@smeagolheart: I meant the specific character portraits for more important characters, not the randomly assigned ones. The NPC Project assigned portraits to some of the more important characters as well.
With the Minor NPC Portraits pack, if I installed it after the NPC Project, it would use the portraits from the Minor NPC Portraits pack where available, and the NPC Project portraits for NPCs that were specifically added by the NPC Project. If those weren't given a portrait, they'd receive a random portrait from the Minor NPC Portraits pack.
Did the most recent update in either mod change that feature? I know AstroBryGuy worked on some updates for the portraits, but due to technical issues, is currently unable to continue with his updates.
I don't know about updates or not to bg1npc. I looked at the code off the github link.
The code there copies all their portraits to override folder, then overwrites/patches several creatures including ones added to the game by bg1npc and several vanilla npcs such as Elminster and Volo.
My implementation checks if an NPC has a portrait already based of the filename, and if it does have one it doesn't patch a portrait to that creature. Portraits are only copied if this patching occurs rather than as one big copy action as in BG1NPC.
So if you load BG1NPC first, this mod will not overwrite those portraits. If you load my mod first, then BG1NPC second, it will overwrite the portraits from this mod. Either way you'll end up with BG1NPC portraits.
In my opinion, I believe the portraits selections from this mod are better. It would be best if BG1NPC updated their code to not overwrite other mods portraits. But I don't know how development is going with that mod anymore these days. As an alternative, I can, and for this mod only, detect if it's installed and offer portraits that would not overwrite the portraits from PPE and also incorporates portraits from BG1NPC for their mod added NPCs. Only would do this for BG1NPC because of its near universal appeal and because I believe development has pretty much ceased so no further content type updates are likely. If those ideas are wrong, and it's still being developed then best for mod author to address the overwriting code.
@smeagolheart - When I have functioning hardware I can develop on, I'll look at adding code to check for PPE being installed.
If there are conflicts of both mods using the same portrait for a BG1NPC-added NPC, let me know. I was updating the BG1NPC portraits to something better than a scaled up 38x60 bmp. I tried to find the original artwork, but could not find it in many cases. So, I had to find new artwork in those cases.
Note: Part of this update I'm working on renames the portraits to match the BG convention of [CREFILE]s.bmp for a small portrait. So, all BG1NPC-added NPCs will be have portraits starting with "x#".
@AstroBryGuy: That's awesome. I hope that if you find/use a high res portrait, you keep the portrait rather high in resolution, so it looks good on UIs that display it in high resolution.
@AstroBryGuy: That's awesome. I hope that if you find/use a high res portrait, you keep the portrait rather high in resolution, so it looks good on UIs that display it in high resolution.
I've been using 169x266, like v2 games use for small portraits. When I could, I tried to find the artwork originally used by BG1NPC. Some of it I couldn't find (the 38x60 BG1NPC portraits are such small clips that Google Image Search and TinEye are often unable to match them beyond a suggested search of "head" ). Of the artwork I could find, I often could not find at resolutions where going bigger made any sense. I would have been scaling low-res graphics up to 210x330 or 420x660 (and .BMPs suck for file size, I wish the portraits supported PNGs).
I had prepared to add a check to PPE if it finds BG1NPC.TP2 component 1 then it would load those portraits against BG1NPC guys as an optional component within PPE.
If possible, can you separate out BG1NPC added NPCs vs vanilla into separate components? I think that way people can load the option for BG1NPC added actors and get the vanilla guys from PPE.
you've made a killer enhancement, nuff respect. not going to try it yet, but i'm in the process of making portraits with a consistent look, so when the project progresses far enough, it might become of interest to you. here's a preview of the orc and half-orc portraits completed so far.
you've made a killer enhancement, nuff respect. not going to try it yet, but i'm in the process of making portraits with a consistent look, so when the project progresses far enough, it might become of interest to you. here's a preview of the orc and half-orc portraits completed so far.
I like the idea of consistency and I'd be happy to include this as an optional install if you wanted to do that. Or maybe you want your own mod?
I'm not sure how far you want to go but if you only wanted to cover half orcs and orcs only (hey what about ogres, trolls, goblins, orogs ) that would cover portraits in random portraits as well as a few named creatures. I've created a sortable excel spreadsheet which would be useful to get creature names.
i'm an ocd completist by nature (and vinyl record collector!), so the short answer is -- all the way / all in. you gave me the idea in fact. when i found your first iteration of the minor npc portrait pack, i was delighted by the idea -- an endeavor of such scope would inevitably mean that the portraits would be from numerous unrelated sources and styles, however. thus i dabbled around with photoshop, a few filter and color settings until i found something that satisfied me. the reason i started with orcs is just that i prefer doing them en bloc, meaning that i go by fantasy races and ethnicites rather than by classes or the like.
and there will be trolls, no worries! the unsung heroes and heroines of fantasy, my personal favorites -- too bad there hasn't been a joinable troll npc for baldur's gate so far (note to self -- long-term mod goal).
would you mind sharing that spreadsheet? it would be very helpful, i'm positive. do you happen to have something like that for the characters/npcs as well? i haven't even reinstalled the games yet, because i wanted to have a solid amount of portraits before i started ... (read above, lol)
The EET tab is up to date but doesn't contain IWDEE. There's a "combined tab" with IWDEE that's a fair bit old.
Portraits named S9XXXX in the portrait column are random portraits assigned from the S9MP-CLib.tph example:
// ******************************************************************************** // ********************************* Tiefling ************************************* // ******************************************************************************** ACTION_IF (crerace = 153) THEN BEGIN ACTION_IF (cresex = 1) THEN BEGIN // ------------------------------- Male -------------------------------- LAUNCH_ACTION_MACRO ~TiefM~ // Tiefling Male END ACTION_IF (cresex = 2) THEN BEGIN // ----------------------------- Female -------------------------------- LAUNCH_ACTION_MACRO ~TiefF~ // Tiefling Female END END // End Tiefling
If its' race 153 (aka Tiefling) then if it's a male it gets a random male tiefling portrait. The random portraits are in the randomportraits folder.
thanks, this is most helpful -- even more so since iwdee isn't included -- i have a different style close to sweet/kovacs/manley in mind and wouldn't want to mix iwd with bg. it also gives me the possibility to systematically work on portraits by grouping them according to characters and race. will post another preview that will reflect what i mean -- thanks again!
thanks, this is most helpful -- even more so since iwdee isn't included -- i have a different style close to sweet/kovacs/manley in mind and wouldn't want to mix iwd with bg. it also gives me the possibility to systematically work on portraits by grouping them according to characters and race. will post another preview that will reflect what i mean -- thanks again!
For what it's worth, IWDEE is on the other tab "combined" but you don't want it.
I hope that if cameosis' portraits are being included, they will be optional?
While they look really consistent to one another, the art style is quite different from the Baldur's Gate style itself, so they'd look out of place next to existing portraits.
I hope that if cameosis' portraits are being included, they will be optional?
While they look really consistent to one another, the art style is quite different from the Baldur's Gate style itself, so they'd look out of place next to existing portraits.
I hope that if cameosis' portraits are being included, they will be optional?
While they look really consistent to one another, the art style is quite different from the Baldur's Gate style itself, so they'd look out of place next to existing portraits.
the portrait pack won't be released until it's complete, meaning that it will cover all the characters in the game. there won't be other portraits that collide style wise at that point.
@smeagolheart as i slowly work through your excel spreadsheet, i've noticed that some named characters have random portraits assigned to them. is this hardcoded or is it possible to assign specific portraits to them?
one example: Gnarg Big-Bug - S9ORC8 Orc - S9ORC8
i would prefer picking a unique portrait for every character listed, but if that's not possible, just let me know. cheers.
@smeagolheart: Is there anyway for you *not* to use the beta version of Weidu? It bugs BGEE installs pretty bad. (Things I installed in tweaks aren't working for instance which is very annoying).
@smeagolheart: Is there anyway for you *not* to use the beta version of Weidu? It bugs BGEE installs pretty bad. (Things I installed in tweaks aren't working for instance which is very annoying).
yes the OP now has the regular weidu, download the mod again
@smeagolheart: Is there anyway for you *not* to use the beta version of Weidu? It bugs BGEE installs pretty bad. (Things I installed in tweaks aren't working for instance which is very annoying).
yes the OP now has the regular weidu, download the mod again
Sorry for the misunderstanding, I've had people upset about the beta weidu in another one of my mods: [MOD] BGEENPC Tweaks for BGEE / SOD / BG2EE / EET and I replaced the version of weidu there. When I replied to you here through the notification I thought I thought this was for that mod not for PPE.
I will get it replaced & tested and upload a new version no later than this weekend as time permits.
In the meantime, suggest installing it last or the exe can be replaced with a 23900 version - but I want to test that before I push it out officially. Long story short - I'll get it as soon as I can.
Sorry for the misunderstanding, I've had people upset about the beta weidu in another one of my mods: [MOD] BGEENPC Tweaks for BGEE / SOD / BG2EE / EET and I replaced the version of weidu there. When I replied to you here through the notification I thought I thought this was for that mod not for PPE.
I will get it replaced & tested and upload a new version no later than this weekend as time permits.
In the meantime, suggest installing it last or the exe can be replaced with a 23900 version - but I want to test that before I push it out officially. Long story short - I'll get it as soon as I can.
Hello. I have a big problem, maybe you can help. I have a tactical instal of BWS, that means dozens of mods. I had your last version installed, so I unnistaled. But now, when I go instal your new version, it auto-updates to the unstable version (23901). Is there a way to prevent weidu to auto update ? I already replaced weidu.exe with the stable version (23900), but all other mods are 23901.It still auto updates. There´s no way I will manually replace each one of those mods with the right version. Any ideas ? Many thanks, and thank you for your awesome work.
Comments
With the Minor NPC Portraits pack, if I installed it after the NPC Project, it would use the portraits from the Minor NPC Portraits pack where available, and the NPC Project portraits for NPCs that were specifically added by the NPC Project. If those weren't given a portrait, they'd receive a random portrait from the Minor NPC Portraits pack.
Did the most recent update in either mod change that feature? I know AstroBryGuy worked on some updates for the portraits, but due to technical issues, is currently unable to continue with his updates.
The code there copies all their portraits to override folder, then overwrites/patches several creatures including ones added to the game by bg1npc and several vanilla npcs such as Elminster and Volo.
My implementation checks if an NPC has a portrait already based of the filename, and if it does have one it doesn't patch a portrait to that creature. Portraits are only copied if this patching occurs rather than as one big copy action as in BG1NPC.
So if you load BG1NPC first, this mod will not overwrite those portraits. If you load my mod first, then BG1NPC second, it will overwrite the portraits from this mod. Either way you'll end up with BG1NPC portraits.
In my opinion, I believe the portraits selections from this mod are better. It would be best if BG1NPC updated their code to not overwrite other mods portraits. But I don't know how development is going with that mod anymore these days. As an alternative, I can, and for this mod only, detect if it's installed and offer portraits that would not overwrite the portraits from PPE and also incorporates portraits from BG1NPC for their mod added NPCs. Only would do this for BG1NPC because of its near universal appeal and because I believe development has pretty much ceased so no further content type updates are likely. If those ideas are wrong, and it's still being developed then best for mod author to address the overwriting code.
If there are conflicts of both mods using the same portrait for a BG1NPC-added NPC, let me know. I was updating the BG1NPC portraits to something better than a scaled up 38x60 bmp. I tried to find the original artwork, but could not find it in many cases. So, I had to find new artwork in those cases.
Note: Part of this update I'm working on renames the portraits to match the BG convention of [CREFILE]s.bmp for a small portrait. So, all BG1NPC-added NPCs will be have portraits starting with "x#".
EDIT: Fixing tags
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1mYN08R-3pMQmM0cHYyUS1uOEE/view?usp=sharing
I had prepared to add a check to PPE if it finds BG1NPC.TP2 component 1 then it would load those portraits against BG1NPC guys as an optional component within PPE.
If possible, can you separate out BG1NPC added NPCs vs vanilla into separate components? I think that way people can load the option for BG1NPC added actors and get the vanilla guys from PPE.
So, is this mod completed now, for BG1, SoD, and BG2?
& IWDEE
not going to try it yet, but i'm in the process of making portraits with a consistent look, so when the project progresses far enough, it might become of interest to you. here's a preview of the orc and half-orc portraits completed so far.
I'm not sure how far you want to go but if you only wanted to cover half orcs and orcs only (hey what about ogres, trolls, goblins, orogs
i'm an ocd completist by nature (and vinyl record collector!), so the short answer is -- all the way / all in. you gave me the idea in fact.
when i found your first iteration of the minor npc portrait pack, i was delighted by the idea -- an endeavor of such scope would inevitably mean that the portraits would be from numerous unrelated sources and styles, however. thus i dabbled around with photoshop, a few filter and color settings until i found something that satisfied me.
the reason i started with orcs is just that i prefer doing them en bloc, meaning that i go by fantasy races and ethnicites rather than by classes or the like.
and there will be trolls, no worries! the unsung heroes and heroines of fantasy, my personal favorites -- too bad there hasn't been a joinable troll npc for baldur's gate so far (note to self -- long-term mod goal).
would you mind sharing that spreadsheet? it would be very helpful, i'm positive. do you happen to have something like that for the characters/npcs as well? i haven't even reinstalled the games yet, because i wanted to have a solid amount of portraits before i started ... (read above, lol)
I'm very ocd completionist as well.
Here's a link to the excel spreadsheet.
https://www.sendspace.com/file/8hhhi5
The EET tab is up to date but doesn't contain IWDEE. There's a "combined tab" with IWDEE that's a fair bit old.
Portraits named S9XXXX in the portrait column are random portraits assigned from the S9MP-CLib.tph
example: If its' race 153 (aka Tiefling) then if it's a male it gets a random male tiefling portrait. The random portraits are in the randomportraits folder.
While they look really consistent to one another, the art style is quite different from the Baldur's Gate style itself, so they'd look out of place next to existing portraits.
I'm making urst natha drow portraits, the vampirized NPC portraits, replacements for low quality bhaalspawn pics all optional.
Cameosis' portraits would be optional too if included alongside this mod here.
one example:
Gnarg Big-Bug - S9ORC8
Orc - S9ORC8
i would prefer picking a unique portrait for every character listed, but if that's not possible, just let me know. cheers.
It's possible to add Gnarg Big-Bug.
If you have a regular portrait for him, I'll add it to the pack. Otherwise I'll add it to the list of things to do.
BDGNARG
Sorry for the misunderstanding, I've had people upset about the beta weidu in another one of my mods:
[MOD] BGEENPC Tweaks for BGEE / SOD / BG2EE / EET and I replaced the version of weidu there. When I replied to you here through the notification I thought I thought this was for that mod not for PPE.
I will get it replaced & tested and upload a new version no later than this weekend as time permits.
In the meantime, suggest installing it last or the exe can be replaced with a 23900 version - but I want to test that before I push it out officially. Long story short - I'll get it as soon as I can.
enjoy
(tagging people who've liked this in the past)
@cameosis @swit @bob_veng @lefreut @Ryz009 @Papa_Lou @Thels @AstroBryGuy @Cahir @Leokosta @megamike15 @Mr2150 @Rodrian @Miridor @lolien @kaguana @JuliusBorisov