Silgrad Tower from the Ashes

Not sure. It doesn't have the originality and zing of Xae's whole-page approach but the pic and the border work well enough.

I found the old loading screen template that I couldn't use before as I didn't have CS4. Now, however, I'm fully equipped so please feel free to post up any favourite screenshots here for use as loading screens...

Myself, I'm a bit more partial to the newer template I made since it works with any kind of screenshot and has much easier instructions to follow.

Are all loading screens going to use the same template or are we varying depending on zone?

I think we'll need some kind of 'house style' overall but the idea of varying according to the zone sounds a good one.

Would you like to take over this area or would you prefer to pass on the template? Either way, I can suggest screenshots and we can discuss on the forums about the wording and content of the messages. Some of these messages will be dependent on quest development and implementing certain aspects of the game, of course. It will be best to make sure there is a stock set of 'definitely-going-to-be-used' screens anyway.

That depends. In order to use a non-standard placement map for the elements of the loading screen (loading bar & text) we'd need to modify the XML files that control them but I don't know if that can be done to only apply to BM areas and leave the rest of the game world alone. I can easily make the newest template(s) correspond to the Oblivion standard, no problem there, but any of the older ones wouldn't work.

There is the option of kickin' it Morrowind-style and adding the text straight onto the loading screens themselves and not adding anything in the CS. This would allow us the option of seamlessly using loading screens both with and without text as well as adjusting the placement of the text to fit well with the screenshot's composition. Also, I could customise the text to make it prettier. This would have to be tested in-game, though. I can't quite remember if Oblivion resizes or crops the loading screens to make them fit the resolution. The former would squish the text and make it unpretty. The same can be said of the screenshot itself, of course, and I think Bethesda will have thought of that.

The newest template uses a moderately light parchment background so the loading bar already has somewhere to go.

For variation and consistency, I think each zone should get either mostly or entirely screenshots taken from that area, plus any quest-related ones. The template might benefit from some minor changes between interior and exteriors but other than that, the screenshots themselves should provide ample contrast between the different zones.

For me, it really takes no measure of time to make a loading screen using the newest template. Most of the time would actually be spent looking at the screenshot to see if the composition, lighting and colours make for a pleasing result. I should point out that all screenshots have to be at least 1024 x 512 (2:1 aspect ratio) -- any screenshot smaller than this should not be used as the result will be a significant drop in quality -- which means that screenshots taken using a widescreen resolution (16:9 aspect ratio) will be made narrower and screenshots taken using a standard resolution (4:3 aspect ratio) will be made much narrower. Note that the screenshot won't be resized, it will be cropped, i.e. parts of the screenshot will be cut out; removed.

I certainly like that but I think I preferred the stuff using this template: Loading Screens .

As regards the formatting, I'm not entirely sure I fully grasp what you're saying there due to inexperience in that area. I certainly understand the part about cropping and so on and, from what I understand of it, that is the crux of the issue. Would this be something I can leave in your hands and then just voice my approval and/or suggestions?

However, are you saying that the loading bar can be, or is, separate from the loading screen itself?

The cropping isn't the issue, no, as long as all screenshots submitted are at least 1024 x 512 in size. The issue is that Bethesda foolishly made the loading screen "system", as it were, very inflexible. I'll elaborate.

The in-game loading screen has four primary elements:

1. "load_main": The actual graphic (.dds file). In a way, it is a background, since all the other elements are added on top of it using the XML script. This is what you make in photoshop.
   
2. "load_text": This is the caption, "Snake owns joo." in the example linked above, the content of which you can edit in the CS.
   
3. "load_loading": This is the "Loading..." that is printed at the bottom.
   
4. "load_progress": This is the progress bar.
   [/list=1]These are all controlled by the "loading_*.xml" files in data/menus. By editing these I've even managed to make that very fancy BM logo progress indicator, however since these files control every loading screen it would mess up every non-BM loading screen were we to change them. In other words, it is exclusively the graphic and the content of the text (not the placement) that can be edited freely on an individual loading screen level. Everything else is game-wide and affects all loading screens.
   
   Using the previous template(s), the one(s) that you like, would require moving the "load_text" down into the right corner. Perfectly doable, but I'm not aware of a way to do apply this change only to select loading screens. Since we wouldn't want to basically ruin every non-BM loading screen, I instead made this newer template that conforms to the original positions of the various elements. It's admittedly less exciting, but as far as I know, necessary.
   
   I hope that makes more sense. If anyone knows a way to accomplish moving the various elements only on loading screens inside the BM game world then I can use whatever template we like best. If not, my hands are tied.

Thanks for the explanation, Xae. That's much clearer now.

Just for reference purposes, I attached a typical loading screen here. Now I can live without the fancy progress indicator (although I admit it would certainly be nice to customise it) but would the 'picture-frame' style remain the same? In other words, you would have to have to some sort of frame around the customised pic...?

Additionally, does this mean that the outside of the frame would have to be a faded version of the picture within the picture frame?

I'm thinking that, potentially, if it concerns the placement of the different items then maybe we might still be able to make use of the symbols that, rather than be part of the loading screen, could merely be used as framing devices in the outside section. Therefore, if the outside of the frame were modifiable AND separate and distinct from the main picture then they might be used in this area as decorative bits and pieces. Indeed, they might even serve as indicators of the type of advice being given on the loading screen e.g. the 'coin' for town-related matters and the 'carving' for dungeons.

I guess we can still adopt a series of styles as normal for the main screen within the picture frame though as you suggested. This would make things just a matter of moving objects around a little and merely losing the new loading bar.

It is only the quote, the "Loading..." text and the progress bar that are controlled by the XML script. The content of the quote is added in the CS. Everything else is part of the graphic. I'm attaching the loading screen you provided with all the XML-added elements removed. It's what you'd see were you to open up the .dds file. There are no restrictions on what it can look like, it's just a bitmap.

We don't have to use the picture-frame style if we don't want to, no. The entirety of what you see, minus the quote, the "Loading..." text and the progress bar are part of one bitmap image. However, if we want to have quotes on our loading screens, we would need to make a template with a similar structure that leaves a space in the middle where the quote goes. It's either that or adding the quote text right onto the .dds bitmap itself, like in the image I attached to one of my previous posts.

The system is very inflexible. We can't use the new loading bar I made and we can't move any of the XML-elements around. I think we should do it the way they did it in Morrowind and add the quote in the graphic and leave it blank in the CS, otherwise our loading screens would have to look very much alike the vanilla ones.

Okay, agreed. As I say, I'd love to see those little designs in there like the coin and the carving. We can probably get rid of the border and use them as a kind of replacement and then just adapt towards different styles according to location and so forth. :yes: