him right away!
this way you can produce (all in real time!) various armies, bands, crowds, etc. of unique npcs which don't exist in vanilla game - so placeatme command is useless here... don't you think so? ;-]

The gear is tweaked and the char is the only one I have - that's all about Shandril, you know. Always. ;-]
Besides, no new anims here. Just the old tricks. Second pics shows some bed animation - enter or exit, I can't recall which one ;-] And the rest is all you can find in last version of AiC ;-]

There is a 'hint' which may lead to more unique screenies of yours. Sometimes some people forget that one animation doesn't equal to one type of screenies. Each animation in AiC, vanilla Oblivion or other mods has various phases. On the beginning it looks different, in the middle it looks different, and at the end it looks different as well - and even in between. All depends on proper timing. So, one animation = many various and unique screens till you won't be pressing a print screen button always at the same time, of course ;-]

I don't remember which animations are on those screenies of mine but it matters not. I always experiment a lot and quite often other things which weren't previously intended come out ;-]

Yes, that's Growl's. Maybe the breasts are a little bit too large to my tastes but the rest is rather fine.

Thanks. I always try to improve and push myself to find/discover something new ;-]
If you want to see more - check this (or my whole gallery - link is in my sig)

Sure sounds useful (I assume you meant useful and not "useless" there at the end). I appreciate your example and will post it to the Guides thread.

So, I am not sure what the advantage of the CreateFullActorCopy command is then - other than if you don't know the ID# of the NPC; but you could get that by either clicking on the NPC or companion. I will read more about the two commands and experiment, unless someone tells me.
Thanks for this too, trollf. I need to create a separate section in the Screenshooter's Guides about various animation tricks. I still have some of your other ones I saved off for this Section too. Also, I will look to add more about Director's Touch as I see a lot more peeps are using that one too.

Placeatme spawns only NPC with specific equipment which exist in game's or mod's files. CFAC on the other hand, duplicates altered NPCs in game with their full (changed or not) equipment.
If you want to create few footmans with halberd each, you can spawn any NPC via placeatme command and equip him with such a weapon. If you want 10 footmans you need 10 halberds to equip them, right? What if number of halberds from some mod is not enough? If you clone one man via CFAC command you need only 1 halberd and only 1 piece of each part of equipment you wish to clone.

So, to summarize things a bit. I think that's rather not an advantage but a difference.

How do you put guys you made it the CS ingame, I need it for my pic...

If you look at the Screenshooter's Guide in the opening post, you can find a summaries in Shadow's Guide and by Floydian1 about using Wrye Bash as one approach.

Edit:
I also just saw this useful thread started by Angel199x that may save you some aggravation.

I just had a question...
How can I make my character lay down on a bed all the way? When I stand on the bed and then use AiC to "sleep" my character floats about 1 foot above the bed.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Easiest way is to use the the tai command whilst you character is in the desired position then use the tcl console command, now when you try and move your character he/she will just move up or down and you can align them properly with the bed surface.

[greatfool1]

Mind sharing the .ini settings?
Also, what is this 'trollf's trick' everybody keeps talking about?

Trollfs trick is infinetly usefull :grad:: when your in action (or not) press ~ for the console, then type TFC for flying camera mode. then without exiting the console press shift five or six times. Oblivion should minimize. then click on it on the taskbar and i will open again. press ~ once or twice to close the console and viola. game time should be paused but the camera will be free roaming. to disable this, just ctrl-alt-del and select oblivion and switch to, and youre back in business.
much thanks to Trollf

as for the the .ini, really nothing special, just the result or altering the

[Display]
iMaxDecalsPerFrame=1200
fDecalLifetime=100.0000
bDynamicWindowReflections=1
fShadowFadeTime=1.0000
iPresentInterval=1
fGamma=1.0880
bDecalsOnSkinnedGeometry=1
etc.

part of the .ini
my blood settings are the first two lines, theres some other things i changed like gamma and saturation, but these are pretty self explainitory.
Messing with the .ini is fun!

to GF1: the bloody weapons thing has only started recently. i just tested and it seems to happen to all weapons. whatever it is it sure is fun. :chaos:

If you isolate which tweak(s) do it to the weapons, let us know. I am posting this post of yours to the Screenshooter's Guide for future reference. Thanks!

I released another version of my A Bloody Mess Tweak. It tweaks the Effect settings for the blood to values found in the Blood Effects in the New Martigen's Monster Mod 3.1, and supplies my tweaked version of the Blood Textures. The new settings seemed to better present the Blood in all settings. Bloom and HDR. You can find my file HERE at Tessource.

If for some reason you don't like the new version, the older version is archived within the file for convenience.

Edited by greatfool1, 03 August 2007 - 08:16 PM.

[greatfool1]

See Sev's Guide - link in opening post.

More regarding character face creation using Facegen:

I understand that there is an "art" to this; but I am also pushing to get it documented as a "science" too - as there are some guidelines that help.

sanityCheck has his/her approach that clearly works - great looking characters sanityCheck generates. And so do others - Floydian1 must have a particular way that he has down pat to be able to generate Sia in 10 minutes. I understand that this may be hard to write down, but it doesn't stop me from asking! :hehe:

Hmm let's see....

Selected Mystic Elf, whacked the age slider all the way to left, set complexion around 100, set the cheeks to be more guant than rounded, lost the huge chin, messed a little with the lips and eyes, skin tone etc.. Seemed to work, thought that'll do me and left it at that

Although I've now got a problem with my merged BP & Soya plugin, I can only select a soya hairstyle one time only if i go back to change the hair I find the soya hairs are no longer available?

Some good info on a generating a fine looking char and using the Viktoria mod:

No special effects, here, just a couple ingame screens of my character:
2. Just a simple shot of my new character, but I liked it.

Very very nice looking character! Did you make her using OB's Facegen? What race is she? I assume you are using Beauty mods?

<snip>
Very very nice looking character! Did you make her using OB's Facegen? What race is she? I assume you are using Beauty mods?
Greatfool1,

Thank you for the very nice compliment. My new character, Francesca, is a Mystic (class), and her facial features are the result of the original FaceGen, photo-shopped, and is taken from the Viktoria mod. I liked the quality of the face tones. I then restructured the facial characteristics using Oblivion's FaceGen to suit my individual tastes and modified some of the coloring for this character, as well.

The Viktoria mod recommends Cosmetic Compilation for better results, and includes Ren's hair. I have also added the IFT mod to the mix. (I actually did follow the instructions in the "Read Me" file for the Viktoria mod.)

The Viktoria mod creates a hybrid character that has the attributes of a Breton, and the height/weight of an Imperial. That is how Francesca is played.

Thanks again, Greatfool1, for the very nice compliment.

I put this in the screenshots thread, but I might as well put it here too.

I find that the easiest way to make a bosmer look semi-good is to bring the sliders for the outside brows as far down as they can possibly be, to get rid of that "I've just had a poker stuck up my unmentionables" suprised look. My first and only character is Shamanih, a piratey magey thief, and I've spend hours of nerdy bliss getting her face right. I try to use as few mods as possible - I've got an eyebrow retexture, a female armour one and a few different clothes mods, but nothing much else. I think the facegen actually has a lot to offer if you just spend time working with it and aren't impatient for a quick fix.
<Snip> Bad links...

An incredible job! Thanks for posting this here!
Your avatar really cracks me up too!
*****************************************************************
As mentioned before, I sure wish someone (hint, hint, S373N, ~Lyre~, Floydian1, sanityCheck, Divine Avenger... someone!) would start a How To Develop a Character's Face thread! I am trying to store great posts with info like this in the Screenshooter's Guides in the meantime, but really, it warrants a separate thread.

At least by Thread #80, S373N said he might have his Facegen tutorial ready! Maybe he will start such a thread too. There are so many posts from our Mods picture thread that could be added to it, and they would be very helpful to others over the long haul.

[greatfool1]

Ergonomic mouse info - I know, this is not part of the Guides, but still useful info for maniacal mouse users:

I got a mouse with a thumb trackball I like that a lot better. You never even have to move the mouse so no wrist pain but my thumb was sore after the first day useing it I have a thumb of steel now.

To tell you the truth, Spike, it was a righthanded thumb trackball mouse that I used for years that caused the problem in the first place. It is adviseable to switch around mice and/or which hand you use. That much work with the thumb can easily lead to carpal tunnel and/or RSI, imo. And for me, once I got the pain, it never really healed. If I use a mouse with my right hand for more than even a minute, my hand gets pretty numb.

No problems with my left hand - but I use a very ergonomic mouse - it looks like a toaster (!) and is from Evoluent:

Clicky: I love the left-handed version of this mouse. Not cheap but totally worth it - no more pain using it constantly for over a year with my left hand. Note how it allows you to rest your hand in a more natural position - not twisted. That is the secret to it being so helpful to me.

I bought my Husband this one for 10 Euros. He loves it. Then we found another company made one too, to 6 Euros.

Thanks for that link - the price is great and it looks like the design is the same vertical principle that reduces arm twisting. If they have a left-handed version, I will get one of those for another computer I use. For right-handed mouse users, this looks like a real good bet to me.

My Husband found the other vertical mouse for me here's the link... http://www.inter-log...a...=1371&ep=kk But 10 pounds is about twice what we paid for this SpeedLink.

That's still a lot cheaper than I paid for my Evoluent - US$105 + tax + shipping! But it is left-handed and I required that.

[greatfool1]

Just a test of a new way ot get companions to use Beautiful People.
Groupshot
Just have to turn the one using Sia's face into Denesta's sister and I can get my story done

It's Ami (finally thanks spike!)

Whoa! Nice!!
Will you or Floydian1 document what you guys did to get this working, post it here and then in the Screenshooter's Guides?

To get Ami in Sia's game required some help from Spike, as you know the default BP mod is unusuable for companions as it breaks the gameworld if you try and esm it for use with a companion. Spike supplied me with a cleaned fixed version of the BP esp file merged with Soya's hairpack. Following his suggestion I merged this new esp with the valeria companion mod and thus was able to get Ami into the game with her proper soya hairstyle.

Maybe it would be easier if I just tell everyone how to clean it. It is so simple I wonder why I didn?t think of doing it before.

I used this nice little program called TES4 Plugin Utility. Now once you get it all set up to work open it and click the display/copy button. Now select the Beautiful People.esp or the BP and Soya.esp that was packed with Sia. Now on this new window there should be a list on the left with everything in the plugin. You want to select the bad stuff and hit delete. Then hit save at the bottom. You now have a clean plugin.

Now using TES4 Plugin Utility again you can make a master file to use with companion mods. Do that by clicking the convert to master button. Pick the plugin from the list and it will make a copy of it as a master file.

Now in the CS open oblivion.esm the new master you just made and a companion mod you want to edit. Make sure the companion mod is set to active. Now your companion has all the options of the BP mod available to them.

OH AND REMEMBER ALWAYS MAKE A BACKUP FIRST IN CASE SOMETHING GOES WRONG.

Edits by Spike:

I messed up on the delete part of my clean BP master Tut so here is a repost with the error fixed. Part in bold is changed
I used this nice little program called TES4 Plugin Utility. Now once you get it all set up to work open it and click the display/copy button. Now select the Beautiful People.esp or the BP and Soya.esp that was packed with Sia. Now on this new window there should be a list on the left with everything in the plugin. You want to select the bad stuff(group:cells and group:world spaces) and hit toggle ignore. Then hit save at the bottom. You now have a clean plugin.

Now using TES4 Plugin Utility again you can make a master file to use with companion mods. Do that by clicking the convert to master button. Pick the plugin from the list and it will make a copy of it as a master file.

Now in the CS open oblivion.esm the new master you just made and a companion mod you want to edit. Make sure the companion mod is set to active. Now your companion has all the options of the BP mod available to them.

OH AND REMEMBER ALWAYS MAKE A BACKUP FIRST IN CASE SOMETHING GOES WRONG.

Also to transfer a face photo into an OB game:

If you get the demo of FaceGen you can do the photo fit face maker in it then use this to put it in a saved game
Focon
I havent done it but I think that is what ~Lyre~ used.

Yeah, it works well if you have three close up shots of someones face. You have to have one from the front and one right and left profile. I don't actually use the character I made with it though.

Edit (in response to post below): Thanks Spike, I will be sure to include that version in the Guides. In fact, I will add it in now to the section above.

[greatfool1]

Regarding which Mods Floydian one is using for his current character, Sia:

Concerning Sia.....

Beautiful People v2.2: http://tessource.net...ile.php?id=5175 merged with Soya 4 Hair Pack v1: http://tessource.net...ile.php?id=6881

Merged esp file: http://www.tessource...ile.php?id=8543

Most oufits & wolverine claws from Bui's Adventuress Body mod: http://canadianice.u...hp?topic=4842.0

Tail/Fangs are items given to me and I added themself to her race (Mystic Elf) in the construction set.

Horns: http://tessource.net...ile.php?id=7765
Wings: http://tessource.net...ile.php?id=5480

Although I'm using a version of these two merged to equip in one slot.

Black Gorgal Bow seen in some shots: http://tessource.net...ile.php?id=7696

[greatfool1]

About the fog...

If you want to control how foggy the surroundings are, use some weather mod (or console command "sw 38eef") to change the current weather to fog. Then type this in the console:
sw 38eee
After execution of such command, fog will start to release its chains and gradually vanish. And that will be the right time for screenshooting. If the level of the fog will reach the point which will satisfy you the most - then just take your screenie :>

Here are few examples of various levels of the same fog:
1 2 3
4 5
(notice the changes of background details and overall colors saturation)

Hope that will help someone to increase the variety of his/her shots ;-]

[greatfool1]

Is there a way to do screen capture without disabling AA? AA makes the screen look so much better.

I have gone into the oblivion.ini file, changed "bAllowScreenShot=0" to "bAllowScreenShot=1", and I've checked that anti-aliasing is turned off in Oblivion's video options, and still I can't take screenshots.
Any ideas of what the problem could be guys?
-James-

guys, forget taking screenshots using oblivion's conosle. Use FRAPS. Fraps allows you to take screenshots directly in .jpg format, and you can monitor your fps and make little movies and stuff too.

download it here

You must have an ATI card then, as AA with HDR on an Nvidia is not possible well not on a 7 series card.

I have a 7800 NVidia and you can have AA on using the control panel. Under Global Settings=>Antialiasing Settings.

But you don't have HDR on then. It is physically impossble on a hardware level for GeForce 7 cards to have both on.

Yes but it won't make any difference/show when playing Oblivion, just tried it even though it's enabled in the control panel the game will ignore it.

Hmmm, OB says HDR is on... but since this is not possible to run with AA on this type of card, I will cut short my experimenting. I appreciate this info guys - thanks for saving me some time.

Floydian1, does AA - if set by the NVidia Control Panel - or HDR set by OB take precedence? It sounds like you are saying HDR would take precedence. Right?

Looks that way, if you scroll all the way down the bottom of the oblivion options you'll see aa is still set to off, if you try and enable it the game will disable HDR.

I just tried turning it on in the NVidia control panel and it didnt make any difference in the game. Looked like HDR with no AA

To use Anti-Aliasing and HDR with an ATI card: activate Catalyst Control Center, select 3D settings and Anti-Aliasing options. You will see a box with a check mark in it, and beside the box it says let the application decide. Uncheck this box and choose your AA settings. Hit the apply button to save your changes.

In the game's video options menu it will still say that AA is dissabled, but that will be incorrect. You will infact have both HDR and AA, and be able to take screen shots.