I originally posted this at the edlerscrolls forums.
I've noticed that quite a few people are having trouble making inventory icons. And I know there are some tutorials out there already, but...
Photoshop has a great feature called actions which is a macro system for automating tasks. So I put together an action set to help automate the task of making inventory icons for morrowind.
You can download it HERE
Save it to your "...\Photoshop\Presets\Photoshop Actions" folder
In the TES CS:
1. Load the plugin that contains the object you want to make an icon of.
Insert a copy of the object into a cell in a void area (all grey). Best thing to do is to use a new, empty cell.
Fit the object in the render window by pressing C while the object is selected and the render window is active.
Make sure to leave some grey space around the object.
SCREENSHOT
2. Make sure that ambient lighting is enabled by pressing A while the render window is active.
SCREENSHOT
3. Position the camera how you would like your icon to look.
Make sure all of the background is the neutral grey color and the object is not selected (don't want selection boxes in your icon).
Now press the Print Screen button on your keyboard to take a snapshot.
SCREENSHOT
In photoshop:
4. Create a new document from the main menu in File->New (or CTRL+N)
In the New Document dialog, the dimensions should already be preset to your screen resolution, based on the image (screenshot) stored in the clipboard. Just click the OK button to proceed. There is no need to specify a background type, the macro will take care of it.
Paste your screenshot into the new document from the main menu in
Edit->Paste (or CTRL+V)
SCREENSHOT
5. Prepare your screenshot by cropping everything but the render area with your object.
Make sure you crop enough so that all the background is the neutral grey (this is why you should leave some space around the object in the preview window when taking the screenshot).
SCREENSHOT
6. To crop an image, select the Rectangular Marquee Tool from the toolbar (square selection tool) and select the preview area on your screenshot that you want to keep. It doesn't matter if your image has extra grey background space that you don't want in your icon, it will be trimmed, but it is important that all the background in the cropped image is the neutral grey.
Next crop the image using the main menu in Image->Crop (or ALT+I then P)
Right-click on the image and Deselect to get rid of the selection marquee.
SCREENSHOT
7. If the Actions window is not open, you can open it from the main menu in Window->Actions (or ALT+W then S)
SCREENSHOT
8. Load the Morrowind action set from the little round button with the arrow in the top right corner of the Actions window. Click "Load Actions..." and select the Morrowind.atn file and load.
SCREENSHOT
9. Make sure your image is selected, now from the Actions window, locate the Morrowind action set and click the arrow beside it to expand it. Select iconify and press the play button at the bottom of the actions window.
SCREENSHOT
That's it, now save your icon as tga or dds (don't need mipmaps for icons)
Hopefully, you've learned a little more than just how to create an icon for morrowind
Cheers