HOWTO: Portraits

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Like the other Infinity Engine games, IWD:EE lets you use custom portraits. Here's how:

Step 1: Create the portrait images

For each character for whom you want to have a custom portrait, you should create two images, one for the character record screen and one for the sidebar:



The image sizes and other recommendation listed in that diagram are used by all the built-in portraits, but you don't have to follow them exactly for your custom ones. (The game is capable of resizing them as needed.)
However, you do need to:

• crop each image to show the exact content you want
• make sure the aspect ratio matches that of the recommended size (otherwise the images will look squeezed in-game)
• make sure the images are not wider than 1024 pixels (because the game engine cannot handle that)
• save the images in the 24-bit bitmap (.BMP) format.
• give them filenames that are only up to 8 letters long and don't contain spaces (for example Monk01L.bmp and Monk01M.bmp)

Step 2: Install the portrait images

To install a portrait, copy both images into the game's portrait folder. Unlike with the original IWD game, that folder is not inside the directory where the game itself is installed, but rather located at:

• "My Documents\Icewind Dale - Enhanced Edition\portraits\" -- on Windows
• "/home/$USER/.local/share/Icewind Dale - Enhanced Edition/portraits/" -- on Linux

(If it does not exist, simply create it.)


Step 3: Select the portrait images in-game

When you get to the portrait selection screen in-game (either during character generation, or by going to the character record screen and clicking Customize > Appearance), simply click the button that reads "CUSTOM":



...and it will show all installed custom portrait files for you to choose from.

Hint: If the button does not show up for you, it means that the game can't find any valid custom portrait files. Double-check the location of the portraits folder, and the file format & names of the images.


Appendix: Official portraits

For your convenience, here's an overview of all portraits that are already bundled with the game:

Spoiler

 

Where is the custom button? After choosing gender I am only getting the right and left arrows to scroll thru the pics. I have the portraits folder created in the My Documents/IWDEE folder as described above. My pics are in that folder. Named properly....

 

The button appears right below the pic with the right and left arrows (I've added a screenshot to the OP).

But after some experimentation, I've confirmed that it only appears when the correct portraits folder exists and there's at least one valid BMP file in it.

Here's an example BMP file that works for me: https://www.dropbox.com/s/l0jyrpg3as7313h/IHMF1_L.bmp?dl=1
Try it with that one; that should help you find out whether your problem is with your files or with the location of your portraits folder.

 

Thanks Ineth. I 'll give it a whirl tonight and repost on my success or failure.

---------- Added 8 hours, 59 minutes and 20 seconds later... ----------

Aaahhh.....easy enough. Thanks Ineth. Tinkered with a few photos. They seem to work.