NPC portrait mod?

[Rabain]

Well considering they all have the same prefix...it shouldn't make it difficult to find the portrait you actually want to use.

 

Also you only have to do this once in each game you play...would you prefer your game slowed to a crawl due to an overloaded Override?

 

Some people have no issues with the override, others do. It's a small price to pay I think.

[Steve]

According to this: http://iesdp.gibberlings3.net/misc/override.htm

the game searches Portraits before it searches Override, so it's going to slow down the game in either case. Have you thought about putting them in a BIF?

[Rabain]

That is discussed above in this topic. I'm not sure if Portraits folder acts as an Override for all file types...just portraits.

 

So while they are in there it would be easier for the game to find them...(seeing as there is nothing else in there) than if they were bloating the override where 99.9% of mod content goes.

 

From the discussion above I don't think biffing will help much and may cause issues of its own.

[ericp07]

Check this out!

 

I installed the mod, and today I was looking in my portraits folder to make sure all names conformed to the "8.3" character limitation (this is where file renaming apps come in soooo handy!), when I noticed that all the images the mod installs were already located in that folder No need to move anything. This was either intelligent design at work, or else a lucky random thing.

 

Has this happened to anyone else? Just a reminder: I use a Mac.

 

Happy gaming,

Eric

[Rabain]

Yes the installation puts the portraits in the Portraits folder...then patches the cre file in the Override with the portrait name.

[Miloch]

Finally got around to looking at this. Had a few observations:

 

1. WeiDU v160 (heh - I think the latest is v203). This had the annoying side-effect of creating a "weidu.lock" file after it tried to auto-update. But it wouldn't auto-update even after multiple attempts and deleting that file, so I had to delete the .exe and recreate it from another mod.

 

2. Thumbs.db in most folders - this is useless Windows cruft that results from viewing images in "thumbnail" format. It serves no purpose in a mod and can increase the mod size dramatically.

 

3. It installs successfully, but I'm thinking there's a way you can shorten your code by using SOURCE_RES or something. Of course, then you'd have to match your portrait names with the CRE names, but whatever... something to think of for a future release anyway.

 

4. Most of the portraits are 24-bit instead of 8-bit. They'll probably work in most cases, but are twice as big as they need to be (7-8k instead of 4k) and the official format for small portraits is 8-bit 38x60 (see the "Custom Portraits" section in your BG2/readme.txt). You could probably get a filter to fix these in bulk, but I'd make sure it's smart enough (I use optimised octree, error diffusion and reduce colour bleeding in PSP to avoid loss) and check the output. Might want to apply a Sharpen filter while you're at it. You can see which need to be fixed by sorting them on size (anything > 4k is probably off).

 

5. The two sample CREs I gave above (Neb and Lissa) get different portraits which are decidedly un-gnomelike (even un-dwarflike for that matter).

 

6. Some portraits are off by a few pixels, like 39x60, 38x59 or even 40x62. This is definitely going to be noticeable for small portraits, if they'll even display at all (they will if smaller but not if larger, or something like that). There's an easy way to check this in Windows - go to "Details" instead of "Thumbnail" view, then right click on the menu bar (where you see filename, size, etc.) then choose "More..." and "Dimensions" to appear in the menu bar. Then you can sort it to see the ones that are off. There's quite a few.

 

More to think of for the future:

a) Set CRE colours to match the portraits if necessary (or vice-versa, which would be more work, but more authentic)

b) Run portraits through a "Baldurising" filter (like this one, though it'd probably need to be tweaked specifically for small portraits).

c) Experiment with GIF-BMP conversion vs. potential mod size savings

 

I do like how you've got separate folders by race. It helps to some extent so modders make sure they're not using a portrait for one CRE you've already used for a different CRE.

[Rabain]

Thanks for the feedback:

 

1. I'll update that, I have weidu 202 I think...just didn't have it when I prepared this.

 

2. I actually thought of this when I was packaging the mod but for the life of me I cannot get windows to show me the thumbs.db even by searching for it through the folders. I can see hidden files...just can't seem to see this one.

 

3. I'm afraid such weidu tomfoolery is beyond me at the moment. I would prefer not to use cre name as portrait name...if only to make it easier for players/modders to differentiate my material from others.

 

4. Every resizer I have tried has completely screwed the image clarity when changing to anything other than what it is now. If I just resize the width/height it is fine. As soon as I change the bit depth...image gets wasted...it ends up all washed out. When I use 256K (8bit) I actually end up increasing file size. I am currently using Faststone viewer for these changes.

 

5. I actually thought bkdwf67 was perfect for Neb...he is a bit crazy. I didn't think it was un-gnomelike...perhaps undwarflike. Lissa is who? Something to do with Jan?

 

6. Changes can be done easily though I think at this image size the effect in game is minimal.

 

---------

 

The cre colours were definately waiting until I got more feedback, I don't want to be constantly changing colours as people advise changes to portraits.

 

My lack of success with conversion tools doesn't fill me with confidence with regard to any conversion from the existing format.

 

Thanks for the input, I'll continue to work on the issues mentioned.

[Miloch]

2. I actually thought of this when I was packaging the mod but for the life of me I cannot get windows to show me the thumbs.db even by searching for it through the folders. I can see hidden files...just can't seem to see this one.

Weird. If you go to Tools > Folder Options > View in Explorer and turn off "Hide extensions" and "Hide protected OS files" and turn on Show hidden files, you should see them.

4. Every resizer I have tried has completely screwed the image clarity when changing to anything other than what it is now. If I just resize the width/height it is fine. As soon as I change the bit depth...image gets wasted...it ends up all washed out. When I use 256K (8bit) I actually end up increasing file size. I am currently using Faststone viewer for these changes.

There really should be no loss at all when converting a 38x60 image to 8-bit. You need a tool that can do an octree reduction - maybe try this or something (download the Tinter executable toward the bottom of the page). If you don't have much luck, I can try to run a PSP script on them too.

5. I actually thought bkdwf67 was perfect for Neb...he is a bit crazy. I didn't think it was un-gnomelike...perhaps undwarflike.

Compare the portrait to misc9h.itm.

He has no helmet and not much of a beard.

Yours Mine

Lissa is who? Something to do with Jan?

Yes - we use her in Aurora too. She is also a gnome with no helmet.

Yours Mine

Admittedly, neither looks much like a gnome, but female gnomes are tough to find portraits for. Incidentally, I reduced both of yours to 8-bit with no loss, and sharpened the latter, since it was pretty blurry.

6. Changes can be done easily though I think at this image size the effect in game is minimal.

It is especially noticeable for small portraits, not so much for large. As I said, I'm not sure some will even display if they're larger than the required size.

 

BG1NPC uses some of these (such as BKfdwf6), which BGT users may notice. You might try running something like VisiPics to filter out such duplicates. Except for the characters that appear in both BG1 and BG2 (Elminster, Volo, etc.) - for those, we might want to standardise portraits.

[ericp07]

Hello,

 

I'm pleased to report that this mod works perfectly in my highly convoluted (read: many mods installed!) BGII configuration I like being able to see faces of people and creatures, where before there were none. Nice one!

 

Cheers,

Eric

[kungfuhobbit]

Ive enjoyed using this heavily modified version of NSC portraits for BGT for years now.

https://docs.google....dit?usp=sharing

 

I have compiled it from many high quality sources and havent put it online because I cant credit every source of artwork.

plasmocat and enkida are in there for a start I think

Even though artwork cant be fully credited - which isnt desirable etiquette - Im sharing it for others to enjoy.