Pillars of Eternity Wiki:Guidelines/Screenshots

This article describes guidelines that should be followed by all in-game screenshots uploaded to this wiki.

Introduction
General guidelines for all screenshots:


 * Must be properly licensed by choosing "This is from the game or its official website" under "Licensing".
 * Should be placed in one of the sub-categories of Screenshots. (how-to)
 * Should be cropped in a sensible manner. (how-to)
 * Should not include GUI elements unless they are a necessary part of what the image is meant to convey. (how-to)
 * Should be taken with the in-game time set to day-time, unless the area is in-doors (in which case it doesn't matter) or if night/dawn/dusk is a necessary part of what the image is meant to convey. (how-to)

See also the general images guideline.

NPC infobox screenshots
Every screenshot shown in the infobox of an NPC page, should be made according to the following specification:


 * It should show the NPC how the player first encounters them, in their natural surroundings.
 * When cropping to the specified size, place it in a way that looks good. Tips:
 * Always keep a bit of distance between the head and the top edge – if that means cutting off part of the feet/body at the bottom, so be it.
 * If the NPC fits vertically, keep a bit more distance between the head and the top edge, than between the feet and the bottom edge.
 * Center the NPC's body horizontally – except that when it's facing right, place it slightly more left, and vice versa.
 * Colors should be vibrant, and brightness/contrast should be high enough to make the NPC's features easily recognizable.

Examples (click for full size) :


 * Ailef.jpg Wyla.jpg Captain muarumi.jpg Crothar.jpg

Reasoning:


 * Cropping them all to the same size is important so that NPC lists like this one look good.
 * The width of 265 px was chosen because it exactly fills out the infobox width.
 * Using a consistent zoom level helps viewers get a sense of the physical size differences between characters.
 * Color adjustment is needed because with the way that 3D character lighting works in the game, the raw screenshots will often lack contrast/brightness/vibrancy depending on where the NPC was standing and what kind of light sources were near them.

Creature infobox screenshots
Every screenshot shown in the infobox of a 'creature type' page, should be made according to the following specification:


 * Content, composition, and colors should follow the guidelines described under.
 * Where possible, try to use an instance of the creature that's not facing away from the camera, and that is in surroundings which are "representative" for that creature type.

Examples (click for full size) :


 * Warchief iklak.jpg Glasdial.jpg Alpine dragon.jpg

Reasoning:


 * Using the same spec as for NPCs, helps viewers get a sense of the physical sizes of creatures relative to kith – and allows infoboxes to be consistent for NPCs that are also their own creature type (e.g. Adra Dragon).

Quest infobox screenshots
Every screenshot shown in the infobox of a quest or task page, should be made according to the following specification:


 * It should show a significant scene from the quest; ideally, one that is both...
 * ...expressive & representative enough to convey a bit about the theme/mood/location of the quest.
 * ...unique & memorable enough to allow players who have played the whole game to recognize which quest it is.
 * It's okay if it contains spoilers, since Quest pages are mostly just walkthroughs anyway.
 * This is possibly the hardest type of screenshot to get right, so put some thought into it when taking them.

Examples (click for full size) :


 * The final act.jpg Quest the hermit of hadret house.jpg Quest the old queen and the new king.jpg

Taking screenshots
Pillars of Eternity doesn't have built-in screenshot functionality, so you'll have to use the screenshot mechanisms available on your platform:


 * If you have the Steam version, you can press the Steam screenshot key (F12 by default) while in the game, and then find the screenshot later by right-clicking the Steam icon and selecting "Screenshots".
 * On Windows, you can press the "Print Screen" keyboard key while in the game, then Alt-Tab out of the game, open MS Paint, and press Ctrl+V to paste the screenshot, and Ctrl+S to save it.
 * There are various freeware screenshot utilities for all operating systems, that may provide more convenience and flexibility.

Hiding the GUI
By default, Pillars of Eternity shows a lot of GUI elements on top of the actual in-game scene, including:


 * The action bar – which includes the party member portraits, various buttons for actions you can perform, and the combat log.
 * A fade-to-black behind the action bar, that already starts quite a bit above it.
 * Pointers to off-screen party members.
 * Selection circles at the feet of characters.
 * Action icons above the heads of characters, if they're in combat.
 * A label reading "GAME PAUSED", if the game is paused.
 * The mouse cursor.

Those things get in the way of most kinds of screenshots. Luckily, the game provides a keyboard shortcut to temporarily hide them: By default, this is bound to Ctrl+H on Windows and Linux, TODO: Also mention what it is on Mac.

Press that keyboard shortcut once, and all GUI elements except for the last two ("GAME PAUSED" and mouse cursor) disappear. Press it again, and those two disappear as well. Press it a third time, and all GUI elements appear again.

Turning off the fog of war
The game uses a "fog of war" to obscure parts of the in-game area:


 * Pitch black over the parts that you haven't visited yet.
 * Translucent black over the parts that you've previously visited, but which are currently outside of the party's line of sight.

This can be turned off using the cheat console (see that page for instructions), by entering the command:

NoFog

Note that the command only affects the current area, and only for the currently active game.

Also note that there is no command to reverse it, so if you intend to continue playing the game normally after taking some screenshots, you may want to stick to this order:
 * 1) Save the game
 * 2) Issue the "NoFog" command
 * 3) Take the screenshots
 * 4) Load the savegame which still has the fog and continue playing.

In, turning off the fog of war works different.

Setting the time of day
The game renders outdoor scenes differently based on the in-game time of day, as shown in the above table. The "day" version shows the backgrounds and textures as they were painted by the artists, and thus has the highest visual fidelity. The other versions apply filters that reduce color contrast, and are thus suboptimal choices for screenshots unless there's some special reason why the screenshot needs to show the scene at that time of day.

The game clock advances slowly when you keep the game running and not paused, but you can also instantly move forward to a specific time of day using the cheat console (see that page for instructions), by issuing the  command with a time in milihours. So for example to fast-forward to high noon, you can enter the command:

SetTime 13000

Setting the zoom level
The game allows players to zoom in and out with the mouse wheel. However, by default it doesn't allow zooming in far enough to take certain types of screenshots used on this wiki, and it doesn't tell you what the current zoom level is.

Luckily, you can change the allowed zoom range using the cheat console (see that page for instructions), by issuing the  command with the desired minimum and maximum zoom levels.

For example, to make it so that zooming in as much as possible reaches the level needed for NPC infobox screenshots, and zooming out as far as possible reaches the level for quest infobox screenshots, enter the command:

SetZoomRange 0.35 1

As another example, to lock in the zoom level needed for NPC infobox screenshots and not allow any deviation from it, enter the command:

SetZoomRange 0.35 0.35

To reset the zoom range to the defaut value, enter the command:

SetZoomRange 0.75 1.5