Oblivion Snapshot Contest.

[Sever]

Welcome to the first Ironworks Oblivion Snapshot Contest! A chance for Elder Scrolls veterans and newcomers alike to post their most artistic and aesthetically pleasing gaming pics in a friendly natured contest. Firstly, this thread is for contest pics only. All discussion and sign-ups should take place in the Oblivion snapshot contest discussion and sign-up thread. Secondly, for those who are unfamiliar with taking screenshots or having them hosted on the web, this post contains ALL the information needed to get you started. The only thing you'll need is a little imagination and an eye for artistic appreciation.

Screenshots will be voted on and awarded in five categories which are as follows:

Landmarks - Any human (or elf) made building(s) or structures(s).
Nature - Any totally natural setting.
Action - Any scene depicting magical or mundane combat or imminent combat.
Vanity - Any 3rd person shot depicting the player character.
Humour - Anything that puts a smile on your face. All those pics of baddies with arrows lodged in body cavities and stuff.

(There is so much potential for more awards here: best panoramic shot, best sunset, best night sky etc. Depending on the success of this thread, we might be able to run small "themed" snapshot challenges from time to time. But for now, we'll limit it to these categories.)

The Rules of the contest:

*Each contestant may post up to five pics.
*1024x768 screen resolution. If your computer can run Oblivion, chances are it can run it at this resolution. For the sake of fair play, no higher than this please. My apologies to all those poor souls who only have a 30 inch widescreen LCD.
*Images to be converted to PNG format. (see below)
*No external software editting. This includes cropping. This contest isn't about what you can do with Photoshop. Resizing images for thumbnail purposes is fine.
*No visual mod content.

To make the voting stage easier, images should be renamed from "ScreenshotX" to "[your username]_[1-5].png". Example: "Sever_4.png"

The contest will remain open for one week or as long as it takes for signed-up contestants to get their pics in. Don't be shy about asking for more time if you need it (such things as Oblivion snaps should not be rushed. ) Signing-up isn't essential but it does give me a good idea of how many are taking part.

Voting will take place via PM once the contest has been closed. I will update the thread with details of voting when that happens.

How to take screenshots in ES:IV Oblivion.

1. Locate and make a back-up copy of the "Oblivion.ini" file in your My Docs/My Games/Oblivion folder. (Read: NOT the "Oblivion.ini" file in your Oblivion folder.)
2. Right click and select "Open With."
3. Select "Notepad" from the list.
4. Scroll down to the line that says: "bAllowScreenShot=0" and edit it to "bAllowScreenShot=1".
5. Save your changes.

In the game, use the Print Screen button to capture a screenshot. Images are stored as bitmap files in your Oblivion folder.

How to convert bitmap images to PNG format:

1. Locate the bitmap image file in the Oblivion directory (default).
2. Right click and select "Open With."
3. Select "MS Paint" from the list.
4. In MS Paint, click File and select "Save As..."
5. Locate the scroll down menu "Save As Type", select PNG {*.PNG}.
6. Click "Save".

How to host images on the web:

There are many sites that can host images for you and you are free to use whichever site you like. For this contest, however, i've found that the site picshome.com is perfect for everything you'll need. It can host images of up to 2mb, it automatically generates thumbnail images and it's generally pretty easy to use. For those who are unfamiliar with web hosting:

1. Go to upload page of the site Picshome.com.
2. Select the "Browse" button and locate the image file you want to upload. (If you haven't yet renamed your files, it is recommended that you do so before uploading them.)
3. Locate the file you want to upload and click "Upload".
4. Once the pic has been uploaded, you will be taken to a page that has the relevant URLs that you'll need to link to your images. I recommend creating a new text file in Notepad and recording these URLs. Next to each URL will be a "copy" button. Locate the URL with the "For use in Forums" tag and press "copy". Open Notepad and paste the URL into it. You'll need to record the URL of both the thumbnail AND the full image for each of your pics.

For those who are unfamiliar about how to link to images in their posts, i will post my own pic entries in the next post. Pressing the "quote" button on that post will show you the code needed.

In 50 or so pics, i am yet to see a PNG image file greater than 2mb. On the off chance that it is possible and the PNG image you want to post is 2mb or over, JPEGs will be the format used for these images. The method of converting images to JPEGs is similar to the method of converting to PNGs, mentioned above.

Some general tips:

*To remove the onscreen menus and HUD, open the console with the tilde key (`), type tm and press enter. This makes for much nicer pics but is not essential to the contest.

*Take your time. It's not about what you shoot, it's about how you shoot it. Take a little time to ensure you've framed it right.

*As any self-respecting artist will tell you, no two half hours of the day are the same. The same is true in Oblivion. Natural Lighting can have a drastic effect on the outcome of your snapshot. That which looks average at one time of the day, may look spectacular at another.

*I, personally, have encountered a problem with losing pics due to Oblivion overwriting their file names in the Oblivion directory. I don't know why this was caused nor if it's a common problem. To be on the safe side, you may want to back-up those screenshots that you want to enter in the contest.

Well, that's about it. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to quiz me in the discussion and sign-up thread. Happy snapping! [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 08-12-2006, 03:04 AM: Message edited by: Sever ]

[Sever]

These are my entries for the contest and this post in general is a guide as to the layout of your posts. Pressing the "quote" button on this post will show the relevant code you'll need to link to your own pics.











[ 08-12-2006, 03:17 AM: Message edited by: Sever ]

[Sever]

Originally posted by Sever: These are my entries for the contest and this post in general is a guide as to the layout of your posts. Pressing the "quote" button on this post will show the relevant code you'll need to link to your own pics. A nice example of a pic for the "Landmarks" category. My new favourite desktop pic and an example for the "Nature" category. I call this one "Help!" An example of the "Combat" category. "Vanity" category. Nice kitty. I didn't have a pic that i thought was good enough for the "Humour" category, so i just went with another landmarks pic.

[ 08-12-2006, 03:25 AM: Message edited by: Sever ]