They have all the elements that would be needed to create a more gestural/emotive Character portrait just based on the 3d models and animations that are actually in the game. They have the basic faces, the animated hands and eyebrows and such, the stuff we'be seen during dialog scenes. We have the camera, environments and outfits, the lighting, we can see all that in action while we're playing. What we don't have is a way for the player to use that stuff to generate an image that can then be utilized as the Char sheet.
Basically what I'd want is a suite that gives us control over how the model is being animated - a way to set a scene, and then cap that out - as part of the character creation process.
I'm still surprised that this doesn't exist yet, cause it's definitely a winning idea.
I'm also a big fan of the 2d painted portrait, but I do worry (given recent trends) what an AI assisted portrait generator would yield, or what that would signal in terms of art general direction. Working Artists would instantly balk at that move and rightly so, if it tried to cut them out, in favor of Skynet on the cheap. I think something like that could tank the game's reputation overnight if it wasn't handled correctly, so not sure I'd tempt those fates. In 2d I can imagine someone thinking to do the Lensa type grift, you know like scraping a bunch of material from old fantasy Deviant Art pages or Pinterest or whatever, and giving us the Frankenstein's Blender version. If people are doing that on their own for custom portraits I guess it's whatever, but if it's a built-in thing and part of the official game it needs to be 'trained' on material that's above board. I'm skeptical that AIs would be able to give us what we want.
That said, the concept of using prompts to guide the creation of a visual is sound. We just need it to use the player's Intelligence rather than an artifical one. And artworks/elements designed specifically for the task. D&D's product need a higher ethical standard than a lensa or a midjourney. Instead I think they should hire an ensemble of professionals and have like a whole plan to make it really hum.
Basically you still need a writer (critical), an illustrator, a photographer, several Voice and Motion capture Actors (ideally with a background in performance/theater), the 3d modelers and animators, and Volo to direct ya know.
Instead of the director directing a story, the goal would be to just nail down all those familiar archetypal Character tropes that we all enjoy. The animated visual equivalent of all the many Voice barks I guess, with that same sort of broad spread. Distilling the "Character portrait" down to it's essence, and then just iterate the hell out of it from there. All the over the top stuff that works well in theater when you need to get the point across at a distance, that's what you'd want for something like a stylized Character portrait suite here. I'm not talking about needing anything all that avante guard or spectacularly original. Rather those silly lists of "archetypes" that are used in writing workshops, or for branding... The Leader, The Orphan, the Outsider, The Jester, The Seducer, The Bully... The NPC you've already met etc" Just take that sort of concept and keep riffing on it to you run out of room on the white board lol. The aim would be to create enough material to populate a complete tree of emotive cateries of the sort that the player can then navigate in branches. Broadly divided between heroes and villains, but with a branch of each.
I hope someone does it at some point. Somehow I doubt I'll see that in BG3 though. It's been what, like almost 3 years, and I still can't change the color of my clothes. Still looking at the same heads, still looking the same. But yeah, it'd be cool if they shot for the moon. I'm convinced the first game to nail it down would go full legend, hall of heroes status hehe
