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[MOD] IWD:EE Portrait Variations

inethineth Member Posts: 746
edited May 2018 in IWD:EE Mods

IWD:EE Portrait Variations

A mod for Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition that gives you more options for enjoying the awesome portraits in the game.

It has two components which can be installed independently:
image

Zoomed-in side bar portraits

image     image

This component modifies all the built-in portraits, to make their small versions (which are displayed along the right edge of the main game screen) zoomed in closer and more consistently on the characters' faces.

It also flips them where necessary to make sure no characters are facing the screen edge.

Detailed preview:
This is what all the side bar portraits look like, when this component is installed:

imageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimageimage
image

Photoshopped variations

image     image

This component adds a few additional portraits which I photoshopped from built-in ones - either to make them suitable for other races and classes (e.g. Cleric weapon replaced with Mage weapon), or for cosmetic changes (e.g. hair color).

The variations appear right after the corresponding original in the in-game portrait selection screen.

Detailed preview:
The following lists all the portrait variations added by this component.

EFF- "Elf Female Fighter 1"

imageimage
  1. original
  2. with black hair + better contrast

HFF- "Human Female Fighter 1"

imageimage
  1. original
  2. wielding a mace [suitable for a Fighter/Cleric]

2MBAR1- "Male Barbarian 1"

imageimageimage
  1. original
  2. zoomed in
  3. zoomed in + wielding scimitars [suitable for a Fighter/Druid]

HEFC- "Half-elf Female Cleric 1"

imageimageimageimage
  1. original
  2. wielding a staff [suitable for a Wizard]
  3. red dress
  4. red dress + wielding a staff [suitable for a Wizard]

HMC2- "Human Male Cleric 2"

imageimage
  1. original
  2. better color balance

HFW3- "Human Female Wizard 3"

imageimage
  1. original
  2. without the sword & bow [suitable for a Druid]

GMT- "Gnome Male Thief 1"

imageimage
  1. original
  2. with pointed ears [suitable for a Gnome]
image

Download

Get it from the download page on GitHub.
(File name: iwd_portrait_variations_1.3.7z)
Post edited by ineth on

Comments

  • IllustairIllustair Member Posts: 878
    I always wanted to change those in-game portraits myself, I don't know why I just never did. You made life easier for us thanks
  • inethineth Member Posts: 746
    The alpha1 version had a bug in the "Zoomed-in side bar portraits" component - I've uploaded alpha2 to fix it.

    @Illustair: Glad you like it! Also, if you have a Windows or Mac installation of the game, please let me know whether the mod works correctly there. I've only tested it on Linux so far.
  • inethineth Member Posts: 746
    I just uploaded a new version. Besides minor tweaks and a new portrait variation, it now has a readme and everything, and has now been tested on the Windows version of the game as well.

    So I'm lifting the alpha status and calling this version "1.0"... :smile:
  • GrammarsaladGrammarsalad Member Posts: 2,582
    edited February 2016
    These are great!

    A request: BGified portraits. That is, change the large portraits to zoom in on the face like bg(ee). Of course, maybe there is a resolution issue...
  • GrammarsaladGrammarsalad Member Posts: 2,582
    edited February 2016
    ineth said:

    Grammarsalad said:

    Of course, maybe there is a resolution issue...

    I'm afraid there is. Here are four of the zoomed portraits at their full resolution:

    imageimageimageimage

    The resolution varies from portrait to portrait, because I simply cropped them from the source images and did not down-scale them.

    In this example the second one from the left could barely be considered a candidate for BGification, but the other three, no chance.

    Unless Beamdog releases higher-resolution versions of the original images, that is.
    The GOG.com release of the game does include a much much higher-resolution version of a cropped portion of one of the portraits, as part of the "screenshots/avatars/etc." digital bonus downloads:
    image

    This suggests that the higher-resolution paintings from which the bundled portraits originate, still exist.
    Do you think there's a chance Beamdog might release them if we beg them to?
    No hurt in trying...

    Who should we beg?
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,754
    @Dee, is it possible for Beamdog to release higher-resolution versions of the original images, as @ineth suggests here?
  • DeeDee Member Posts: 10,447
    I could be mistaken, but I believe that the portraits in the game are the highest-resolution we have.
  • GrammarsaladGrammarsalad Member Posts: 2,582
    Hmmmm....

    @Dee is it possible to check?

    Usually bg large portraits zoom in on the face and upper chest. What if these were zoomed out a bit?
  • DeeDee Member Posts: 10,447
    The portraits you see in the game are the highest-resolution available. They're 420x660, which is more than twice the size of the portraits in BG. If you need to crop and resize them, they should still look okay.
  • AbelAbel Member Posts: 785
    Great job! How did you determine size, center, etc. for the cropping?
  • inethineth Member Posts: 746
    edited March 2016
    By hand... :)

    I went through them all and cropped them so that the bottom edge is near the collarbone and the top edge slightly above the head, while preserving the aspect ration.
  • SharGuidesMyHandSharGuidesMyHand Member Posts: 2,582
    Illustair wrote: »
    I always wanted to change those in-game portraits myself, I don't know why I just never did.

    Because it would've been a colossal hassle. :wink:

    Many thanks to ineth for taking the time and effort to do this.
  • mashedtatersmashedtaters Member Posts: 2,266
    @ineth
    Hey, I love your mod! Would you be interested in changing the sword to a mace or warhammer in this portrait? I often use this portrait as a fighter/cleric or ranger/cleric, so it would be awesome to have the right weapon!


  • mashedtatersmashedtaters Member Posts: 2,266
    Holy moly, your are good! I am totally using that next time I play!

    Thanks for responding so quickly.

    I am uber-impressed!
  • mashedtatersmashedtaters Member Posts: 2,266
    I actually think I like that better than the original...

    Thanks again, @ineth
  • inethineth Member Posts: 746
    I uploaded a new version (1.1) and updated the top post accordingly.

    Besides the new photoshopped portrait (see 3 posts above this one), I also improved the sharpness/smoothness of two of the zoomed-in portraits, and updated the Weidu executable to the latest version.
  • inethineth Member Posts: 746
    Dee said:

    The portraits you see in the game are the highest-resolution available.

    @Dee, I found higher-resolution versions of 15 of these portraits:
    • Beamdog's official press page for IWD:EE (http://press.icewinddale.com/) has high-resolution versions of 5 of them.
    • The GOG.com version of the original (non-EE) IWD has an "Artworks" bonus download which contains high-resolution versions of another 10 of them (although not quite as high-res as the ones from the press page).
    Granted, they are not exactly equivalent to the in-game portraits, for example look at the shoulder strap in: — the one from the game had a small amount of additional detail/shading added in. In other cases, it looks like the in-game portraits had some levels/gamma correction applied compared to the high-res originals.

    I suppose that means you may technically be right that there are no higher-resolution versions of the fully polished/post-processed portraits exactly as they are in the game. But clearly, there are higher-resolution versions of the raw images that the portraits were based on.

    Beamdog must have them, right? After all, they set up the press page.

    From the sources listed above, I now have high-res versions for 15 of these portraits, but not for the remaining 44 ones (IWD:EE has 59 portraits in total).

    Can't you ask the Beamdog marketing & art department to release whatever they have for those remaining ones, to us fans? (Even if it's raw/unprocessed images.)
    Pretty please... :innocent:
  • DeeDee Member Posts: 10,447
    I'm reasonably sure that what you see is what we have. I can ask, although I don't make any promises. :)
  • inethineth Member Posts: 746
    edited April 2016
    Dee said:

    They're 420x660, which is more than twice the size of the portraits in BG. If you need to crop and resize them, they should still look okay.

    The character-sheet versions ("L") are 420x660, but they show the full body from the shins up, which means cropping them BG2-style (head/neck only) makes them tiny.

    The side-bar versions ("M") are 169x266 and tend to be slightly higher-resolution than the "L" variants, but they are still zoomed out too far for BG2, so cropping them and then upscaling to BG2 size (210x330) definitely adds blurriness and resize artifacts.

    And that's for using them in BG2:EE.
    For using them in IWD:EE (which this mod is for, and which is how I understood @Grammarsalad 's request), they would have to be upscaled even more, since IWD:EE shows character-sheet portraits at 240x377 (at least when playing the PC version on a 1920x1080 monitor).

    I did try it with one:
    image→image→image→image

    From left to right, these are:
    1. The original HMC2_M.BMP that comes with the game [169x266]
    2. After cropping to BG2 proportions and flipping [141x221]
    3. After upscaling to BG2:EE character-sheet size, sharpening, and postprocessing [210x330]
    4. After further upscaling to IWD:EE character-sheet size [240x377]
    The manuaul post-processing for the second one took me several minutes (mostly using the Sharpen brush to sharpen edges, and Blur brush to remove resize artifacts like graininess from the skin).
    And I'm still not thrilled with the results.

    And that's with one of the portraits where the original "M" version was reasonably good to begin with. Imagine how I'd fare with ones like this one (HFF2_M.BMP) where the original face is already tiny and blurry:

    image
    Post edited by ineth on
  • inethineth Member Posts: 746
    edited March 2017

    Update: IWD:EE Portrait Variations v1.2

    • Added 1 photoshopped variation ("Gnome Male Thief" → with pointed ear)
      image → image(click for full resolution)

      The ear actually was pointed in the original Icewind Dale and Icewind Dale 2 games:
      image

      But in IWD:EE he has a rounded ear, like a Human or Halfling. My guess is that the ear was first painted round by the artist, and then "corrected" when it was added to the game as a portrait. And then when Beamdog remastered the portraits in higher resolution for the EE, they used the original art again...
      Anyway, I restored the pointed ear based on the low-reslution original IWD image as best I could.
    • Renamed files to include my modder prefix.
      This means that if you have an old version of the mod installed, you should uninstall it before extracting and installing this one, and you may have to re-select portraits for some party members (Character record → Customize character → Appearance).
    • Some minor improvements to existing variations.
    • Slightly improved README file.
    I also started using github, and followed @argent77's example of specifying a license which ensures that, among other things, the mod can be continued by others should I ever go MIA.
  • RaduzielRaduziel Member Posts: 4,714
    What an awesome work.
  • SirielleSirielle Member Posts: 7
    Hi, good idea to change the small portraits to bigger. Especially for people playing in higher resolution. I just posted a few missing larger images of the original portraits here:
    https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/957548#Comment_957548
    - you could fix the female gnome wizard portrait and the human wizard (two of several portraits looking like enlarged form a small image in the original game). My options, but fitting the original cropping:

  • ThelsThels Member Posts: 1,422
    These are cool. Is there any way to use these in IWDII?
  • ThelsThels Member Posts: 1,422
    edited May 2018
    I tried installing this on a fresh IWDEE 2.5 Steam installation, but the Photoshop variants don't show up in game, when trying to create a new character.

    I do see them sitting in the override folder. When I copy them to the portraits folder in my documents, I do see them, but I can't select different images for the small and large versions.

    The zoomed component works fine. I saw some of the portraits mirrored as intended.
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,754
    @Thels To choose different images for the small and large versions you have to name them like 1aM.bmp and 1aL.bmp, with both files put into the IWD:EE folder in Documents.
  • inethineth Member Posts: 746
    @Thels I haven't had a chance to update this mod for 2.5 yet.

    It adds the photoshopped portraits by patching `bgee.sql`, which in IWD:EE 1.4 was the file that determines the gender and order of the standard portraits. I'll have to port this to whatever mechanism 2.5 uses.
  • ThelsThels Member Posts: 1,422
    @ineth No worries. Assumed it be something like that. At least now you're aware this needs updating if you want it to be 2.5 compatible.

    @JuliusBorisov Good to know. I'll give it a try.
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