Great job on these. If you are open to constructive feedback, I would like to say that all the faces look quite young and clean. Maybe you could make some looking more hardened and worn. Otherwise keep up the good work.
@Etamin - the problem is that the portrait directory is no longer in the game's main directory. I may be wrong, but I think it makes it kind...difficult to do with WeiDU. BG1/BG2/Tutu/BGT version of the mod has a WeiDU installer. And yes, there will be a BG2EE version once it's out.
@Helmino and @Thalamond - thanks! Arta did a great job. I am happy to work with her
@Thalamond - well, most of the characters we meet are rather young, I guess. There are just some exceptions like Quayle, Keldorn... and some others.
@LavaDelVortel i rather meant one winrar batch, not weidu installation (but that would be awesome, to be able to choose by installer portrait for each NPC).
uhm, but there is just one EE package you need to copy to your portraits directory. I can't put 2 for example both montarons as that would meen more mess and work for the player: if he/she doesn't like for example main Montaron portrait, he/she would need to rename the main portrait and then rename the alternative to name previously used by the main portrait. And he/she would need to do that with every single portrait alternate. I believe the current version is best possible solution for EE, for now. As I said, the BG1/BG2/Tutu/BGT version use WeiDU installer so it gives me more possibilities.
In, this package from here we don't have all portraits http://www.shsforums.net/files/file/1032-paintbg-for-bgee/ from the table. For example i don't like default Khalid2 i prefer Khalid. But to have it in game i have to download also this package http://artastrophe.deviantart.com/art/BG-Portrait-Package-145216289 (which btw doesn't have Khalid, Khalid2 is different portrait so i have to search for maybe another different package). As you see it's a bit messed now. One package with all portraits named correctly (KhalidL, KhalidM, KhalidS, Khalid2L, Khalid2M, Khalid2S etc) would really help here.
@Etamin - then download http://www.shsforums.net/files/file/1033-paintbg/ which has all the portraits and resize those you want on your own. Really, I am unable to prepare for every possible combination for 5 different platforms + BG2EE which is to arrive soon. As you can see, a helpful version of WeiDU is yet to come so do not expect miracles like now.
@Wisp - thanks for letting me know. Not sure how happy I am as this means I will need to prepare another HUGE version of the mod :P But anyway, thanks, heh. If only I had more free time to spend on this...
Guuuuys, please... I guess you don't know but I'm studing at the University, I work 5 days in a week and I should be working on my masters. Apart from PaintBG I released like 20 others mods and I already suffer from not making them compatible for BG2EE (apart from Yoshimo Romance, Tales of the Deep Gardens and Petsy)... I need some sleep, too, so please... have some patience. I will try to prepare something today, but it won't be a WeiDU version, yet. Also, I need a coffee and deal with some other stuff first. And I need to prepare some materials for tomorrow...
I do NOT forget about BG2 mods (making them compatible) and BG2EE stuff, but I really need some time to take a breat, watch something and eat.
Don't worry about it! I was just checking in! Sorry, you probably get like 5000 messages about this a day, don't you?
I hope your Master's is going well. Mine was a massive mental drain, so I can empathise. Looking forward to seeing art's take on the new NPC when she finally meets her!
Master's could be doing better + I am a bit frustrated because making 20 mods work on BG2EE is a bit overwhelming. It's easier when it's just a NPC or a romance... but in my mods there are stuff like new areas that show at worldmap, music, bams... you know, all that stuff...
I talked to Arta, she will try to prepare new images when she's got a moment.
The mod is great. I really think these portraits are much better than the orginal ones. I even had to have one for myself Thanks to LavaDelVortel I have discovered Arta and her amaizing works.
@manero because AFAIK portrait pack author didn't paint it yet (she did not have access to beta and didn't play BG2EE before release). But probably she will make her portrait eventually and @LavaDelVortel will put it in maybe in the next version.
Sorry guys. I'm just drained. Mentally and physically. You just have to wait. I will try to make some progress this weekend, but don't take it as a promise.
Ok, guys. I'm not in my best shape, but I tried to prepare the package. I made it. Yep, it's available. HOWEVER, it's not a WeiDU version yet, so there are no avaiable alternative portraits - so for example I use new Aerie and the old one, from v1 is not there. I tried to pick the most accurate versions!
I really did my best. I wanted to provide you the new version and I've decided that it's better to provide non WeiDU PaintBG for EE than make you wait another week, two, three or a month. I hope you'll still like the effect.
Note that PaintBG v2.1 for EE includes both Hexxat and Character X. The latest version for non-EE games is still v2.0.
I recently downloaded your portrait packs and wanted to thank you and artastrophe for the amazing mod. The quality of the art is incredible and it has added so much to my BGEE and BG2EE gameplay experience. In my opinion, all of the portraits are better than their original counterparts. Thank you!
One thing I did try was to overwrite the "medium" and "small" version of the portraits with the "large" one. It seems like the enhanced editions automatically scale the portraits to fit and, it might be just me, but I believe that I get an even higher quality this way!
Thanks everyone! Well, I know the non-recruitables are small, but I'm not sure how big are those in EE -- I just don't remember, but I think the ToB portraits were lost long time ago and I used the 38x60 size to match them, but now I think I'll change that in future.
And yeah, EE scale the portraits BUT in updated versions and if I get rid of M and S portraits, those who do not update game may encounter some problems
EE might scale the portraits but I think including the M and S portraits at the appropriate resolutions is a good move. As it is those of us who want the hi-res versions can manually switch them. Not only does leaving out the M and S portraits cause issues for those who do not update, also for those of us who play on laptops or with smaller monitors often have the scaled portraits looking off or a bit distorted when scaled to S size, as compared to the properly-formatted ones.
I used this for my BGEE playthrough... and now I am on to BG2EE... how does installation work for BG2EE, do I need to resize portraits? Do I just place in override and portraits folders?
Comments
@Helmino and @Thalamond - thanks! Arta did a great job. I am happy to work with her
@Thalamond - well, most of the characters we meet are rather young, I guess. There are just some exceptions like Quayle, Keldorn... and some others.
One package with all portraits named correctly (KhalidL, KhalidM, KhalidS, Khalid2L, Khalid2M, Khalid2S etc) would really help here.
WeiDU 235 will allow you to access BGEE's portraits directory.
@Wisp - thanks for letting me know. Not sure how happy I am as this means I will need to prepare another HUGE version of the mod :P But anyway, thanks, heh. If only I had more free time to spend on this...
I'd re-size the pictures myself, but for some reason my Mac will never save them in a format BG can read regardless of what options I pick.
I do NOT forget about BG2 mods (making them compatible) and BG2EE stuff, but I really need some time to take a breat, watch something and eat.
I hope your Master's is going well. Mine was a massive mental drain, so I can empathise.
I talked to Arta, she will try to prepare new images when she's got a moment.
I really did my best. I wanted to provide you the new version and I've decided that it's better to provide non WeiDU PaintBG for EE than make you wait another week, two, three or a month. I hope you'll still like the effect.
Note that PaintBG v2.1 for EE includes both Hexxat and Character X. The latest version for non-EE games is still v2.0.
http://www.shsforums.net/files/file/1032-paintbg-for-bgee/
BTW, because many mods are being changed to work with BG2EE, the package includes all the mod NPCs that were painted by Arta.
I recently downloaded your portrait packs and wanted to thank you and artastrophe for the amazing mod. The quality of the art is incredible and it has added so much to my BGEE and BG2EE gameplay experience. In my opinion, all of the portraits are better than their original counterparts. Thank you!
One thing I did try was to overwrite the "medium" and "small" version of the portraits with the "large" one. It seems like the enhanced editions automatically scale the portraits to fit and, it might be just me, but I believe that I get an even higher quality this way!
Anyhow, I look forward to your further work!
And yeah, EE scale the portraits BUT in updated versions and if I get rid of M and S portraits, those who do not update game may encounter some problems
Cheers!