@Syntia13 I was looking closely at other images, comparing noses. Yeah, I slightly overdone it. But it was because I tried to make her face slightly more slim (and that was a disaster). I will see if I can fix her nose :P
I mean exactly that one above my post as an example. When i judge this guy from his look only i say he is a very soft self loving dude who has more clue about shaving his skin as to inflict serious pain or cast fireballs randomly into unprotected villages to enjoy the screams of the victims... and if he´s evil it´s the hannibal rising casted type of guy. But it´s an elf anyway right?
Uh... It's Xan. You know who Xan is, right? Elvish lawful neutral enchanter whose catch phrases are "We're all doomed" and "Our quest is in vain". In his specific case, I did my best to make him look gloomy, 'cuz that's his default state of mind. I don't expect he would be willingly and on purpose fireballing any villages. That's more of Xzar's MO. Or did you confuse the two of them? (I know that I had a problem with their similar names during the first playthrough).
Can someone make some more natural looking man for the warriors or evil wizards instead of emo younglings looking a bit "angry"? No disrespect, i dont draw or photoshop these kind of images myself just a suggestions to you who like them also more... believable looking:D
@LadyEibhilinRhett Thank you! I always wondered if there is a way to remove his hanging hands though. Not a problem: Now that I don't need the room to accommodate his hands, the picture can be cropped to focus more on Xan's face, but I decided to leave that to your/any other potential user's personal taste.
Thanks a lot! This turned out wonderfully, I hear there's a good BG2 Xan mod and will probably try it, using this portrait, if you don't mind Also, it's actually fitting for an elven mage/multi class mage CHARNAME portrait.
Can you or someone else help me out though? I cropped and resized the portrait, as you suggest. I named it properly and saved it as a 24-bit bitmap too. However, still the game only recognizes the file and puts a question mark picture on it. Funny thing came when I made a small pic (38x60) out of the very same 110x170. The game recognizes the small one, but not the large one. I read somewhere this problem is fixed by making the portraits folder to be not read only... Weirdly enough this worked for a portrait previously but doesn't work for this one. Maybe you or someone else here can help? Here's the pic, if you like to try importing by yourself:
@Kirkor yeah, as I said, I made the small portrait by editing the big one and the game recognized it properly. The name of the small file is the same as the big one, but with an 'S' instead of 'L' at the end. The game sees both files, but the picture appears only for the small one, the big one appears as a question mark...
@Kirkor yeah, as I said, I made the small portrait by editing the big one and the game recognized it properly. The name of the small file is the same as the big one, but with an 'S' instead of 'L' at the end. The game sees both files, but the picture appears only for the small one, the big one appears as a question mark...
Is the small file an 8 bit or 24 bit bitmap? I think in a fully patched BG2 (not sure about BG1, I always use BGT) its meant to work with either, but you could try the alternate one, if the current one doesn't work
@Alderic Just guessing here - try going to Options/graphic and experiment with 16/24/32 bit options. In vanilla BG1 switching to 32 bit allowed me to use 32bit files, but in BG2/ToB the highest depth I was able to use was 24, even if I checked 32bit option. Maybe checking 24bit would help in your case?
@Oxford_Guy My comp doesn't give me the option of saving a bitmap as 8 bit, I can select 24 bit, 16 colour and 256 colour. I always save portraits I want to use as 24 bit pics and it has worked this far.
@Syntia13 Strangely, in the config file 24 bit colours is blanked out and I can only choose from 16 bit and 32 bit (32 was default). I tried switching from one to the other but it didn't change anything.
Thanks for the suggestions though... By now I spent quite some time and I guess I can't think of any solution. The only thing I would ask is if anyone can try using the pic - to see if your game recognizes it or not. That way I will know if the problem is in the pic itself or in my machine.
I really like this alternative portrait of Xan. The main reason why I don't take some characters in BG is because I'm not a fan of their portraits, but this one looks very good.
@mch202@Kirkor and any other person who believes Imoen in BG1 looks too old - I followed Kirkor's advice and added heavy make-up around her mouth, and, after some googling for 'aging of facial features', I also decided to lift her cheeks a bit. Does she looks younger now? (It's an honest question. I'm unable to say, except that she looks slightly different). Here: Is this version better/worse/just different to you? Any changes you can point out that could improve it? (Regarding her apparent age, not hair or clothing .
@mch202@Kirkor and any other person who believes Imoen in BG1 looks too old - I followed Kirkor's advice and added heavy make-up around her mouth, and, after some googling for 'aging of facial features', I also decided to lift her cheeks a bit. Does she looks younger now? (It's an honest question. I'm unable to say, except that she looks slightly different). Here: Is this version better/worse/just different to you? Any changes you can point out that could improve it? (Regarding her apparent age, not hair or clothing .
I know you said not regarding the hair or clothing, but the light on the hair is different from the light on the face. There's still too much pink and the entire thing just looks copypasted together. As for the age, it still looks the same to me, though the second version has a much skinnier, more unrealistic neck and she looks more...unhealthy. The face looks unbalanced. Also, if we're talking age, we can't NOT talk about the hair. When hair doesn't frame someone's face in a flattering manner, it can add a lot to their age. Honestly, if you made the hair hang down a little more over the side of her face and neck on the right side, that alone could make her look a lot younger, and make her face look a lot less unbalanced. In fact, give me a second, I'm going to try to edit it to show you what I mean. ...This is probably not going to end well. I've never tried this before.
she looks good and younger to me, the only comment would actually be for hair, if you allow it.
perhaps less blur and more varied detail/sharpness/blur would improve the overall look, especially where forehead and hair meet, and the hair endings. also, i'm not sure hair in movement fits the otherwise static pose. just a thought.
@mch202@Kirkor and any other person who believes Imoen in BG1 looks too old - I followed Kirkor's advice and added heavy make-up around her mouth, and, after some googling for 'aging of facial features', I also decided to lift her cheeks a bit. Does she looks younger now? (It's an honest question. I'm unable to say, except that she looks slightly different). Here: Is this version better/worse/just different to you? Any changes you can point out that could improve it? (Regarding her apparent age, not hair or clothing .
I know you said not regarding the hair or clothing, but the light on the hair is different from the light on the face. There's still too much pink and the entire thing just looks copypasted together. As for the age, it still looks the same to me, though the second version has a much skinnier, more unrealistic neck and she looks more...unhealthy. The face looks unbalanced. Also, if we're talking age, we can't NOT talk about the hair. When hair doesn't frame someone's face in a flattering manner, it can add a lot to their age. Honestly, if you made the hair hang down a little more over the side of her face and neck on the right side, that alone could make her look a lot younger, and make her face look a lot less unbalanced. In fact, give me a second, I'm going to try to edit it to show you what I mean. ...This is probably not going to end well. I've never tried this before.
The neck is a little wrong, perhaps, but I still think its a huge improvement over the original! But if Imoen can be improved further, I'm all for it, she's worth spending time on, as many people keep her in the party. I even keep her in my party when running an evil one, as she doesn't seem to leave, even when your reputation stinks, although she does call you "good for nothing riff-raff", LOL!
Okay here we go. My very first attempt at portrait editing.
Not too pleased with the hair, trying to figure out how to get less blur without making it look unrealistic. I altered her hair to cover the part of the neck and face that seemed out of place, moved her cheekbones a little to give her cheeks a fuller, younger look, and lightened the area around her eyes so they didn't look as sunken. Hopefully I managed to make her look a little younger. I also added a few very faint highlights to her hair to match the lighting more to the lighting on her face.
when bg portraits are involved i like minimal and not too obvious retouching, to retain recognizable original npc. i also like trying using resources of the image itself to do that. this is a 15 minute work with mouse in photoshop. not the best obviously, but i think she looks better with original hair, a bit rearranged.
@Jalily thank you! i will try to do hi-res version when i catch a break. i bought a tablet recently so i had intention of practicing with bg portraits a bit. i'll open a thread when i'll a few portraits done.
@mch202@Kirkor and any other person who believes Imoen in BG1 looks too old - I followed Kirkor's advice and added heavy make-up around her mouth, and, after some googling for 'aging of facial features', I also decided to lift her cheeks a bit. Does she looks younger now? (It's an honest question. I'm unable to say, except that she looks slightly different). Here: Is this version better/worse/just different to you? Any changes you can point out that could improve it? (Regarding her apparent age, not hair or clothing .
Yes, she looks much better now (I mean the face). I think you can make her even more younger by minimalising shadows on her cheeks (epecially on her right side). And make her lips brighter (only a little bit) and more red.
As for the hair, it looks weird. It is too straight, looks like she used some hair gel :P
when bg portraits are involved i like minimal and not too obvious retouching, to retain recognizable original npc. i also like trying using resources of the image itself to do that. this is a 15 minute work with mouse in photoshop. not the best obviously, but i think she looks better with original hair, a bit rearranged.
Well, when I work with any images, I work with mouse too :P And this is amazing work. I mean, the hair is very good! That hair alone made her look younger!
Now someone need to make Frankenstein and put @syntia13 face on this portrait, and it will be perfect!
I did some work on @Syntia13 Imoen portrait. I think that Imeon now looks even younger I've made her lips slightly more red. Middle part of her upper lip was lifted (just to make better shape) Shadows beneath her cheeks were almost completely removed Slightly brighter skin
Comments
@Syntia13 I was looking closely at other images, comparing noses. Yeah, I slightly overdone it.
But it was because I tried to make her face slightly more slim (and that was a disaster).
I will see if I can fix her nose :P
http://drakonis.org/picture?/5719/category/14-dark_spellcaster_m
or
http://drakonis.org/picture?/5825/category/14-dark_spellcaster_m
Evil enough? :-)
and some great Orcs:
http://drakonis.org/index?/category/57-orc_m
http://drakonis.org/picture?/8376/category/57-orc_m
and
http://drakonis.org/picture?/8291/category/57-orc_m
http://drakonis.org/picture?/8163/category/57-orc_m
Can you or someone else help me out though? I cropped and resized the portrait, as you suggest. I named it properly and saved it as a 24-bit bitmap too. However, still the game only recognizes the file and puts a question mark picture on it. Funny thing came when I made a small pic (38x60) out of the very same 110x170. The game recognizes the small one, but not the large one. I read somewhere this problem is fixed by making the portraits folder to be not read only... Weirdly enough this worked for a portrait previously but doesn't work for this one. Maybe you or someone else here can help? Here's the pic, if you like to try importing by yourself:
Sorry if this got a little off topic.
Is it saved as BMP file?
The files name need to have LESS than 8 letters
@Oxford_Guy My comp doesn't give me the option of saving a bitmap as 8 bit, I can select 24 bit, 16 colour and 256 colour. I always save portraits I want to use as 24 bit pics and it has worked this far.
@Syntia13 Strangely, in the config file 24 bit colours is blanked out and I can only choose from 16 bit and 32 bit (32 was default). I tried switching from one to the other but it didn't change anything.
Thanks for the suggestions though... By now I spent quite some time and I guess I can't think of any solution. The only thing I would ask is if anyone can try using the pic - to see if your game recognizes it or not. That way I will know if the problem is in the pic itself or in my machine.
:downloaded:
@mch202 @Kirkor and any other person who believes Imoen in BG1 looks too old - I followed Kirkor's advice and added heavy make-up around her mouth, and, after some googling for 'aging of facial features', I also decided to lift her cheeks a bit. Does she looks younger now? (It's an honest question. I'm unable to say, except that she looks slightly different). Here:
Is this version better/worse/just different to you? Any changes you can point out that could improve it? (Regarding her apparent age, not hair or clothing
The face looks unbalanced. Also, if we're talking age, we can't NOT talk about the hair. When hair doesn't frame someone's face in a flattering manner, it can add a lot to their age. Honestly, if you made the hair hang down a little more over the side of her face and neck on the right side, that alone could make her look a lot younger, and make her face look a lot less unbalanced.
In fact, give me a second, I'm going to try to edit it to show you what I mean.
...This is probably not going to end well. I've never tried this before.
perhaps less blur and more varied detail/sharpness/blur would improve the overall look, especially where forehead and hair meet, and the hair endings. also, i'm not sure hair in movement fits the otherwise static pose. just a thought.
Not too pleased with the hair, trying to figure out how to get less blur without making it look unrealistic.
I altered her hair to cover the part of the neck and face that seemed out of place, moved her cheekbones a little to give her cheeks a fuller, younger look, and lightened the area around her eyes so they didn't look as sunken. Hopefully I managed to make her look a little younger. I also added a few very faint highlights to her hair to match the lighting more to the lighting on her face.
when bg portraits are involved i like minimal and not too obvious retouching, to retain recognizable original npc. i also like trying using resources of the image itself to do that. this is a 15 minute work with mouse in photoshop. not the best obviously, but i think she looks better with original hair, a bit rearranged.
I think you can make her even more younger by minimalising shadows on her cheeks (epecially on her right side).
And make her lips brighter (only a little bit) and more red.
As for the hair, it looks weird. It is too straight, looks like she used some hair gel :P
Well, when I work with any images, I work with mouse too :P
And this is amazing work. I mean, the hair is very good! That hair alone made her look younger!
Now someone need to make Frankenstein and put @syntia13 face on this portrait, and it will be perfect!
I did some work on @Syntia13 Imoen portrait. I think that Imeon now looks even younger
I've made her lips slightly more red.
Middle part of her upper lip was lifted (just to make better shape)
Shadows beneath her cheeks were almost completely removed
Slightly brighter skin