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Best websites for portraits

elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,317
edited September 2012 in Archive (General Discussion)
I was just wondering if anyone knew any good websites for character portraits. I've found a few but a lot of the pictures are pretty bad.

Comments

  • BrudeBrude Member Posts: 560
    Agreed. I haven't found much that's any good, but this:

    http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/BG2/index_portraits.php

    works for grabbing IWD portraits for use in BG2.
  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,317
    edited September 2012
    I'll probably just use the IWD2 portraits.

    Edit: I actually ended up going with this for my wild mage. :)

    image
    Post edited by elminster on
  • dibdib Member Posts: 384
    http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Portraits.List

    Pretty much the best place you'll find for portraits.
  • JalilyJalily Member Posts: 4,681
    edited September 2012
    kirith.com

    Aerie Portrait Pack - Lots of alternative portraits for NPCs (not just Aerie) and a few for human and elven charnames. Or you can just use the NPC alternatives; they're pretty good.

    nwvault.ign.com
    A ton of great portraits here, but you'll have to convert them from .tga to .bmp and resize/crop them since they were made for NWN.

    Here are some I like:
    Aewen - Check out the artist's other work, too.
    Vlad's Daughter - Good for non-warrior classes.
    The Art of Jonathon Earl Bowser - Several nice ones, though I wish the artist didn't draw women with that vacant expression so much.
    Human Portrait Packs - Beautiful female portraits that aren't hypersexualized! Best pack ever. There are portraits for guys, too.
  • kilroy_was_herekilroy_was_here Member Posts: 455
    edited September 2012
    I've gotten to the point where I've started cropping my own portraits because I'm bored with all the ones out there... maybe someday I'll post them somewhere.

    Anyhoo, if you don't mind the extra work there's a lot of material to work with at http://digital-art-gallery.com/

    For those who haven't made their own portrait before: the large version must be 110X170 pixels and the small version 38X60. Open the image in MS Paint, use the select tool to cut out the parts you don't want and resize->pixel to those two sizes (you will have to uncheck 'maintain aspect ratio' because those numbers are exact. Then save the large and small version as two separate 24 bit bmp files and put them in the portraits directory in the main BG or BG2 directory. If that directory does not exist you will need to create it.
  • sandmanCCLsandmanCCL Member Posts: 1,389
    kilroy_was_here said:

    I've gotten to the point where I've started cropping my own portraits because I'm bored with all the ones out there... maybe someday I'll post them somewhere.

    Yeah I'm in the same boat.

    back when BG first game out, digital editing software wasn't nearly as easy to use nor as powerful as it is now, but even using freeware like GIMP I can turn just about any image into a workable BG avatar in a matter of seconds, all without losing much fidelity on the original image.

    I'm hoping drawing closer to launch, we get something going on the forums or launch a new fan site of our own with a collection of images and more importantly sound sets.

    I find sound sets to be much rarer to come by and much MUCH more valuable. There's only like 2 voice sets I like between BG1 and 2, and maybe a handful more if we count IWD voices. It's why I'm repurposing the excellent voiceovers from Dota 2 right now.
  • PaheejPaheej Member Posts: 126
    I put up a standardized set of portraits my friends and I used everytime we did multiplayer BG:
    http://www.moddb.com/games/baldurs-gate-ii/addons/ultimate-portrait-pack-baldurs-gate-i-ii

    I actually made an large post on one of the modding forums (maybe Spellhold back in like 2006 or something) which had an explanation of the percentage that the character's head should take up of the portrait foreground. It also had some photoshop layers that gave an outline of the most common range and position of character faces in the original portraits.

    If I wasn't in Afghanistan (where almost everything is blocked because of that damn anti-Muslim film) I'd find an upload the information.

    ***However the portrait size may change in the enhanced edition (I'm guessing it will because of the support for higher resolutions) and I'll have to make a new Portrait Pack when I get back. I can make a website to, where we can only post high quality ones, seems easy enough - and I have a ton of bandwidth to spare.
  • SophiaSophia Member, Translator (NDA) Posts: 581
    edited September 2012
    http://drakonis.org/ is also a good site, it has a LOT of portraits
  • elminsterelminster Member, Developer Posts: 16,317
    edited September 2012
    @SandmanCCL Ohh yes there is a definite need for new soundsets.
  • ajwzajwz Member Posts: 4,122
    http://drakonis.org/ looks really good, but I cant actually download anything :(
    A problem with a lot of these of portrait sites is that you have to download each portrait individually and they are often not the right size.
  • SedSed Member Posts: 790
    What dimension and format is required by BG:EE?
    Anyone knows?
  • kilroy_was_herekilroy_was_here Member Posts: 455
    edited September 2012
    @Sed Nope; all we know is the sizes for original BG and BG2. For all we know the dimensions for the EE are still subject to change.

    My guess is that the original formats (110X170 and 38X60 24-bit bmp) will at least still work for consistencies sake but new sizes may also become available.

    @elminster @SandmanCCL Did you guys forget about the announcement that the EE would contain new voice sets? They must have unpinned the thread because I can't find it now but I know it was there for the longest time...

    @ajwz That portrait site you posted is actually easier to make portraits out of. Once you download the thumbnail, just resize it and you're done. No cropping needed. And how are you having trouble downloading? On the gallery page I am able to right click->save image as.
  • sandmanCCLsandmanCCL Member Posts: 1,389
    @kilroy_was_here: No I didn't forget. Just saying that matters to me more than portraits! Portraits I can do up easily enough. Voices, well... not so easy. Even though my dream job is to be a voice over artist and I have a fairly decent array of vocal characters for being a guy who just sits in his room practicing them to myself, I don't want to here ME. Especially because I don't have professional recording equipment.

    I can easily mock up any fantasy image I find on deviantArt or whatever. Much harder to come by extra vocal work, and I find that adds more flavor to my character than what his picture is.
  • kilroy_was_herekilroy_was_here Member Posts: 455
    I know! Delete your character's voice set and pretend that they took a vow of silence. Then imagine whenever they respond to someone that they wrote it down on a piece of paper instead. Probably wouldn't work for a character with spells though... :)
  • StrayedMonkeyStrayedMonkey Member Posts: 146
    http://portraitcity.blackwyrmlair.net/

    best site
  • Cyruschen0112Cyruschen0112 Member Posts: 55
    Sylvus_Moonbow said:

    You can give these a try as well.

    http://portraitcity.blackwyrmlair.net/
    http://www.kirith.com/portrait/

    Seems these can not be used for BG II enhanced edition.
  • Cyruschen0112Cyruschen0112 Member Posts: 55
    Seems the old portraits for BG II can not be used for BG II Enhanced edition.
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