The problem with portraits ... IMO

[Walter.Richards]

Especially for Godlike, Aumaua, and Orlan ... is that you can seldom craft your character's face to resemble the portrait.

 

My first thought was that the developers / portrait artists should have done portraits based off the options available.

But I realized that would have been too difficult given the time required and possible facial combinations.

 

The best option would have been to do away with portraits, and just used the "head shot" of the character creation screen.

IIRC, this is how DragonAge did it.  You could even customize the background, and the facial expression.

[asnjas]

The winter elfs have options and colors for beards but no bearded portrait.

 

I played but dont remember dragon age. Facial snap shots sounds perfect. Oh wait i do remember. I remember being able to change those facial expressions and im now picturing that warped grin option.

[daven]

Yes but remember the character generator for DA was much more advanced. Everyone would look almost identical on this.

[Walter.Richards]

Yes but remember the character generator for DA was much more advanced. Everyone would look almost identical on this.

 

Yes, DA had a more advanced character generator ... but I'm just using their "head shot" part as an example of what could replace the portraits.

 

And a "head shot" system would give more looks than the current portrait system.  Especially for the races I mentioned.

I mean, the "Male, Island, Amaua" (brown skin) has only one portrait option.

[jww]

 

Yes but remember the character generator for DA was much more advanced. Everyone would look almost identical on this.

 

Yes, DA had a more advanced character generator ... but I'm just using their "head shot" part as an example of what could replace the portraits.

 

And a "head shot" system would give more looks than the current portrait system.  Especially for the races I mentioned.

I mean, the "Male, Island, Amaua" (brown skin) has only one portrait option.

 

 

I've been doing this for characters where I don't have a custom portrait I want to use (I'm not really a big fan of the existing portraits, so I rarely use those). During the level-up screen, it shows your character on the right side of the screen, and there's a button to zoom in. I take a screenshot of the head (after zooming in), and run it through the PoE1 option in the Baldur's Gate portrait generator (http://www.notra.fr/portrait), which gives you two of the sizes you need. Then I resize that image and crop it to get the other two sizes I need (I don't know how to do the one that looks like it's drawn on parchment, but it doesn't bother me to just use a regular image in its place).

 

It's not great, since the head still comes out a bit small and fuzzy, but it's better than using a picture that looks nothing like my character.

[uuuhhii]

so many portrait for npc

a lot of them can easily be used by player

 

[JerekKruger]

The best option would have been to do away with portraits, and just used the "head shot" of the character creation screen.

IIRC, this is how DragonAge did it.  You could even customize the background, and the facial expression.

For me that would be just about the worst option. Hand drawn portraits are one of the best bits of games like PoE and having them replaced by soulless screenshots would be a huge loss.

[Walter.Richards]

 

I've been doing this for characters where I don't have a custom portrait I want to use (I'm not really a big fan of the existing portraits, so I rarely use those). During the level-up screen, it shows your character on the right side of the screen, and there's a button to zoom in. I take a screenshot of the head (after zooming in), and run it through the PoE1 option in the Baldur's Gate portrait generator (http://www.notra.fr/portrait), which gives you two of the sizes you need. Then I resize that image and crop it to get the other two sizes I need (I don't know how to do the one that looks like it's drawn on parchment, but it doesn't bother me to just use a regular image in its place).

 

It's not great, since the head still comes out a bit small and fuzzy, but it's better than using a picture that looks nothing like my character.

 

 

That works ... but it would be faster if the option was already built into the game.

 

 

so many portrait for npc

a lot of them can easily be used by player

 

But they aren't available in the "generic" game, to the player.

 

 

 

For me that would be just about the worst option. Hand drawn portraits are one of the best bits of games like PoE and having them replaced by soulless screenshots would be a huge loss.

 

 

A good point.  Some people prefer the portraits.

So I would suggest a combination of the two systems.

Offer pre-made portraits ... with a silhouette portrait that would use a "head shot" of the player's character.

Or have pre-made faces that match the portraits.

Edited October 4, 2018 by Walter.Richards

[uuuhhii]

that's the point

why do developers didn't make at least some of them available for player in the months after launch

can not imagine it will be very hard

[Tigranes]

Headshots are ugly as hell on isometric games where the character is not designed to receive a million polygons.

 

Portraits typically look far nicer than 3D models, and they give you a different way to visualise the game.

 

I can barely see my actual character's face 99% of the time anyway, so I just roll with the portraits as what I figure they'd look like.

[daven]

To be fair, I don't really think of the character model as how my character looks. But the portrait is how he looks, the character model is just a crude representation, i felt like that in the BG games and NWN. However yeah I think the option would be nice for people who want it. Options are always a good thing.

[InsaneCommander]

And a "head shot" system would give more looks than the current portrait system.  Especially for the races I mentioned.

I mean, the "Male, Island, Amaua" (brown skin) has only one portrait option.

 

I can't play as my Death Godlike from PoE1 because there is no model for her portrait (see my signature). They changed it for PoE2.

 

I've been doing this for characters where I don't have a custom portrait I want to use (I'm not really a big fan of the existing portraits, so I rarely use those). During the level-up screen, it shows your character on the right side of the screen, and there's a button to zoom in. I take a screenshot of the head (after zooming in), and run it through the PoE1 option in the Baldur's Gate portrait generator (http://www.notra.fr/portrait), which gives you two of the sizes you need. Then I resize that image and crop it to get the other two sizes I need (I don't know how to do the one that looks like it's drawn on parchment, but it doesn't bother me to just use a regular image in its place).

 

 

It's not great, since the head still comes out a bit small and fuzzy, but it's better than using a picture that looks nothing like my character.

 

I've been thinking of how to use a screenshot and some of the methods to make watercolor portraits (blur, edge-detection...) and turn it into a decent portrait for the new Death Godlike. I tried something once but it didn't look good.

[lowdegger]

I will never understand why the devs have ignored this question so hard.

 

You can put a beard on an elf but not on an aumaua, and yet there are no elf portraits with beards and there is one aumaua with a beard.

 

There are portraits you can't reproduce on your model, and choices on your model (especially hair and beard styles) which have no corresponding portraits.

 

And why have they not added more portraits? Ones which actually fit the character models?

 

It baffles me. It really does.

[Wormerine]

Dragon Age: Origins portrait shot didn't work for me. 

Personally, I do like hand drawn portraits. You can easily import custom portraits (using a lovely aumaua portrait right now, for my current character) and if you want a screen shot of your character, you can easily make one and set it up as yours. It would be a nice option to have a photobooth option, ala Dragon Age or XCOM2 for those who want it, but its not something the game needs.

[Tigranes]

I will never understand why the devs have ignored this question so hard.

 

You can put a beard on an elf but not on an aumaua, and yet there are no elf portraits with beards and there is one aumaua with a beard.

 

There are portraits you can't reproduce on your model, and choices on your model (especially hair and beard styles) which have no corresponding portraits.

 

And why have they not added more portraits? Ones which actually fit the character models?

 

It baffles me. It really does.

 

Simple: they couldn't budget for 200 portraits.

 

They could remove the options that aren't represented by a portrait, but that would have its own problems.

[Messier-31]

Edwin judges you, op.

 

[lowdegger]

 

I will never understand why the devs have ignored this question so hard.

 

You can put a beard on an elf but not on an aumaua, and yet there are no elf portraits with beards and there is one aumaua with a beard.

 

There are portraits you can't reproduce on your model, and choices on your model (especially hair and beard styles) which have no corresponding portraits.

 

And why have they not added more portraits? Ones which actually fit the character models?

 

It baffles me. It really does.

 

Simple: they couldn't budget for 200 portraits.

 

They could remove the options that aren't represented by a portrait, but that would have its own problems.

 

 

 

a) Why did they create a way for the player the customize the PC model when the PC is also represented with a hand-drawn portrait? Why did they create the need for additional portraits when they couldn't budget for them?

 

b) They used the SAME portraits from PoE1, in case you hadn't noticed. Apparently they budgeted for about 5 new ones - perhaps some number between 5 and 200 would have been possible? Maybe they should have spent whatever they paid the person who wrote Xoti to commission some new portraits instead? 

[Kaylon]

For me the problem comes mostly from the poor character customization - ugly heads, stupid haircuts looking like wigs, facial hair options not available for all races (while putting portraits with beards for them), among other things...