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[Portraits] Neural faces of Baldur's Gate, NPC portrait replacer, BGEE+SOD+BG2EE | UPDATE 2024

ivavlakulivavlakul Member Posts: 41
edited July 4 in BG:EE Mods
Here is a complete portrait replacer for Baldur's Gate EE, SOD, and BG2EE made with InvokeAI and DreamShaper.

Complete Pack
Grab at https://disk.yandex.ru/d/mJQymeL0AnwKjQ
eoebm9wwj1bm.png

NOTE: Duplicates are not bugs, but copies with SOD or BG2 filenames, when necessary.
M-sized portraits are 210*330; L-sized portraits are hi-res 651*1023.
* Did not test it in the wild yet, there might be mistypes in the portrait file names.
** Finch MOD portrait included as a small bonus.

Larger previews incl. L portraits
mieam1gy8hv5.jpg
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Legacy. version(s): BG1&SOD Alternates

There are 5 alternative portraits for each NPC, available both as higher-res png (420*660)px and standard-res bmp (210*330)px.

Note a few more variants at the bottom of the thread, including a small extra-hires set and a NEW mini-pack for BG2

Full roster
g8gdw2myu0sf.jpg

Preview
Ajantis-to-Edwin
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Eldoth-to-Khalid
yud9fjnb49xw.jpg

Kivan-to-Safana
gp9nq6z820mb.jpg

Corwin-to-Xzar
ge2fcy3e1er8.jpg

And lone Yeslick
wwanr8stfw4o.jpg

For a curious reader
This was a crazy effort: 200-500 generated images per NPC plus extra variants, more than 10k total portraits, nearly 1 out of 5 was quickly preselected, and then iteratively filtered by checking for typical artifacts of AI-generated imagery. BTW, extra variants were generated and reconsidered for most promising images (nearly half of the final set). Also, my potato hardware makes only 1-2 images per minute so you can do the math on how long it physically takes even to generate the starting material.

Compared to the original mini-collection, this time all portraits were edited to mask obvious artifacts and cropped so a face takes nearly half of the portrait space.

Neuro-ladies
This started with a smaller pack of portraits for female NPCs, which is still available if you prefer older variants:

210x330 bmps are here.
Higher-res pngs are there

Disclaimer
There are tensions regarding the legal status of the AI art, and the original post was banned from the baldursgate subreddit. Hopefully, this collection does not offend any artists.
Post edited by ivavlakul on
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Comments

  • Ecthelion_TREcthelion_TR Member Posts: 8
    Very cool, with the exception of Viconia all were very good.

    Are you going to do the other npcs? And those of BG2 too?
  • ivavlakulivavlakul Member Posts: 41
    edited February 2023
    Getting unnatural dark skin from Stable diffusion models is tricky as it is intrinsically linked to African face types.
    Here are a few other 'leftover' Viconias, though.

    BTW, there are a few more alternative portraits for other ladies as well, in case you'd like more variety.

    I am still considering to generate male bg1 NPCs for a fresh playthrough, probably it'll be impossible to get a canonical Minsc face tattoo, but including a hamster might be fun.

    3kayy25ycfg2.png
    8xcdwmkwxei8.png
    g0m994vhimyk.png
  • Ecthelion_TREcthelion_TR Member Posts: 8
    edited February 2023
    Understand, the portrait is very good, it's just that for me it's too innocent to be Viconia.... But it can be used for any other npc.
    In my mind Vic always had this kind of dangerous and sensual aura, like all drow.
    More or less like the example below.... Made in Midjourney...... Her hand has six fingers, lol.

    qqtw4akvug2o.png

    I've always looked for something like that, in this type of art.
    And yes, I would like the alternate portraits, maybe I can use them on other npcs. And I hope you make the male npcs, I think they will be interesting.



    Post edited by Ecthelion_TR on
  • ivavlakulivavlakul Member Posts: 41
    edited March 2023
    More or less like the example below.... Made in Midjourney...... Her hand has six fingers, lol
    Midjourney style is very nice, and in general it provides more control over the image, yet the typical issues are often shared with SD-generated images, e.g. the skin color of the body is quite 'natural' and differs from the pale/dark face. Also the elbow/cloak relations are quite peculiar. Yet, it does not matter for a cropped close-up portrait which is indeed great.


    While I struggle with multi-hamster Minscs, here are a few other nice leftovers from the collection of ladies.
    gcr8cew53uqy.png
    y1sshkwx7akg.png
    eudf8xzmu3yy.png
    jklohtrzpicw.png
    inh1lp3qyskg.png
    tguvuhyhic9p.png
    52d0c5sf2upi.png
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    pod1hm6dwwr8.png
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    khog3hoceopz.png
    Post edited by ivavlakul on
  • TrouveurTrouveur Member Posts: 631
    ivavlakul wrote: »
    Getting unnatural dark skin from Stable diffusion models is tricky as it is intrinsically linked to African face types.
    Here are a few other 'leftover' Viconias, though.

    BTW, there are a few more alternative portraits for other ladies as well, in case you'd like more variety.

    I am still considering to generate male bg1 NPCs for a fresh playthrough, probably it'll be impossible to get a canonical Minsc face tattoo, but including a hamster might be fun.


    8xcdwmkwxei8.png
    Thank you, really like this one.
  • GraionDilachGraionDilach Member Posts: 588
    edited February 2023
    I don't know what to think about these ones, tbh. They look fine for NPC mods, but as full replacements, they feel overly idealized and nowhere near as rugged as the BG1 ones. Cool experiment though.
  • ivavlakulivavlakul Member Posts: 41
    I don't know what to think about these ones, tbh. They look fine for NPC mods, but as full replacements, they feel overly idealized and nowhere near as rugged as the BG1 ones. Cool experiment though.

    Sure, the aim was not to replicate the bg1 style although nowadays it might be possible with LoRA. The idea was to get a somewhat consistent set of portraits reflecting a few key character features.

    And yes, the resulting style consistency is not above 'somewhat', or maybe even below o:) but fun nonetheless.
  • ivavlakulivavlakul Member Posts: 41
    Trouveur wrote: »
    Thank you, really like this one.

    Thanks for commenting, quite encouraging. Maybe I will finish the complete set for bg1 someday.
  • GreenerGreener Member Posts: 430
    Absolutely brilliant! I would also encourage you to attempt the male portraits as well
  • EndarireEndarire Member Posts: 1,519
    Why are they "neuro?"

    Thankee!
  • ivavlakulivavlakul Member Posts: 41
    edited February 2023
    Endarire wrote: »
    Why are they "neuro?"
    Theory: cause they are drawn by an artificial neural network.
    Practice: dunno, it just sounds funny.

    Meanwhile male NPC portraits are being baked, and some results are hilarious.
    y3l7f9pdrox3.png

  • PeterBazookaPeterBazooka Member Posts: 9
    I like these a lot. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished results of the male ones.
  • savageksavagek Member Posts: 3
    Really liking these.
  • ivavlakulivavlakul Member Posts: 41
    Once again thank you all for the positive feedback.

    The complete pack (including males and extra female portraits) is already half-done,
    and here is a small teaser of Edwin who did not enter the final shortlist.

    l8oa6ce24nhs.png
  • ivavlakulivavlakul Member Posts: 41
    edited March 2023
    Aaaaand done, just updated the first post in the thread.
    A final note, genuine Minsc with double-Boo.

    9pc8lska7qxw.png
    Post edited by ivavlakul on
  • TrouveurTrouveur Member Posts: 631
    Thank you!
    Definitely like the updated Viconia 2.
    One of Montaron and two of Xzar caught my eyes too.
    Minsc is nice too.

    Do you plan to also do the important NPC like Hood Man, Caelar and Hephernaan?
  • ivavlakulivavlakul Member Posts: 41
    Trouveur wrote: »
    Thank you!
    Definitely like the updated Viconia 2.
    One of Montaron and two of Xzar caught my eyes too.
    Minsc is nice too.

    Do you plan to also do the important NPC like Hood Man, Caelar and Hephernaan?

    Cool, thanks for the feedback!

    *Generating non-joinable NPCs might be interesting but only after BGII facepack, and this project is also on a long sabbatical 'maybe'.
  • ivavlakulivavlakul Member Posts: 41
    edited April 2023
    As the neural portrait pack got a bit more than a humble hundred downloads, here is a small delight. You have probably already spotted bg1/2 portraits enhanced by NNs, and indeed it can be a joyful experiment. Here is Imoen generated from Imoen (yeah, obvious) and from two famous handsome male wizards.
    6k9ox1z15hdw.png
    4n7wyht6hi23.png
    gc06kqpjoyty.png
  • ivavlakulivavlakul Member Posts: 41
    A few delightfully dark alternates for everyone's favorite drow who is not Baeloth.

    0jxkdnnx3ws5.jpg
    9g5150htggol.png
    p0cg77myazkh.png
    qsnads07vasd.png
  • ivavlakulivavlakul Member Posts: 41
    ... and the gloomy elf finally reunited with his Moonblade.
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    sv2jaf2ei0i0.png
  • ivavlakulivavlakul Member Posts: 41
    Hello fellow adventurers!

    As the neural-faces pack has hit 300+ downloads, I am releasing a yet-another bonus.
    Here is a manually and subjectively selected subset of portraits: some are inherited from the original pack, and some are completely new.

    A major feature of this pack is that all portraits were processed with a fancy LDSR upscaling resulting in trembling crispiness for all hires screen users. The pack includes -M and -L portraits, where -M variants are cropped (for in-game sidebar portraits), and -L variants are original uncropped versions (for character record screen), when available.

    ddxdkp8pf8cu.jpg

    The resolution of all files is 1023*651 which is the largest possible for EE to process directly w/o manual resizing (technically it can be even 1024*652, but it has a bit skewed aspect ratio).

    Download link: https://disk.yandex.ru/d/Y51P8Y-7_zK4KA

    Preview of -L portraits:
    wbc5xutljqyi.jpg
  • Allanon81Allanon81 Member Posts: 341
    Need more Assassin, backstab, ninja, tactical types. Other than that these are 😎.
  • ivavlakulivavlakul Member Posts: 41
    edited June 2023
    Allanon81 wrote: »
    Need more Assassin, backstab, ninja, tactical types. Other than that these are 😎.

    You won't believe it B) , but here is a premade set of human and dwarven ninja wannabes. Images are 'neural' as previously and produced with the same setup and lots of retries. No postprocessing except cropping to fit the BG aspect ratio.
    * Not all of them look like ninjas, but probably will do their job for rogue-type characters.
    ** Taken right from the shelf and now only a few shmexy Jaheiras remain there.

    Grab them right now!

    Peek inside:
    ulqmm3g6qmbd.jpg
  • Allanon81Allanon81 Member Posts: 341
    @ivavlakul IMO those dudes look like GQ douche-bags. If you google “assassin d&d” you’ll see more what I’m thinking.
  • ivavlakulivavlakul Member Posts: 41
    edited June 2023
    Allanon81 wrote: »
    @ivavlakul IMO those dudes look like GQ douche-bags. If you google “assassin d&d” you’ll see more what I’m thinking.

    Should be badassier or even more evilish, sure, but I still like the light reflections on some blades and armor.
    Generating such portraits w/o extra object is much easier, but extra stuff like weapons remains problematic for detailed close-up images.

    * Midjourney might be more skillful in terms of artistic style, as in the complete set of NPC portraits from Reverie.

    ** Stable Diffusion models other than DreamShaper (used here) might be also interesting to explore. But this project has already gone too far B).
  • Allanon81Allanon81 Member Posts: 341
    That Viconia is pretty sick. Oh baby!
  • TrouveurTrouveur Member Posts: 631
    I tried some tweaks on some of your portraits (if you're not OK with this just tell me and I will delete my post).

    Xzar :
    v9n6znpya2lx.jpg
    Viconia :
    ph8ti787f855.jpg

    Thanks again for all this work. :-)
  • AerakarAerakar Member Posts: 1,046
    Those are great @Trouveur
  • ivavlakulivavlakul Member Posts: 41
    edited February 17
    Great to see such edits, nice!

    * I consider http://www.wtfpl.net/ as a quite appropriate license for the original images B) if the word 'original' is applicable at all.
  • ivavlakulivavlakul Member Posts: 41
    edited April 28
    Hello fellow adventurers!

    Better late than never: here is another small bonus for the neural portrait pack.
    Meet the fancy Amnish Champions.

    No alternative portraits to select from, but there are crispy-hi-res L-versions inside:
    Grab Here!

    The selection is fully subjective (sure) but kind of matches the initial style of the pack.

    rl8trzijgtmn.jpg
    rsvcdenj0yus.jpg
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