I found this while researching how exactly to do custom portraits. This is the tutorial provided by the guy (Chris Glenn) who did the artwork for Troika on ToEE. It explains everything, but I've still got some work to do to master it. I just thought it might help explain some of the things we still didn't get about why the portraits work the way that they do...and maybe why it still seems buggy sometimes. Following the direction of the artist who worked on the project ought to have everyone's pictures working fine. The tutorial is on his website: http://www.cglenn.com/ There's lots of cool stuff there, including ToEE concept art, and stuff from the post-apocalypse Troika game, too. Under the 2d section, he reports having made almost 400 character portraits for the game; take a look, and you'll see some that you've not seen before. Too bad we can't get access to them. Also, you get to see how he does skins to wrap around the 3d models for ToEE if you surf far enough. Now I'm off to see if I can master something related to modding.... ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Importing Custom Player Portraits into Temple of Elemental Evil v1.0 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer :: This is totally unnofficial. Troika Games and Atari take no responsibilty if importing custom portraits breaks your game. Use at your own risk. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents :: A. Creating the directories B. Making portrait art C. Editing the portrait.mes file D. Testing in game -------------------------------------------------------------------- A. Creating the directories :: 1. Locate the directory where Temple of Elemenetal Evil (ToEE) was installed. By default this will be in C:\Program Files\Atari\Temple of Elemental Evil 2. Open the data folder, then open the art folder. Create a new folder, and name it "interface" 3. Within the interface folder, create a new folder and call it "PORTRAITS" 4. You should have the following directory path: ...\Temple of Elemental Evil\data\art\interface\PORTRAITS 5. Download this Zip file if you haven't already done so: http://www.cglenn.com/tools/ToEE_CustomPortraits.zip 6. Place the contents of the zip file (except for the readme.txt, leave that out) inside the PORTRAITS folder. You should have 5 image files in targa (.tga) format, as well as a portrait.mes file. 7. The five image files are temporary portrait art that you will need to replace with your own custom art. If you run the game and create a new character, in the Portrait section of the character creation you will see a yellow smiley face as a portrait option. That is the temp art. -------------------------------------------------------------------- B. Making the portrait art :: 1. In order to import a functioning portrait you need five 32bit .tga files. They are as follows: a. The Big portrait: This is the larger portrait art displayed in the character inventory. It is 130w x 150h. It has an alpha channel which is completely white. b. The Mini portrait: This is the portrait displayed in the "mini" initiative bar. It is 42w x 37h. It has an alpha channel that is completely white except it has a one pixel border of black. View the temp art in Photoshop for a clearer understanding. The pixel border of alpha is to eleviate anit-aliasing of the edge of the portait art. c. The Small portrait: This is the portrait displayed in the character's window at the bottom and also in the regular initiative bar. It is 53w x 47h. It also has a one pixel border of alpha just like the mini portraits d. The Small Grey portrait: This is exactly the same as the Small portrait except the art is completely black and white. This is displayed when a PC dies. e. The Mini Grey portrait: This is exactly the same as the Mini portrait except the art is completely black and white. This is displayed when a PC dies. 2. Basically, all you need to do is create the five image files in the correct sizes, and make sure they have alpha channels. You can name them whatever you want, just save them into the ...\Temple of Elemental Evil\data\art\interface\PORTRAITS directory. -------------------------------------------------------------------- C. Editing the portrait.mes file :: 1. Open the portrait.mes file in a text editor like Notepad. 2. The portrait.mes file lists every portrait in the game. Is is seperated into three sections: PCs, Monsters, and NPCs. What you need to do is add an entry for your custom portrait at the end of the PC section. In the portait.mes file I provided I made the following entry at the end of the PC section: {3070} {CustomPortrait_BIG.tga} {3071} {CustomPortrait_MINI.tga} {3072} {CustomPortrait_SMALL.tga} {3073} {CustomPortrait_SMALL_GREY.tga} {3074} {CustomPortrait_MINI_GREY.tga} As you can see, all five images are represented. All you need to do is make a new bank for your portrait, and type in the name of each respective portrait tga file. You can name your portraits whatever you like, but the order that they are listed is very important. The code only reads the numbers, not the names, so it knows that the first portrait entry is always the Big portrait, the second listed is the Mini, etc, etc. 3. That's it really. Make some art to the correct size, save them into the correct directory, edit the portrait.mes file with the new bank of portrait art, and run the game. -------------------------------------------------------------------- D. Testing in game :: 1. Run the game, start a new game, and create a new character. When you get to the portrait section, you should see your new portraits displayed.
Interestingly, that's a link to the same file (ToEE_CustomPortraits.zip) that "dimension_dave" AKA "devil of all rumours" AKA "domonater" posted a while ago in this other thread. Mystary! Are Lord_Spike and domonater the same person? Is this a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde kind of thing? The plot thickens ... aranoid:
so with Lord Spike on my buddy list and dominator of all dimentional devils on my ignore list I just don't know what to think now :sadblinky
I made ToEE-ready portrait sets of four portraits from Chris Glenn's site that Spike linked to above, if anybody's interested. They include Wrench and the cute elf NPC girl from the game, as well as two portraits that I suspect were going to be for "Troika's Upcoming Post-Apocolyptic RPG." Feel free to do with them whatever you like.
Yeah, but the fact that he's doing it in his basement shop with miniatures, a hacksaw, and sandpaper might call into question its compatability with other Co8 material! oke: (Just playing, Spike. I mod in my basement shop too; but at least I use a skillsaw. :biggergri )
Portraits...not going well. I've got to figure out how to do more with my photo editor to make it work. I picked up some great pictures from the dungeons website...now I've got to rescale them properly to work with toee. And I haven't really been working on it yet, to tell the truth. I got frustrated by my poor results on the initial attempts. Too tired from work & family life to have tried since. And I haven't even been out on the water in almost 2 weeks! Unheard of for me. October's looking even worse. It's kinda bad when next month is booked before this month is over. Something's gotta give... Soon, though.
Not to rain on your parade, but that's an incredibly old tutorial - like, pre-first patch. If you want to streamline putting them into the game, you can give my old PortraitWizard a shot, although I can't vouch for it still working 100% with the second patch, as I haven't played TOEE in quite a while. http://www.ews.uiuc.edu/~hunsley/files/pwizard.zip
I can confirm that it works real well with the Steelwraith/Royo stuff no matter what patch/mod being used. At least it worked good for me.
