I don't think it works that way, nor has it ever worked that way...
"However, one thing--I want the PC portraits to be COMPLETELY SEPARATE from the portraits given to companions. I do NOT want to be able to select a portrait that would be assigned to a companion. This drove me NUTS about Baldur's Gate when I found out that I'd made MY character look like Jaheira and now Jaheira looked like someone else. Dumbest design choice EVAR. "
There we go, I was almost certain, while not sure this was the case...
That in mind, if I replaced Haer'Dalis original portrait with this unique fan created one... It would work the same yes? I haven't tested the portrait alteration in BG:EE as of yet...
I'll make a Female with Imoen portrait after and test to see if it remains the same, I will report back!
Okay, don't flame me for being naive xD... How do I go abouts obtaining these portraits, (or any I find on the forums?) A simple Rught+CLick and Save Picture? If so, do I need to edit their scale value at all? Beyond that... Where do I place them so that I may use them in game? I do not recall seeing a 'Custom Portrait' option when selecting a portrait for your character. Any and all help would be most appreciated... Also, for anyone who has tried some of these, (Especially Heimdall) contrastly, do they flow with the current in game portraits?
Furthermore, are we able to edit an NPC's portrait file and alter it to a custom one? (No modding involved, as this point I do not want to mod BG:EE period)
I just created an Imoen lookalike to see if this was right. It is. Consider my mind blown. I've been playing Baldur's Gate since 1998 and there's still stuff I never found.
I guess I always used to use "Abdel" or Eldoth's portraits (and why would I bring him along?) so it's passed me by.
This first happened to me with Edwin back in the day, because his BG1 portrait is boss. But then I largely ended up playing a female character and used the standard 'Woman2' portrait (the Knight/Paladin-y one). Since then I've mainly used custom portraits, but I still remember it from the early days.
Some of the alternate portraits people select are kinda weird, though. I've heard that Dorn becomes Abdel if you use his default (lolWut?).
@Slytherz I don't think it works that way, nor has it ever worked that way...
Actually, it does work like that, and it has always worked like that - one of the little touches that I loved about the games. If the portrait you choose from the in-game selection happens to belong to an NPC, that NPC will be using one of the 'spare' portraits in this particular playthrough.
How do I go abouts obtaining these portraits, (or any I find on the forums?) A simple Rught+CLick and Save Picture? If so, do I need to edit their scale value at all? Beyond that... Where do I place them so that I may use them in game? I do not recall seeing a 'Custom Portrait' option when selecting a portrait for your character. Any and all help would be most appreciated...
A great amount of game-ready portraits can be found at our forum dropbox - check this thread. http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/8413/bgee-custom-portraits-dropbox-lets-compile-them-all-here-1300-sets-now-with-soundsets-section/p1 -( it's also linked in the first post of this thread). If you don't feel like digging through the insane amount of pics available there, yes, save the pictures the way you described, and then make sure that they are properly sized and named - the name has to have less than 8 characters, and end with letters L, M, S, for sizes 210x330, 169x266 and 54x84 respectively. Also make sure that they are saved as .bmp files with 24bit color depth.
Once you have the portraits, appropriately formatted and named, you need to put them in My documents\Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition\Portraits folder. If there's no 'Portraits' folder in this location, just create one. Once there's a 'Portrait' folder with some portraits in it, the 'custom portrait' button in the character creation screen will appear, and you can pick your custom pics under it. There's an exception - if your pics are named after existing NPCs (NeeraL, BranweL, MontarL, XanL, etc (note that longer names are shortened)), the game treats them as default portraits for those NPCs. They will replace the original ones in-game, and they'll be available among the default pic selection, instead of the original ones. I'm not sure if it will be the same in BG2:EE, but in BG2, if you named your pics NhaerL, NhaerM, NhaerS, they would replace the original one. Then, if you picked this pic for your PC, Haer'dalis would get a new portrait - possibly the one of the goofy-looking elf. However, if you name the pics by any other name, it would be available for you PC under 'custom portraits', while Haer'dalis would get to keep his old image. Then, if you recruited him, you could pretend you're the long lost twins. ;P
...please let me know if I'm completely unintelligible up there. It all makes perfect sense when I think it, but I often fail to transfer the sense on the page.
Makes sense to me, I understood to rename a custom portait with a real NPC name (Max 8 letters in their name) with L,M,S at the end (respectively) and that would replace there portrait in game... Now, is it effective only on new play throughs or if I load a saved game it would just 'replace?" One more inquisition, in what aspect do I apply the L,M,S? I feel soo much like a noob haha
Makes sense to me, I understood to rename a custom portait with a real NPC name (Max 8 letters in their name) with L,M,S at the end (respectively) and that would replace there portrait in game... Now, is it effective only on new play throughs or if I load a saved game it would just 'replace?" One more inquisition, in what aspect do I apply the L,M,S? I feel soo much like a noob haha
Overriding the NPC portraits via the method you outline will work whenever you do it, so feel free to change them as many times as you want.
Be warned that there are odd names that are not quite the same. Branwen's portrait, for example, is 'Branwe', Shar-Teel's is 'Shartel' and Montaron's is 'Montar' (obviously with the L, M, or S at the end). there might be others I can't remember. The BG2 portraits tend to have 'N' in front of them (Imoen is NImoen, for example.) I believe Haer'Dalis is 'NHaer'.
Makes sense to me, I understood to rename a custom portait with a real NPC name (Max 8 letters in their name) with L,M,S at the end (respectively) and that would replace there portrait in game... Now, is it effective only on new play throughs or if I load a saved game it would just 'replace?" One more inquisition, in what aspect do I apply the L,M,S? I feel soo much like a noob haha
Overriding the NPC portraits via the method you outline will work whenever you do it, so feel free to change them as many times as you want.
Be warned that there are odd names that are not quite the same. Branwen's portrait, for example, is 'Branwe', Shar-Teel's is 'Shartel' and Montaron's is 'Montar' (obviously with the L, M, or S at the end). there might be others I can't remember. The BG2 portraits tend to have 'N' in front of them (Imoen is NImoen, for example.) I believe Haer'Dalis is 'NHaer'.
When do I apply L,M,S? I'm unsure how that applies as in game I only see the portrait on the right, and engaging in dialogue I believe the portrait is same size? Or, do I need to add one of each (An L,M and an S) and the game sorts out when to apply each one?
@Slytherz: M is the picture on the the Record sheet, S is the one you see at the side of the screen (and in dialogue) (L is used on the character-creation portrait selection and in the epilogues in Throne of Bhaal, but nowhere else). So you only really need S&M.
In the current beta the game will automatically resize portraits to a degree, and will also automatically downside a M or L sized image to the small one used on the right sidebar. This definitely happens for player characters, I don't know if it works for NPC portrait replacement yet.
Huh. Apparently, the thread got deleted because of several cases of plagiarism? The dropbox still is out there, though. I hope this link works: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gsn24bgwwu0gyqw/bV-5phrjwu login: tc@hotmail.com, password: dropbox
....damn, I do hope this thread doesn't get deleted because I just posted this link here... Dear Mods, if I'm violating any rules here, please give me a stern warning before taking any drastic actions, pretty please?
In conjunction with importing custom portraits... I have some that are not properly sized and need ot be resized. I manually did it on a few, which I used paint. However to do that was a gruelinig process, are there any tools or programs out there that assist with resizing a photo while keeping its texture quality? Like with paint you can set the 'portrait size' however, it alters the size of the file and not the portrait.. So I had to use a ruler and determine where (visually) the bitmap lower right corner was and then manually re crop the portrait size to align... As I said gruelign and painful... Any assistance is greatly appreciated.
In conjunction with importing custom portraits... I have some that are not properly sized and need ot be resized. I manually did it on a few, which I used paint. However to do that was a gruelinig process, are there any tools or programs out there that assist with resizing a photo while keeping its texture quality? Like with paint you can set the 'portrait size' however, it alters the size of the file and not the portrait.. So I had to use a ruler and determine where (visually) the bitmap lower right corner was and then manually re crop the portrait size to align... As I said gruelign and painful... Any assistance is greatly appreciated.
In the next EE patch (in beta), the game automatically resizes portraits for you.
@Slytherz I'd recommend getting GIMP, but while it's an awesome program, it can be confusing at first. There was someone here at the forum who made a program specifically for making BG:EE friendly pics - I didn't use it, but from the description, you only have to indicate what part of the picture you want to save, and under what name, and the program does the rest - it creates three appropriately named files you can put in you Portrait's folder. I'm not sure when I saw it, though. Try searching the 'Fan Art' and 'Modding' threads for it.
After staying up all night, I think I've made significant progress in the quality of my portraits. Gone are the days where I cover that difficult armour with cloaks! Instead I just flip that layer around and with a bit of fiddling, voila - hair.
Who's a pretty little paladin?
I'll give him proper hair later on, when I've finished fine-tuning the armour and face.
guys and girls i want to make in BG.EE monk, and i need some epic pick for my hero. Yesterday i watched BLACK DYNAMITE, and this movie kick ass. I really want make a black dynamite in D&D world so this is a picks what i found and i please to some talented ppl to make this a pick to BG.EE thx
Bah! Where are all the gnome portraits at? :P More particularly, where are the Gnome Cleric/Illusionist portraits at? :P
I made this for an evil gnome Thief/Cleric. You know, the type that really tries to be nice and do good, but accidentally and repeatedly backstabs everyone, after raising a few skeleton warriors and buffing himself to even more godlike stats.
Comments
http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/61774-do-you-want-your-character-portraits-to-be-like-baldurs-gate-or-nwn2/page-2
Half way down the page.. #29
There we go, I was almost certain, while not sure this was the case...
That in mind, if I replaced Haer'Dalis original portrait with this unique fan created one... It would work the same yes? I haven't tested the portrait alteration in BG:EE as of yet...
I'll make a Female with Imoen portrait after and test to see if it remains the same, I will report back!
I guess I always used to use "Abdel" or Eldoth's portraits (and why would I bring him along?) so it's passed me by.
Some of the alternate portraits people select are kinda weird, though. I've heard that Dorn becomes Abdel if you use his default (lolWut?).
Be warned that there are odd names that are not quite the same. Branwen's portrait, for example, is 'Branwe', Shar-Teel's is 'Shartel' and Montaron's is 'Montar' (obviously with the L, M, or S at the end). there might be others I can't remember. The BG2 portraits tend to have 'N' in front of them (Imoen is NImoen, for example.) I believe Haer'Dalis is 'NHaer'.
I can't access, says I do not have permission O.o
The dropbox still is out there, though. I hope this link works: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gsn24bgwwu0gyqw/bV-5phrjwu login: tc@hotmail.com, password: dropbox
....damn, I do hope this thread doesn't get deleted because I just posted this link here... Dear Mods, if I'm violating any rules here, please give me a stern warning before taking any drastic actions, pretty please?
Who's a pretty little paladin?
I'll give him proper hair later on, when I've finished fine-tuning the armour and face.
http://d1oi7t5trwfj5d.cloudfront.net/93/1858a0189b11e2864622000a1d0930/file/michaeljaiwhite-blackdynamite.jpg
http://blog.seattlepi.com/peoplescritic/files/library/mjw.jpg
"DO NOT DISTURB MY KUNG FU !!! "
I'll call her Locha, due to her low CHA. Perfect for BGII.
Other than that, awesome.
And my unphotoshopped eyes are fortunately slightly less creepy: :-D