Silgrad Tower from the Ashes

I'm new to forums - in fact this is the first one I have ever been on so please forgive in mess I make of it.

I have gone a long way towards getting a mod done but a few things just won't work for me.

What I cannot get to work:

1. Faction icons do not appear in stats menu.
What I did was to make icons of the correct size and placed them in the following directories:
data\textures\menus\stats\aalif_friends_ranks_icons
data\textures\menus50\stats\aalif_friends_ranks_icons
data\textures\menus80\stats\aalif_friends_ranks_icons
In the TESCS I selected the appropriate icon from the menus dir. for each rank and they showed up there with no problem.
They do not show up in the TESCS if in the wrong format.
Result: The faction name and rank appear as text in the menu but there is no icon.

2. Class icons do not appear in stats menu.
What I did was to make icons of the correct size and placed them in the following directories:
data\textures\menus\level_up\class_creation
data\textures\menus50\level_up\class_creation
data\textures\menus80\level_up\class_creation
In the TESCS I selected the appropriate icon from the menus dir. for each rank and they showed up there with no problem.
They do not show up in the TESCS if in the wrong format.
Result: The class name and descriptive text appears in the menu but there is no icon.

In both the above cases, the use of the archiveInvalidation.txt file proved ineffectual. Also in the TESCS I tried referring to each of the 3 menu sets (i.e. menus, menus50 and menus80) The TESCS accepts each of these different paths but there is still no change in the game. My directory names were chosen to match the format of the existing classes and factions but it seems that pathnames are immaterial??

Are they DDS format?

yes they are in dds format. Thanks for asking

Hmm... Do icons need normals?

No, they don't.

I have set the icons to the exact same sizes as the other Bethesda Class and Faction icons and they are dds format. Normals should not be an issue as the CS accepts the images I put there - they simply do no show in the game.
Is it maybe a menu xml file issue? Some things do seem to be sensitive to that but when I looked at those files, they are structured to supposedly accept user input???

try this.!Make sure To back your files Up! open a base Oblivion Rank icon then open yours copy your pictures over the base one then merge it down. now save it over your icon. !Make sure To back your files Up! and if that doesnt work im not sure how to fix it.

thanks Green @ - I'll try that and let you know

When I put custom icons or anything in the CS, it complains about 7 mipmaps and doesn't display in the CS, then I ignore it and it shows up fine in-game...

There's a tutorial on the wiki on how to make transparent weapon icons, perhaps you should have a look at that?

Thanks for the advice - I tried rehashing the icons and noticed that the originals are in the dds format DXT5 but most other things a DXT3. Anyway I changed my isons as suggested by pasting over an original and saving it as DXT5 type of dds and STILL no luck!!!

The Class icons use the alpha channel but the Faction ones don't - every which way I have tried has not worked. I suspect that it is not the icons themselves but something in the way the engine works - maybe it is not structured to show custom classes and factions at all.