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-Magus- · 08-25-2006, 01:44 PM,

As I've realized that learning modelling 3d things and scripting are too time consuming for my patience, so I came out with idea. Icons! I have some skill in drawing with hands and computer. And concept art could be possible too, it might look nice in many places. I just need screenshot or theme of icon I need to make. So feel free to ask me. And I know they need to be in .dds form and I'm able to convert them.

Razorwing · 08-25-2006, 02:12 PM,

Quote:Originally posted by -Magus-
As I've realized that learning modelling 3d things and scripting are too time consuming for my patience, so I came out with idea. Icons! I have some skill in drawing with hands and computer. And concept art could be possible too, it might look nice in many places. I just need screenshot or theme of icon I need to make. So feel free to ask me. And I know they need to be in .dds form and I'm able to convert them.

Great :goodjob:

Would you be okay with obtaining the base images though, so you get them exactly as you need them? If so, what you'd need to do (if you haven't already) is download the latest version of Reich Parkeep and NifSkope. The models I were thinking of is in Meshes\ST\Bottles. There's about twenty of them. They'll probably show up untextured, so what you'd need to do to fix that would be to go to "Spells > Texture > Folders" and include textures\ST. If you can't, that's okay, if you can, thanks in advance =)

Greybeard · 08-25-2006, 03:40 PM,

Here's the way I found easiest for myself: In the CS, I go to an interior cell (any one will do) and put the item I want to make an icon of in there. I put it outside of whatever int the cell was made for so that I get the gray background behind the item. Then I orient it the way I want and take a printscreen.

Then in PhotoShop, I crop it and resize it to 64x64 pixels and, using the magic wand tool, I put in a background color that I like. Then I just save it in .dds format.

Anyway, it works for me. =)

Psychotic · 08-25-2006, 04:09 PM,

Quote:Originally posted by Greybeard
Here's the way I found easiest for myself: In the CS, I go to an interior cell (any one will do) and put the item I want to make an icon of in there. I put it outside of whatever int the cell was made for so that I get the gray background behind the item. Then I orient it the way I want and take a printscreen.

Then in PhotoShop, I crop it and resize it to 64x64 pixels and, using the magic wand tool, I put in a background color that I like. Then I just save it in .dds format.

Anyway, it works for me. =)

You can just do that in NifScope though. Apply the texture and take a screenshot (preferably with FRAPS), than do all the rest.

KuKulzA · 08-25-2006, 04:55 PM,

icons as in faction rank icons?

Zarf · 08-25-2006, 06:47 PM,

Icons! WOOHOO!

We need icons. Really need icons. I'm personally glad you have decided to make some. Smile

Now, if one person makes all of the icons, we have the advantage of them all being the same style.

I don't know how you plan to make them from paper, but I would reccomend turning the bitmaps you scan into vector maps so they can be resized infinitely correctly.

Unless you don't have the tools to do that. Big Grin

I know I don't.

KuKulzA · 08-25-2006, 06:53 PM,

Quote:Originally posted by Zarf
Icons! WOOHOO!

We need icons. Really need icons. I'm personally glad you have decided to make some.

Now, if one person makes all of the icons, we have the advantage of them all being the same style.

I don't know how you plan to make them from paper, but I would reccomend turning the bitmaps you scan into vector maps so they can be resized infinitely correctly.

Unless you don't have the tools to do that. I know I don't.

hold on... bitmaps is like photoshop and vector like illustrator...
so like vector... so that they can be resized and don't lose quality! :bananarock:

Zarf · 08-25-2006, 07:03 PM,

Yes. And vector maps can be edited, but not so easily created, in Photoshop. Unless you have CS 2. Then you can make them really easily, and you can even convert hand drawing s into vector art. I've been waiting for them to do that for AGES, and they finally did it when I don't have any money. Big Grin

-Magus- · 08-25-2006, 08:56 PM,

So I'll begin by the quest icon for Silgrad Tower quest, then the bottles for Razorwing. As for what I've done before are avatars for my msn (they're not bad as they sound), and hand drawn things, mostly little "depressed" object and plants, like trees, buildings and stones. And I had a little strike back with the fileform, I can't create files .dds, paint shop pro doesn't regognise them... Still it was on the supported fileforms list, and checked.

Razorwing · 08-25-2006, 09:27 PM,

Quote:Originally posted by -Magus-
So I'll begin by the quest icon for Silgrad Tower quest, then the bottles for Razorwing. As for what I've done before are avatars for my msn (they're not bad as they sound), and hand drawn things, mostly little "depressed" object and plants, like trees, buildings and stones. And I had a little strike back with the fileform, I can't create files .dds, paint shop pro doesn't regognise them... Still it was on the supported fileforms list, and checked.

Thankyou

I can recommend DDS Converter 2.0 and DXTbmp 4.00.77, which I personally use a lot when I work with DDS textures. The first is great for batch converting files to DDS while the other can easily create transparant DDS textures (so I guess you'd be interested in the latter).

DXTBmp is very easy to use. To quote from one of my tutorials,
"Start by creating a texture where the part you want to be transparant is absolutely pitch black. Load it up in DXTBmp. Select "Alpha > Create Alpha Channel (Black)". If you get a popup, press Yes (some file formats, like tga I think, create defunct alpha channels by default, which the program replaces). Now the image is displayed in black and white on the small screen to the upper right. The visible part should be white, the invisible black. Now go to "Alpha > Apply Alpha to Image" and the black part will turn transparant grey in the main window. Lastly, go to "File -> Save as -> DDS Texture". The file format MUST be "DDS DXT1", otherwise it won't work. Presto, you're done."