How to mod Events with Static Images

[themadprogramer]

Victoria 3 is the first PDX game to feature this new video-based event system

event_image = {
        video = "gfx/event_pictures/europenorthamerica_springtime_of_nations.bk2"
    }

And it looks very cool, I can already see people modding in the Skyrim intro sequence.

But is a pain for me to wrap my head around because
a) it expects ".bk2" (Bink Video) which isn't the easiest format to work with
and b) I can't figure if there is a way to just do a flat sprite

That being said, CKIII-style portraits make a return. This is how Queen Victoria's Coronation pop-up is handled with a `gui_window=event_window_1char_tabloid` and `left_icon` which can be the `ruler` or any other character.

# For GBR
victoria.1 = {
    type = country_event

    title = victoria.1.t
    desc = victoria.1.d
    flavor = victoria.1.f

    gui_window = event_window_1char_tabloid

    left_icon = ruler

Isn't there an easy way if I want to add in a static image like a newspaper or wanted poster? I know this can be made into a short video, and converted to .bk2 but I'm asking if there is a flat-sprite option or anything similar on `event_image`

 

[Denizz]

I do hope there is a way, I actually made a 5 second "event video" and with this weird "BIK video" it became 43mb. It did work ingame though. Apperantly you need to pay a steep fee (for an individual) to use the .bk2 format which hopefully is more efficient than that garbage. But it seems that those few secconds of video from the events which come with the game are still 14mb each.

 

[themadprogramer]

Good news! indexoquarto#1961 taught me the trick, it's called `texture`:

event_image = {
texture = "gfx/c3/event.dds"
}

GIMP can export to dds, if you need an editor.

 

[Marco Dandolo]

Thank you for your hint. Do you know what about the perfect size of the picture should be for the events?

 

[HerroN]

Good news! indexoquarto#1961 taught me the trick, it's called `texture`:


GIMP can export to dds, if you need an editor.

Did you export to dds from bk2 , or any other file ?

 

[Kennieh]

Thank you for your hint. Do you know what about the perfect size of the picture should be for the events?

Bumping, because I was looking for the ratio for static event dds-images and found nothing but this thread. So I decided to do some testing, and it seems to be quite a strange ratio.

It is roughly 1.4:1 (width : height), but not exactly, it seems to be slightly wider. Through more testing, it seems to be roughly around 1.41:1, or expressed at 1440p as a resolution of somewhere around 846 x 600 px. But a DDS-image texture with grid tiles at 846x600 does seem to be slightly off (lines running vertically would be slightly blurred).

Because the texture always fades to the right (behind the overlay with the event title, description, flavour text and options), it is tricky to determine where it actually ends. The part of the texture that is unobstructed on the left half of the event window is roughly a square of the left-most part of the texture (seems to be roughly 583 x 600 px in-game at 1440p resolution).

What I also did found, is that the textures seemingly allow PNG as a format as well. Not really more complicated than placing the PNG file in the correct folder in the mod (in this case gfx/event_pictures/), and then just using .png instead of .dds:

event_image = {
        texture = "gfx/event_pictures/test-event-bg.png"
}

I stumbled upon this when trying to find game files that would give away the exact resolution/aspect ratio desired. In game/gfx/load_settings.settings there is a line that reads:

all *.dds files will be loaded in at a lower resolution. png & tga files are kept at same resolution

So, judging by the phrasing, I suspect the reason I kept having my test-grid blurred is due to it loading at a lower resolution (?). Testing with a PNG instead gave me seemingly sharp lines across the whole texture. So my conclusion is that the aspect ratio seems to be 1.41:1. I have not tested PNG files more than this, so I don't know if it's a viable practice. But rest assured, most event images would probably not be pixel-sharp graphics, so I think it is a safe ratio to go by.

 

[Nirual]

Bumping, because I was looking for the ratio for static event dds-images and found nothing but this thread. So I decided to do some testing, and it seems to be quite a strange ratio.

It is roughly 1.4:1 (width : height), but not exactly, it seems to be slightly wider. Through more testing, it seems to be roughly around 1.41:1, or expressed at 1440p as a resolution of somewhere around 846 x 600 px. But a DDS-image texture with grid tiles at 846x600 does seem to be slightly off (lines running vertically would be slightly blurred).

Because the texture always fades to the right (behind the overlay with the event title, description, flavour text and options), it is tricky to determine where it actually ends. The part of the texture that is unobstructed on the left half of the event window is roughly a square of the left-most part of the texture (seems to be roughly 583 x 600 px in-game at 1440p resolution).

What I also did found, is that the textures seemingly allow PNG as a format as well. Not really more complicated than placing the PNG file in the correct folder in the mod (in this case gfx/event_pictures/), and then just using .png instead of .dds:

event_image = {
        texture = "gfx/event_pictures/test-event-bg.png"
}

I stumbled upon this when trying to find game files that would give away the exact resolution/aspect ratio desired. In game/gfx/load_settings.settings there is a line that reads:



So, judging by the phrasing, I suspect the reason I kept having my test-grid blurred is due to it loading at a lower resolution (?). Testing with a PNG instead gave me seemingly sharp lines across the whole texture. So my conclusion is that the aspect ratio seems to be 1.41:1. I have not tested PNG files more than this, so I don't know if it's a viable practice. But rest assured, most event images would probably not be pixel-sharp graphics, so I think it is a safe ratio to go by.

Event Pictures are supposed to be 1700 x 1200 Pixels.

 

[Kennieh]

Event Pictures are supposed to be 1700 x 1200 Pixels.

Well, that solves it, thank you! That has a similar ratio to what I found by brute forcing (1.41666... :1), so it's nice to hear a resolution which is more 'even' than what I concluded with.

 

[marmot01]

In case anyone needs a photoshop plugin, there is Intel's plugin available freely here: https://gametechdev.github.io/Intel-Texture-Works-Plugin/
I tried downloading NVIDIA's plugin but it's locked behind an account you need to register at nvidia's site, and then "you have to be a member of a developer program", and I didn't look into it any farther.