Birthsigns

Birthsigns are unique to the player. As a rule NPCs do not have birthsigns. The birthsign editor dialogue can be found by selecting "Birthsigns..." from the "Character" menu in the construction set.

Options

• Birthsigns: The editor IDs and display names of all the available birthsigns. Every item in the list will be presented to the player during character generation.
• Full Name: The display name of the birthsign.
• Description: The description of the birthsign presented during character generation.
• Constellation Image: The image displayed during character generation.
• Spells: These are the spells that are given to the player by the birthsign. As a rule they are all greater powers or abilities. However, in some cases birthsigns give lesser powers.

Birthsign Creation

Creating a Birthsign

In the birthsign editor dialogue, right click on an existing birthsign and select "Duplicate" to create a copy of that birthsign, or right click anywhere in the birthsign list and select "New" to create a new birthsign from scratch.

Adding a Menu Image

In the birthsign editor dialogue, click the button labeled "Add Image File" (it may have the folder location of an image file if you duplicated an existing birthsign). A file selection dialogue appears, browse to the folder containing your icon, select it, and click "Open".

Birthsign menu images must be placed in the "\Textures\Menus\BirthSign\" folder, and this folder must be used when selecting the image in the construction set. Additionally, there are three folders for images of different texture resolutions, and icons must be present in each of these folders for the game to view them properly. These folders are:

• \Textures\Menus\BirthSign For large resolution images
• \Textures\Menus80\BirthSign For medium resolution images
• \Textures\Menus50\BirthSign For low resolution images

The menu images for each texture size follow a particular size and format. Existing Oblivion images can be imported into your preferred image editor in order to ascertain the correct format for that resolution size. For more information on creating icons, see the tutorial on creating menu icons.

Adding a Small Icon to the Character Sheet

Small icons are created similarly to the large birthsign menu icons, with large, medium, and low resolution images. The folders are:

• \Textures\Menus\Stats\Small_BirthSign
• \Textures\Menus80\Stats\Small_BirthSign
• \Textures\Menus50\Stats\Small_BirthSign

Note: Birthsign icon files must be named in exactly the same way that vanilla files are named or they won't show up in-game. So, if your new birthsign is The Dragon, your large menu icon must be named Birthsign_The Dragon.dds and your small icon must be named Small_The_Dragon.dds. The spacing and capitalization are important as these file paths appear to be hardcoded in the game.

Adding a Power

To add a spell, drag-n-drop the spell into the spell section of the Birthsign menu. If you want to delete a spell that is already there, right-click it and press delete.

Known Bugs

When creating a new birthsign, sometimes a birthsign will not show up in game, or will not be selectable in the birthsign selection screen in game. The workaround for this is to create several copies of the birthsign and then enter the game to see which one shows up.

For example you might create 3 (3 seems to be the usual lucky number here) copies of the same class each called:

• EditorID / Name
• TWSag1 / Sagittarius1
• TWSag2 / Sagittarius2
• TWSag3 / Sagittarius3

Then when the game displays a birthsign, ie Saggittarius3, go back into the editor and delete TWSag1 and TWSag2, then rename TWSag3 to Saggittarius. This may require several tries or more than three copies.