[1.05 Patch is Live]

 

 

People want to change the class, attributes, portraits of the premade NPCs. Next they'll also want to change their names, too. Actually, that might be fun...

 

All of those things are important, yes, but I would argue the portrait is the least important to adhere to. Class, attributes, names, dialogue, voice, and in-game image are all tied to the story. But the portraits seem to me irrelevent in those terms. The companions have their in-game (isometric) image. The portraits don't affect gameplay, wouldn't modify dialogue, wouldn't impact the story, or the background of the character, their reason for being there or their personality traits, skills, strengths, weaknesses. It's just a portrait with which to identify and click in the UI. Same as for all of the other characters, for whom we can change portraits.

 

Multiquote isn't working for me at the moment (just stacking a bunch of quotes rather than actually multiquoting) so forgive the double- and triple-post.

 

 

How is it not important to adhere to? The companion portraits are the visual represetations of the characters meticulously created by Obsidian for the purposes of the story. Would you ask for options to change their dialogue or personalities to suit your tastes as well?

 

YOUR character and the custom characters YOU create are a different matter entirely.

 

 

I didn't say not important. I said least important. And I thought I already made it pretty clear that I wouldn't ask "to change their dialogue or personalities to suit [my] tastes as well". Likewise, I'm not asking to change their 3D image, which in my opinion is much more representative of who they are than their portrait.

 

Yet as indicated in other posts, it sounds like now the manual method of replacing portraits is working for companions (it wasn't when I tried it with Calisca). If that's true, it's not a big deal. Just seems odd they wouldn't support this new feature across the board with all characters who can comprise your party.

[1.05 Patch is Live]

 

 

 

• You can now change the portrait and sound set of characters from the character sheet. Click on the gear icon to open the customization window. You can only use this feature on player characters and hired (non-companion) characters.

 

I'm sure there is a very good reason for this, but why can't you change portraits of companion characters along with all of the rest?

 

 

I believe you can.

 

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Pillars of Eternity\PillarsOfEternity_Data\data\art\gui\portraits\companion <- is the folder that has the companion portraits. I'm sure you could just switch them out with whatever portrait you'd rather prefer.

 

I tried that a few weeks ago, and it refused to actually replace the portrait. I quadruple checked my process, and it just wasn't working. I can't figure out why it wasn't; it was as if the companions's portrait was embedded somewhere else (Calisca). My player character portrait changed without any trouble. But not Calisca. 

[1.05 Patch is Live]

People want to change the class, attributes, portraits of the premade NPCs. Next they'll also want to change their names, too. Actually, that might be fun...

 

All of those things are important, yes, but I would argue the portrait is the least important to adhere to. Class, attributes, names, dialogue, voice, and in-game image are all tied to the story. But the portraits seem to me irrelevent in those terms. The companions have their in-game (isometric) image. The portraits don't affect gameplay, wouldn't modify dialogue, wouldn't impact the story, or the background of the character, their reason for being there or their personality traits, skills, strengths, weaknesses. It's just a portrait with which to identify and click in the UI. Same as for all of the other characters, for whom we can change portraits.

 

Multiquote isn't working for me at the moment (just stacking a bunch of quotes rather than actually multiquoting) so forgive the double- and triple-post.

[1.05 Patch is Live]

 

 

 

• You can now change the portrait and sound set of characters from the character sheet. Click on the gear icon to open the customization window. You can only use this feature on player characters and hired (non-companion) characters.

 

I'm sure there is a very good reason for this, but why can't you change portraits of companion characters along with all of the rest?

 

I assume for RP reasons.

 

But if, say, you change the portraits to ones of your own creation for all the other characters, and you want to make some for the companions which match that aesthetic, you can't. That is a challenge to reconcile, in RP terms. I have made my own for the player character and planned on doing that for the companions, so this update is bittersweet. 

[1.05 Patch is Live]

 

• You can now change the portrait and sound set of characters from the character sheet. Click on the gear icon to open the customization window. You can only use this feature on player characters and hired (non-companion) characters.

 

I'm sure there is a very good reason for this, but why can't you change portraits of companion characters along with all of the rest?

[How to make custom Portraits]

 

Thanks for this helpful tutorial!

I have a question which I don't think was addressed yet. I would like to take screenshots of my characters in game, then make portraits from those. But since the characters must already be created (especially for NPCs who join your party) and already have an assigned portrait, is there some way to assign a new portrait file to them? I would rather not replace the files, but just add them to the folder and reassign through a save-file edit or something through the game UI, ideally.

 

Or, and I'm only just starting the game, so don't know entirely what to expect with party joins and created charaters, but I assume you only make one character per game and the rest join. Does anyone know if multiple NPCs share the same portaits? I mean if an NPC can join your party, would you ever find another joinable NPC who has that same portrait? If not, then I'd feel better about replacing the files for the NPCs. 

 

Then I suppose it would work to create a character twice: once to snap the screenshot and twice (make identical) to assign the portrait. Or, replace the file, but that could cause issues.

 

Also, if there is a way through a save-file edit or the like, you could update your character portraits througout the game to match their current armor, etc.

Edit: Karkarov beat me, but anyway, like he said....

 

The game have to be exited (to main menu) in order for new portraits to show up. So that means you have to make the character twice like you say. It works, but takes some time, and the screenshots are very low-res, so they might look a little pixelated.... You can do this at every lvl up, just replace the image without changing the filename.

I don't think there is any CNPC's that use the portraits you can choose (There is a girl that looks just like Calisca, though)

 

 

Thanks for the reply. I also replied to Karkarov, but here as well because you bring up some different points. I get the impression from your statement that you get the same character creation style screen (with the image of your character that is larger than the the one in the inventory screen), at every level up, which is great. It didn't take too much time for me to create my portraits with the method described in my above post. So might be worthwhile doing it at each level up if there is an armor change etc. (I have yet to hit a level up...been obsessed with addressing this portrait situation first). 

 

So I think I'll just plan on doing that process, including for the inn-created characters and the NPC companions who join. I just need to now solve my problem with the companion portraits not updating like in my post above....

[How to make custom Portraits]

 

I'm too new to edit posts, so I apologize for the double-post. 

 

I am having good luck using in-game screens and making my own character portraits. However I cannot seem to get them working for companions. I have one companion and I have renamed the original portraits and gave my replacement files the original ones' names. They are in the companion portrait folder. My character portrait is replaced in game, but the companion's is not. I searched the game folder for other instances of that name, can't see where else it would still be pulling the old portraits from, but it is. I even moved the originals, renamed, to my desktop. Still calling the originals. I'm using the same procedure as for my created character, other than the folders (companion vs player).

 

Any idea why this might be happening?

I would try just making a copy of the portrait you chose, naming it something slightly different, then porting in the portrait you want and name it it identically to the portrait you orginally picked.  It should resolve the issue.

 

Alternatively the unfortunate only other option I can come up with off the top of my head would be to save before making the new character, go into a new game cycle, create them as you want, screen shot it, quit out, make a custom portrait per usual, then make the character in game and choose the correct portrait.

 

 

Thanks for the reply. I'm actually not having any problems with the main character portrait. It's only the companion portraits. Calisca's portrait won't change. I've read every guide out there, including this one, and I'm doing everything correctly, to my knowledge. For her portrait, here is what I've done:

 

Screenshot her inventory screen

Photoshop to select the area I want and set the dimensions to 210x330 and 72ppi, run a filter, etc.,

Save as PNG

Moved the default Calisca portrait files to another folder. 

Moved my new PNGs into the companion portrait folder.

Copied the names of the original files, and pasted them over the names of mine (portrait_calisca_sm and portrait_calisca_lg dot png)

Renamed the originals to include the word BACKUP in the filename.

 

I opened PoE, loaded my save game. I see my own character's portrait changed correctly, but hers is not. I've tried starting a new game after doing the PNG stuff and same thing. I also tried putting her default portraits into the recycle bin where I know the game can't access them. I don't see how the game is calling the original portraits; they should effectively not even exist as far as PoE is concerned. 

 

I have compared my PNGs to the others in the companion folder. All the same dimensions, ppi, roughly the same file size, etc. All PNGs. I can see those images and my own, and NOT the original Calisca ones in that folder. It all looks correct. But the game still calls her old portrait somehow. I also tried saving into a new save slot, quitting out of PoE, then launching PoE and loading the new save. Same.

 

Perplexed.

[How to make custom Portraits]

I'm too new to edit posts, so I apologize for the double-post. 

 

I am having good luck using in-game screens and making my own character portraits. However I cannot seem to get them working for companions. I have one companion and I have renamed the original portraits and gave my replacement files the original ones' names. They are in the companion portrait folder. My character portrait is replaced in game, but the companion's is not. I searched the game folder for other instances of that name, can't see where else it would still be pulling the old portraits from, but it is. I even moved the originals, renamed, to my desktop. Still calling the originals. I'm using the same procedure as for my created character, other than the folders (companion vs player).

 

Any idea why this might be happening?

[How to make custom Portraits]

Thanks for this helpful tutorial!

I have a question which I don't think was addressed yet. I would like to take screenshots of my characters in game, then make portraits from those. But since the characters must already be created (especially for NPCs who join your party) and already have an assigned portrait, is there some way to assign a new portrait file to them? I would rather not replace the files, but just add them to the folder and reassign through a save-file edit or something through the game UI, ideally.

 

Or, and I'm only just starting the game, so don't know entirely what to expect with party joins and created charaters, but I assume you only make one character per game and the rest join. Does anyone know if multiple NPCs share the same portaits? I mean if an NPC can join your party, would you ever find another joinable NPC who has that same portrait? If not, then I'd feel better about replacing the files for the NPCs. 

 

Then I suppose it would work to create a character twice: once to snap the screenshot and twice (make identical) to assign the portrait. Or, replace the file, but that could cause issues.

 

Also, if there is a way through a save-file edit or the like, you could update your character portraits througout the game to match their current armor, etc.

[Is it possible to disable combat music?]

Thanks! You know, if you want to try an experiment, you can try to temporarily remove the combat music files from the folder. I have no idea what would happen, but maybe the result will be that the calm music will continue to play?

 

You can also try just renaming the files if you don't want to remove them, perhaps by putting a dash at the end of the name, or even _DISABLED or something. This would have the same result as removing them.

 

I gave this a shot, adding a suffix to the name of each combat music file. At first I wasn't sure if it was working or not, because it seemed that the previous music did continue to play into the combat. But either it ended and then nothing played after it, or the trigger for the combat music was later than I expected. In the end, it seems that the engine simply doesn't start the combat music. I'm not yet sure whether it lets the previous music finish or if it just stops it and then realizes there is no such filename and patiently waits for the next call. 

 

So at this point, changing the names of the files doesn't seem to break anything. New music does start to play again after combat, and I detected no other glitches. It's just silence during combat. 

 

Do you think it would work to replace the combat files with some of the other tracks in the music folders? Just copy and rename them to the combat music file names? Or do you think this would cause problems (obvious or not-so-obvious)? You mentioned in an earlier post that it might be important to have the replacement files the same length as the originals, for example. 

[Is it possible to disable combat music?]

I absolutely love the game and its music. But after a while the combat music really annoys me (just like it did in BG ) because it seems so hectic.

 

Is there any way to disable that music without disabling music altogether?

 

 

While a small part of me dies inside by saying this, yes you can get rid of the combat music if you really want to, but I wouldn't delete or rename the files.  Instead, replace them with a silent ogg of equal length that uses the same conversion settings.

 

If you rename/delete, you WILL have music bugs.

 

Perfect! I came here looking for this very same thing. I appreciate the option in games to disable specific music triggers (usually for me it's just combat), and especially if there is the option to keep the other music going through the combat (the theme for that region, for example). Most games I just turn off music, partly for this reason. But the music is so good in PoE that I don't want to. I personally prefer calm music during combat, if any at all. 

 

I will edit the combat music files to be silent so that they are the correct format/duration, etc. But it would be so nice if we could disable the trigger for combat music and just let the other music play through. Really nice work! I sat for an hour during character creation while I combed through all of the literature and made my choices. Many times I remarked to myself about the quality of the music.