New Character Portraits? Please?

Is there no way to increase the number of portaits that are selectable? I've just spent all morning downloading all the portraits (159 of them) from the site linked above surely it wouldn't take much to add another 23 rows of pictures to the thumbnail display? That's all it would take to be able to have them all available for selection (I think some from icewind dale are be duplicated - I havn't seen any of these pictures yet).

 

Yes indeed, but only at the cost of losing an equal number of the existing portraits beyond the 5 or so you can add. It will also require some experimenting.

Do you have the portraits MES file in your PORTRAITS folder? If so, open it with notepad, locate the listing that corresponds to the portrait set you're looking for (this is where the experimentation comes in), and replace any of the sets under

humans
elves
half-elves
dwarves
halflings
half-orcs

with the data from the source portrait set. The above listings are all selectable in the game for PCs. For example, if you wanted one of your PCs to look like Elmo, you could locate Elmo's portrait info under the NPCs listings, copy it, and past it over a listing for half-orcs that you know you'll never use. Be sure to do so for each of the strings in that portrait set. There are a total of 5, but NPCs don't have a large portrait, so there will be only 4 available. If you have the necessary software you could create a large portrait, but that's for another post . . .

Be sure to back up the portraits file first and rename it. Then save changes and use the new version. Next timer you run ToEE, you'll see Elmo's smiling face in one of the slots for PC portrait selection.

 

OK, here's the dealio (somewhat goofy):

Any portrait slots in the sections I enumerated above have to have one of the following in the first string (the large portrait line):

1. A big portrait designation of one of the PC portraits (can be any)
2. A big custom portrait designation

For some reason the game won't recognize an entry that is blank in the first string, or an entry that contains a big monster or NPC portrait in the first string. I have no idea why. Thus, you can have the RomagCommander guy portrait for one of your PCs if you want, but you can't have his big portrait, the one you see in the character creation area, among others. The big portrait must either be a custom design, or one of the other PC designs. Sorry.

To clarify, here is an example of an entry that would work:

{0550} {HUM_0550_b_sorcerer.tga}
{0551} {NPC_7131_m_RomagCommander.tga}
{0552} {NPC_7132_s_RomagCommander.tga}
{0553} {NPC_7133_s_RomagCommander_grey.tga}
{0554} {NPC_7134_m_RomagCommander_grey.tga}

where line 0550 is the original big portrait for that set. With this you would get the human sorcerer big portrait in-game, with the RomagCommander little portraits.

Another example that would work:

{0550} {Mycustomportrait_BIG.tga}
{0551} {NPC_7131_m_RomagCommander.tga}
{0552} {NPC_7132_s_RomagCommander.tga}
{0553} {NPC_7133_s_RomagCommander_grey.tga}
{0554} {NPC_7134_m_RomagCommander_grey.tga}

where line 0550 is a custom portrait. With this you would likewise get the little RomagCommanders.

If you don't want big portraits that don't correspond to the small ones, one workaround would be to create a blank big portrait and insert it in line 0550. This would effectively illiminate your large portrait. A final solution would be to extract the DAT file that has portrait artwork (ToEE1 I believe) and make custom portraits from RomagCommander's art.

See this thread at Atari http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=318754 for 15 pages of discussion on the matter, if you're so inclined.

Other things to remember:

You should add custom portraits in lines starting with 3070, 3080, 3090, 3100, and 3110 (you add these lines).

You can only have a total of 42 portraits, which means a total of 5 custom unless you want to start replacing others. Just remember that any sets after the 42nd will be inaccessible, whatever the enumeration.

Good luck.