Wowzers! please oh please release these in full resolution. I got a real desire to play through the games again with your portraits! Could you post them please? PM or over on nexus , anything you like, really want to try these out in game, you do amazing work my friend![/quote]
You can just crop them yourself and rename them, they all are 210x330.
@lgoon17 would it be possible for you to share your know-how for the previous portraits you have done (like prompts or reference images)? i mean the ones you were dropping one by one before that big compilation. I would like to try to finish the collection (it lacks Viconia, Imoen, Edwin, Jaheira and Minsc - the returning characters), if you are not going to do this
Wowzers! please oh please release these in full resolution. I got a real desire to play through the games again with your portraits! Could you post them please? PM or over on nexus , anything you like, really want to try these out in game, you do amazing work my friend!
You can just crop them yourself and rename them, they all are 210x330.
Maybe one day I’ll prepare them for actual gameplay and release them as a mod, but for now I don’t have the spare time to do that. That said, all the images in the compilation are 210×330, so anyone can do the work themselves for personal use if the urge becomes unbearable
@lgoon17 would it be possible for you to share your know-how for the previous portraits you have done (like prompts or reference images)? i mean the ones you were dropping one by one before that big compilation. I would like to try to finish the collection (it lacks Viconia, Imoen, Edwin, Jaheira and Minsc - the returning characters), if you are not going to do this
Although I don’t agree with your take that the collection is unfinished (again - for me, nothing is missing), of course I can’t prevent you from doing what you want. I’m not planning to expand the first iteration, and I also didn’t use a single universal AI prompt to generate all the images. Some of them were created quite quickly - from the initial AI sketch to the finished portrait - while others required much more work.
The first step was training ChatGPT to understand what “BG1 style” means by feeding it with original portraits from the game. It didn’t grasp it perfectly, but it was good enough to generate dynamic poses for each character. The next step was always improvisation: tweaking colors, framing, shading, etc. in gimp. Unfortunately, I can’t give you any specifics, because there really aren’t any - it was always about following impressions and personal taste.
Finally, I just wanted to let you all know that there will be a third set as well - a more ‘brutal’ version. It will be posted in this thread in the same format as the previous one.
@lgoon17 please take no offense. I just prefer your earlier work and I think they are really the best NPC portrait variations I have seen until now. Your latter compilation seems to be generic AI to me and doesn't fit to the first ones.
Thank you for the instructions! I hope the third set will be closer to the first one! The 'brutal' take sounds promising here
Hope you don't mind me hijacking your thread momentarily to promote my work. Given the excellence you have on display here, I thought maybe some of my stuff could complement it. 🙂
shaigan22 made a good comment here. I looked at the generated image by DosEquis and I think there is indeed something to conclude somewhat objectively, based on shaigan22. The main question I have is, or rather two:
a) what is a "proper" BG2 theme? (That is, NPC portraits generated "fitting" to such a theme). And
b) which images match to it?
For a) I would think the original BG2 portraits in the mainline campaign, would be closest to the BG2 theme; and probably some of the images elsewhere in the game, e. g. cut-scenes and so forth. Now the question then is: which generated images fit to the theme? I think shaigan22 kind of taps into that related question. I have not yet come to a "final decision" myself, as I can't quite say what a "proper" BG2 theme would be, but I think shaigan22 raised a good point. Perhaps there could be more refinements of any used AI model to generate "closer" images to the theme. But I would not know how that would look like; or how that could be done. It would be nice if someone could give it a try to make reproducible results with different input, e. g. "raw variant 1" and then two or three more refined variants, with the hope that the final variant would be a much closer, more "perfect" representative of a BG2-"proper" image (portrait). (By the way, I think a portrait is a bit different to a full scene.)
@lgoon17 sometimes I am coming back to those first amazing portraits which you created and I feel like crying that this groundbreaking, fresh style won't be continued... their strength is that although they were made with AI, they don't have that typical, nomen omen, artificiality and perfection. You can see the soul, passion and sometimes pain in their eyes when you look at them.
Unfortunately the latest ones look like typical AI portrait pack - same with dozens at nexus mod or so. They are not the same characters anymore. The faces in the most cases are totally different than originals.
I definitely agree that I prefer the first portraits and would love for you to give the rest of them a go in that style, if you're ever feeling inspired. I imagine it was a lot of work, but it really shows in the quality. That said, I completely understand that it's time-consuming and you are happy with the collection as it is. Regardless, thanks for sharing your work with us!
@lgoon17 sometimes I am coming back to those first amazing portraits which you created and I feel like crying that this groundbreaking, fresh style won't be continued... their strength is that although they were made with AI, they don't have that typical, nomen omen, artificiality and perfection. You can see the soul, passion and sometimes pain in their eyes when you look at them.
Unfortunately the latest ones look like typical AI portrait pack - same with dozens at nexus mod or so. They are not the same characters anymore. The faces in the most cases are totally different than originals.
I definitely agree that I prefer the first portraits and would love for you to give the rest of them a go in that style, if you're ever feeling inspired. I imagine it was a lot of work, but it really shows in the quality. That said, I completely understand that it's time-consuming and you are happy with the collection as it is. Regardless, thanks for sharing your work with us!
Wow, I didn’t anticipate the impact that the first set would have on you guys. I’m really glad and very grateful for all your comments and encouragement. That said, it was originally meant to complement the original BG1 portraits, so it wasn’t intended to be continued. In my mind, they are meant to be used in BG2 together with the “old” portraits from the first game. All the work I did was focused on creating portraits of the BG2 companions in the style of BG1. The list was fixed from the beginning.
Later on though, I started to feel a bit uneasy that despite all the effort and dedication, the work wasn’t quite perfect. So I decided to switch to a style more in line with my own taste. Since I was no longer bound by the original framing, I came up with a new set of portraits. I’m definitely much happier with how the third set turned out—although you might not notice it, I smuggled in a few small details here and there so they wouldn’t feel too generic. I’m currently implementing the set into the game, and finally I’m 100% satisfied with how they look and feel during immersive gameplay.
None of the three sets are forced on anyone—but if you feel drawn to any of them, they’re out in the open and free to use. Cheers!
Comments
You can just crop them yourself and rename them, they all are 210x330.
Maybe one day I’ll prepare them for actual gameplay and release them as a mod, but for now I don’t have the spare time to do that. That said, all the images in the compilation are 210×330, so anyone can do the work themselves for personal use if the urge becomes unbearable
Although I don’t agree with your take that the collection is unfinished (again - for me, nothing is missing), of course I can’t prevent you from doing what you want. I’m not planning to expand the first iteration, and I also didn’t use a single universal AI prompt to generate all the images. Some of them were created quite quickly - from the initial AI sketch to the finished portrait - while others required much more work.
The first step was training ChatGPT to understand what “BG1 style” means by feeding it with original portraits from the game. It didn’t grasp it perfectly, but it was good enough to generate dynamic poses for each character. The next step was always improvisation: tweaking colors, framing, shading, etc. in gimp. Unfortunately, I can’t give you any specifics, because there really aren’t any - it was always about following impressions and personal taste.
Finally, I just wanted to let you all know that there will be a third set as well - a more ‘brutal’ version. It will be posted in this thread in the same format as the previous one.
Thank you for the instructions! I hope the third set will be closer to the first one! The 'brutal' take sounds promising here
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/90566/reinventing-the-bg-portraits/p1?new=1
a) what is a "proper" BG2 theme? (That is, NPC portraits generated "fitting" to such a theme). And
b) which images match to it?
For a) I would think the original BG2 portraits in the mainline campaign, would be closest to the BG2 theme; and probably some of the images elsewhere in the game, e. g. cut-scenes and so forth. Now the question then is: which generated images fit to the theme? I think shaigan22 kind of taps into that related question. I have not yet come to a "final decision" myself, as I can't quite say what a "proper" BG2 theme would be, but I think shaigan22 raised a good point. Perhaps there could be more refinements of any used AI model to generate "closer" images to the theme. But I would not know how that would look like; or how that could be done. It would be nice if someone could give it a try to make reproducible results with different input, e. g. "raw variant 1" and then two or three more refined variants, with the hope that the final variant would be a much closer, more "perfect" representative of a BG2-"proper" image (portrait). (By the way, I think a portrait is a bit different to a full scene.)
@lgoon17 sometimes I am coming back to those first amazing portraits which you created and I feel like crying that this groundbreaking, fresh style won't be continued... their strength is that although they were made with AI, they don't have that typical, nomen omen, artificiality and perfection. You can see the soul, passion and sometimes pain in their eyes when you look at them.
Unfortunately the latest ones look like typical AI portrait pack - same with dozens at nexus mod or so. They are not the same characters anymore. The faces in the most cases are totally different than originals.
Wow, I didn’t anticipate the impact that the first set would have on you guys. I’m really glad and very grateful for all your comments and encouragement. That said, it was originally meant to complement the original BG1 portraits, so it wasn’t intended to be continued. In my mind, they are meant to be used in BG2 together with the “old” portraits from the first game. All the work I did was focused on creating portraits of the BG2 companions in the style of BG1. The list was fixed from the beginning.
Later on though, I started to feel a bit uneasy that despite all the effort and dedication, the work wasn’t quite perfect. So I decided to switch to a style more in line with my own taste. Since I was no longer bound by the original framing, I came up with a new set of portraits. I’m definitely much happier with how the third set turned out—although you might not notice it, I smuggled in a few small details here and there so they wouldn’t feel too generic. I’m currently implementing the set into the game, and finally I’m 100% satisfied with how they look and feel during immersive gameplay.
None of the three sets are forced on anyone—but if you feel drawn to any of them, they’re out in the open and free to use. Cheers!