NWN: Character portraits
Chris Basken
it out from a standard one for an existing character? I can't believe
Bioware doesn't allow you to change your portrait once it's set...
hmr1
Anyone have any suggestions as they are not loading from portrait file
"Chris Basken" <ch...@nospambasken.com> wrote in message
news:4XQS8.177628$R61....@rwcrnsc52.ops.asp.att.net...
Chris Basken
> "Chris Basken" wrote:
> > Anyone have any success in making a custom character portrait and
swapping
> > it out from a standard one for an existing character? I can't believe
> > Bioware doesn't allow you to change your portrait once it's set...
>
game.
> Anyone have any suggestions as they are not loading from portrait file
Okay, I figured out how to get the portrait in, but you basically need to
hack your saved game file to do it. First thing you need to do is, of
course, create your portrait files. There's a good basic FAQ about it here:
http://iquebec.ifrance.com/aristiana/custom_portraits_nwn.txt (thanks to
Aristiana). You're going to create 5 files of different sizes (the sizes
are listed in that FAQ file). You need to then save them in uncompressed
24-bit TGA format, named identically and ending in H, L, M, S, and T (so,
mycharH.tga, mycharL.tga, mycharM.tga, mycharS.tga, and mycharT.tga). There
are conflicting reports about whether the filename needs to begin with M_ or
F_ (for male and female portraits) -- I went with M_ just to be safe.
If you're creating a new character, all you have to do then is stick these
files in your nwn\portraits directory and they should show up at that point
in the character-creation process. If, like me, you got you char up to 5th
level and then decided to change the portrait, you need to hack.
Get a hex editor (I used UltraEdit -- http://www.ultraedit.com). *Make a
backup of your nwn\saves directory!* Then open up your latest .sav file in
the editor. Search for your character's name. Shortly after the first
instance of your character's name, there will be a little paragraph
describing him/her, then some null characters, then the name of the portrait
you are currently using. This name will be in the same format as your saved
files above, except it won't have the H, L, M, S, or T at the end of it (so
the game can just stick it on when needed) and it won't have the .tga file
extension. NOTE: Your file name minus the end letter and extension MUST be
the same length as what you see in the .sav file, so you may need to rename
your files.
Paste in your portrait file name (again, minus the last letter and
extension) over what you see in the .sav file. Save the .sav file, make
sure your portrait .tga files are in the portraits directory, and load up
your saved game. If you did everything right, you should see your nifty new
portrait in the top right corner of the screen once the game loads (you
won't see it on the load-screen page, because that uses a different .tga
file, but it will be overwritten once you save again).
There's another explanation of the same thing here:
http://nwn.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=65855&forum=48&highlight=
portrait+changing
As someone else suggested, a fun way to generate the basic portrait is to
zoom in on your char and take a screen-shot, then bring it into a graphics
program and crop it out (and perhaps touch it up a bit, in Photoshop you can
smudge it around to make it look less pixelated and polygonal, and more like
a painting). Here's my half-orc, taken from the game screen itself:
http://chriz.basken.com/images/mushagro.jpg
Hope this helps...
Cherubim Dragon
> ight= portrait+changing
>
> As someone else suggested, a fun way to generate the basic portrait is
> to zoom in on your char and take a screen-shot, then bring it into a
> graphics program and crop it out (and perhaps touch it up a bit, in
> Photoshop you can smudge it around to make it look less pixelated and
> polygonal, and more like a painting). Here's my half-orc, taken from
> the game screen itself: http://chriz.basken.com/images/mushagro.jpg
>
> Hope this helps...
>
>
>
thank YOU!!
--
Love, Truth and Courage
Cherubim Dragon of Ultima Dragons