Do you want your character portraits to be like Baldur's Gate or NWN2?

[Wombat]

2D if it is what the OP means. That said, Baldur's Gate, especially BGII is way too cartoon-ish for my taste. I'd rather have IWD series portraits.

 

One note, though. Sawyer seems to be generating an idea of changing the expressions of portraits depending on the circumstances. However, personally, I think Obsidian writers are capable of carrying enough expressions in their writings and I don' like factors which can make the game way too cartoon-ish, as I wrote above. Such preference may more to do with VARK model in addtion to artistic one, though.

[Karkarov]

Both are fine but for this games purposes and based on what the previous info released of the project suggests... I think the baldur's gate method will work better.

Edited October 20, 2012 by Karkarov

[Hormalakh]

2D if it is what the OP means. That said, Baldur's Gate, especially BGII is way too cartoon-ish for my taste. I'd rather have IWD series portraits.

 

One note, though. Sawyer seems to be generating an idea of changing the expressions of portraits depending on the circumstances. However, personally, I think Obsidian writers are capable of carrying enough expressions in their writings and I don' like factors which can make the game way too cartoon-ish, as I wrote above. Such preference may more to do with VARK model in addtion to artistic one, though.

 

I meant either IWD-type or BG-type images. I'm not talking about a particular artist's rendition, just that they weren't using real-time rendering of your model for the portraits. Usually with real-time rendering, you sacrifice portrait quality.

 

Where did you hear that about Sawyer wanting to change expressions?

Edited October 20, 2012 by Hormalakh

[PsychoBlonde]

I'm not sure if this has been answered and this question came up in another thread (Beard technology). I wanted to get everyone's opinion: would you like to have your portraits show up as they did in Baldur's Gate (an artist's rendition) or as they did in Neverwinter Nights 2 (as a 3D model)?

 

I'd rather have the Baldur's Gate system simply because the 3D model of your character (which is where the 3d model comes from in NwN2) is going to be TINY. So either you'll be way zoomed in on an INCREDIBLY low quality model that will look like a child's drawing (at that zoom level, anyway), or they will have to build an entire separate system for creating and customizing a portrait model, which will be AMAZINGLY zot-intensive for the benefit you'd get out of it. Either way, TOTALLY NOT WORTH IT. The point of doing this game IE style is to eliminate a lot of the expense of all that 3D modeling and animating so they can write a dang good story instead.

 

However, one thing--I want the PC portraits to be COMPLETELY SEPARATE from the portraits given to companions. I do NOT want to be able to select a portrait that would be assigned to a companion. This drove me NUTS about Baldur's Gate when I found out that I'd made MY character look like Jaheira and now Jaheira looked like someone else. Dumbest design choice EVAR.

[Hormalakh]

^ Yeah it just doesn't seem time-effective for the devs to waste time and energy building up a whole "facial features" section for the 3d models.

[.Leif.]

Somewhere between Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale, perhaps with higher resolution. I certainly want to change what my character looks like in game and inventory (Hair-color, face, tattoos, beard..), but something about getting to select from a large group of amazing portraits (or those that I import) has always helped detail my character.

 

For example, using the Red Monk from IWD as my Necromancer in BG2. It was amazing.

[Wombat]

Where did you hear that about Sawyer wanting to change expressions?

IIRC, it's in something awful forum while back. However, to avoid possible misunderstanding, what he was talking of was NPCs portraits (in the dialogue window, more specificaly speaking) - not PC's one.

[rjshae]

If they do go with painted portraits, another graphical option they could consider is using normal mapping combined with minor changes in the (simulated) directional lighting (depending on the local lighting conditions in the game area). That would give the images more of a 3D look while retaining the 2D artistry.

Edited October 20, 2012 by rjshae

[Leferd]

IWD pls

 

I like the style of that early dwarf ranger art.

 

Didn't Obsidian purchase the art assets of IWD? Couldn't they conceivably make these available for use in PE?

[Droogle]

IWD pls

 

I like the style of that early dwarf ranger art.

 

 

I prefer 3D paperdolls on my inventory screen, reflecting what I'm wearing but on my "HUD" or UI or whatever I prefer nicely rendered 2D images. One of the reasons being the traumatic experience that was the most ugly conceivable head wear in the two Kotor games and the blank faced, low detail heads in NWN2,

 

strong this

[Gulliver]

Baldur's Gate.

 

Indeed, the closer to Baldur's Gate they are, the better. I very much disliked the portraits from IWD.

[Wombat]

Where did you hear that about Sawyer wanting to change expressions?

The below are the actual quotes.

http://forums.someth...0#post408196150

Dawn of Sorrows didn't require the "trace" casting very much, usually only when you were fighting a boss. Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword required it every time you used ninpo.

Fintilgin posted:

I'd like to see emotion sub-portraits. So when you piss Cadegund off, her dialogue portrait changes to angry_cadegund.jpg, and when you talk to her about how the Dark Lord kidnapped her kitten, Whiskers, you see sad_cadegund.jpg.

 

Obviously you'd probably only have the time to do these for companions and few major plot figures, but I think that would be really cool.

I do want to do these and have wanted them for a while.

 

Oddly enough, they were in Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows prior to that project being eviscerated. Though really I just ripped it off from one of the Tales of... games.

http://forums.someth...0#post408200983

coffeetable posted:

The implication here is that you're going to beat the **** out of all the $3,000 backers.

Sorry, I meant doing emotion states for major NPCs/companions. Doing it for all of the PC portraits would get... gnar.

[Tamerlane]

With how heavily weighted we are towards 2D art, I'm surprised nobody's yet criticized PST's portraits. Much as I liked the game's aesthetic, the 3D art used in the bestiary and portraits was... unpleasant.

 

I prefer 3D paperdolls on my inventory screen, reflecting what I'm wearing but on my "HUD" or UI or whatever I prefer nicely rendered 2D images. One of the reasons being the traumatic experience that was the most ugly conceivable head wear in the two Kotor games and the blank faced, low detail heads in NWN2,

Hey, man. Don't talk **** about Beard Guy.

[Sensuki]

The more like Baldur's Gate 1 the better.

 

I do like the Icewind Dale portraits, but I think the BG1 portraits, paperdolls and avatars (UI, area art) are my favourite art styles of all the IE games.

Edited October 20, 2012 by Sensuki

[Hormalakh]

Thanks for the links Wombat. I would be interested in seeing how that works. I would also hope that they implement a way for modders to change PC portraits to do so. I don't want just my NPCs to change faces when emoting. I'm sure there will be mods for that sort of thing, if they allow it.

 

Very cool, thanks again.

[arrowhead]

<p>

With how heavily weighted we are towards 2D art, I'm surprised nobody's yet criticized PST's portraits. Much as I liked the game's aesthetic, the 3D art used in the bestiary and portraits was... unpleasant.

 

I've never played NWN2. Were the portraits in NWN2 like those in PST (3D and animated)?

 

If yes, then I'd definitely prefer 2D portraits like the ones in BG. They look better and if I don't find anything I like, I could easily switch to a custom portrait. I'm not really sure how custom portraits could work with 3D portraits.

[Fimbul]

2D portraits add so much atmosphere to a game and the customization is invaluable!

I also like the idea of different portrait variations for light, medium and heavy armored and injured chars. It would work just like the implementation of small, medium and large character portraits in the BG and IWD series, only that variation of size is obsolete anyway since scaling is simple to implement nowadays, fading of one variation to another without popping as well.

 

I believe such stuff counts to the 4 million goal but it would also be enough to implement the script and leave the rest to the community.

[Thibaut]

I may be a bit old fashioned, but please no 3D.

 

2D portraits add so much atmosphere to a game and the customization is invaluable!

 

I totally agree.

[FlintlockJazz]

<p>

With how heavily weighted we are towards 2D art, I'm surprised nobody's yet criticized PST's portraits. Much as I liked the game's aesthetic, the 3D art used in the bestiary and portraits was... unpleasant.

 

I've never played NWN2. Were the portraits in NWN2 like those in PST (3D and animated)?

 

If yes, then I'd definitely prefer 2D portraits like the ones in BG. They look better and if I don't find anything I like, I could easily switch to a custom portrait. I'm not really sure how custom portraits could work with 3D portraits.

 

No, it was just a static screenshot of your character's ingame face with a rather bland and moronic expression on their face, and from an angle that really didn't do the character's looks any good.

[romka-unknown]

In NWN1 is a very good option. 3d character model is 2d portrait. This option does not spoil the atmosphere of the game

 

[Margaretha]

NWN(2?)'s style. It's uglier but beautiful hand-crafted portraits are very limiting and I never really connected to any (speaking of my character's portrait - I loved some companions'. Dynaheir !).

Edited October 20, 2012 by Margaretha

[Nerei]

I definitely prefer the BG style character portraits. Not that there is anything wrong with the NWN2 style, I just do not like it as much.

Also I'm not sure how they would add NWN2 style portraits to the game without making a character models with a lot more detail than would is really needed for an IE style game. which would be a fair amount of work just for the portraits

 

Finally consider that the 3000$ kickstarter pledge included:

BECOME A CUSTOM PORTRAIT IN THE GAME + GET A SIGNED ART PRINT OF YOUR PORTRAIT.

That really rules out NWN2 style generated portraits

[JOG]

Baldur's Gate or MoTB. Those portraits give the characters um... character, while the rendered chargen images are just bland faces with no expression.

 

Even modifying the portrait depending on the current outfit can be done with 2d images (and was done since Ultima 7 Serpent's Isle) but it will mean much more work for the artists.

 

Customisation is no argument for render portraits either, as long as there is a "portraits" folder, you can use anything as your character portrait, even a screenshot snippet from a game with render portraits.

[MoobooMagoo]

I think, given the type of game this is and the type of nostalgia it is trying to convey, static portraits would be best.

[teknoman2]

there are some photo booths that have the option to turn your photo into a color sketch picture. they could implement something similar to make instant BG style portraits out of 3D models