Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Modding The Portraits

So I think what is needed for this game is some sort of stand alone portrait previewer or portrait creator right?



Currently the background gradient color and the pose seems to be gated by race and body type. So the Gith have the same color background, all tiefs have the same sorta angle on their horns, the elves all have the same glance over the shoulder in green etc. I haven't seen anything there outside of the race selection which really changes that, but presumably they have a way to do the color at least and the basic pose since we can see many examples among the npc portraits. The way the figure is lit seems to key off the environment, which sometimes has the hair looking wild and off hue. Anyhow a previewer would be nice.

Many imps had to die and about an hour was killed just for me to produce that quickie example image showing the default portraits next to their avatars lol. There must be a better way right?

Having a nice expressive portrait with an associated color would be a big deal, even if it was still just using the available models for the faces.

If we could do uplighting or sidelight, things like that could also make a big difference. Clearly it works with the same stuff as the avatar since we can see many of our choices represented there. But then the portrait itself can sometimes go haywire. I've seen it where it seems to be very dimly lit, and then in another instance just the hair became more pixaled, little stuff like that which signals that it's being generated on the fly.

Does anyone have any more information on how that image itself is generated or if those files can be accessed outside of the game?

Whatever combination is currently available, if you could just do the color field in a simple gradient with choices from the palette and we'd get a lot of mileage out of that. I think a mod which was basically a portrait suite would be very popular.

The models here are nice and the overall presentation is good. As more heads are made available having new ways to differentiate the images by the simple color gradient or expression would be cool. You know like if there's a way to put the Elf or the Tiefling into the Halfing's portrait pose, or the Human into the Drow pose, or whatever, and then just change the background color with a mini palette like the makeup. It's kinda wild to me that we can control the level of sheen or metallic lip gloss, but something like major color for the portrait itself is no dice? We are able to put a lot of detail into the avatar and face, but then we get to the portrait and really have no control over that image, even though we see it up at all times pretty much everywhere. Least as important as being able to see the cinemascope view of the face.

A mod which could fix that and give us a major minor color there at least would be most well received!

Here is an example of an Origin portrait going haywire...



You can see Lae'zel's face is completely silhouetted there.

I've seen this happen at various points with different characters, a couple times with the PC. It's unclear what causes it or how to fix it. Like if it happens by the save or if dismissing and re-recruiting the companion is the trick? I think I've seen it crack off on area transition autosave and lvl up, maybe changing light source not sure exactly, but it shows an example of the portrait that suggests the lighting could be controlled.

I think having the portrait change dynamically is potentially interesting like for status effects, but in general I think it should be more used to cap out a cool image that fits your PC as best as the scheme can allow with these portraits. But then also, if something got broke along the way there like a face completely in shadow, that the player could fix that, by resetting the lighting condition for the portrait or "turning off dynamic portrait lighting" or something along those lines.

Ideally you want the same lighting conditions in the Char creator that you'd see in the portrait, so the choices there can translate. If the player had more to play with here so we could have expressions on the faces and do the angles or crops or colors in various ways for the little status portrait, that would be pretty huge. Part of what makes the portrait tough in 2d is to get something that is cohesive in the overall look from one portrait to the next. Here the portrait is generated from a model and the look is cohesive (we all have the same basic building blocks or the same box of crayons for faces and such, like in MP) so it just needs that last step where the player can customize it so they aren't all deadpan. I'd like to see all faces for all races, however many there are, since we've seen how that can be done. With more control over the portrait presentation and a way to see it before the main campaign is launched, combined with the dress-em up concept, char creation would become a lot more engaging and pretty much endless once you got enough heads and trims and duds hehe.

ps. seeing the darkly lit skiagramed Lae'zel mug makes me think that under the right lighting any of these models could get the mysterious look, which could placeholder for any mod overlay. Like were you can choose your default unmodded look in the case of MP in case the other player didn't have the same model that the avatar/portrait in that case would generate something reasonable. For me the blacked out portrait is a play busting occurrence (happened earlier today, new game in patch 1.) Couldn't get it to resolve, had to start over. Having a a portrait go haywire is a show stopper for me hehe

Not quite what you are looking for but it's a start?

Iconic Portrait Equipment
https://www.nexusmods.com/baldursgate3/mods/1548

Yeah updating to reflect the equipment or outfits would be a plus. I think I'd like the choice there to save out a new look with new duds, or maybe keep an old look for the portrait, basically I just want to see what all is available and how the headshot portraits were generated. The Portraits for the Origins and major NPCs are quite nice.

Seeing stuff like this on nexus also makes me very happy... which just adds some of the NPC favs as hirelings but shows their status portrait. You can see all these in combat or examine in-game, but it's cool to see them next to the avatar like that. I'd be curious to see what can be done with these, cause customizing the portrait stuff for the PC would be a lot of fun. I think getting Tav options more in line with these and previewed in Char creation would be a good first step to build out that part of characterization. We interact with the mini headshot all over.