Creating Character Portraits

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How do you create character portraits?

When they are created, please explain how to install them to the game for use (please be very specific, and explain step by step)

Thankyou Geoffrey T

 

Well how comfortable are you with picture editing software and navigating files and folders?

Making the portrait can be a hassle depending on what sort of portrait you want (aka, download a premade one, alter a photo, create one from scratch etc)

Making them show up in the game is as simple as following the instructions in the ReadMe for the game.

• Make the pictures the right sizes (says in the ReadMe what these are)
• Name them properly (maximum of seven letters then L or S depending on size
• Make a 'portraits' folder in the game directory
• Save your new portraits in the 'portraits' folder
• Make a new character and select custom portrait to access it.

 

Your basic Microsoft Paint is a great tool for creating these out of other pictures you may want to use. Here's my advice:

Look in the Readme for the correct picture size
Open up a new Paint file (blank) and go to the Image menu
Select Attributes
Set the Width and Height to the dimensions given +2 (you'll see why the +2 in a sec)
Set the 'Units' in that same menu to Pixels (if not default)
In your blank picture, select the rectangle tool and make a frame around the whole picture (this uses 1 pixel on each side, thus the +2 on your Width and Height)
Now open up the picture you want to make into a portrait, while keeping the blank open
In the Picture, go to the Image menu and de-select 'Draw Opaque'

Now you have a 'frame' image you can copy out of one file and paste into the other, to see exactly how much of it you can fit into the portrait. You won't want the frame to actually set on the picture until you've got it the way you want it, so for now just paste it in, move it around, and then delete it. You'll see how much you may want to shrink or expand the Picture by with this.

The easiest way to do this is to select Image->Resize/Skew and play with those percentages. Make sure the Horizontal and Vertical percentages are the same so that the image isn't distorted.

Now, play around with those until you have it where you want it. You may want to paste the frame back in a couple of times to see how close you are. Then, once you have it perfect, let the frame set and use the rectangular select tool to select the image inside the frame. Paste that in your 'Frame' file and set the size to the appropriate numbers (just subtract 2 from each). Then, save your portrait as the right name.

Now, you've only made one of a pair, either the small one or the large one. If you made the large one first, you may want to make the small one out of that, as it may already be close to the right size. Either way, it's just a matter of repeating the process with the other size.

That may sound complicated, but it's really pretty simple once you've done it once or twice.

As for installation, it's just a matter of putting those files into a Portraits folder in your Icewind Dale directory. You'll probably have to make the folder, but that's no problem.

 

Thankyou both very much. I am going to try that now. I'll tell you how it goes

 

Thankyou both very much. I am going to try that now. I'll tell you how it goes . It worked Like a champ. Now I'm stuck. My characters go to Hrothgar and he says they're ready to leave and then the screen freezes in the pass. The characters talk but can't move. What's up?

 

Do you have the patch installed? Do you have any expansions installed?