Character picture issues

[jasonwclark]

I'm a huge fan or 2d portraiture. It was one of my favorite features in Baldur's Gate, and I had a pretty large collection of portrait images for Neverwinter. It was called Jah-Din's Ultimate Portrait pack, where I took details from my favorite fantasy paintings, stuff by friends and art heroes, resized endlessly so I could have enough to satisfy. I remember participating in the 2d vs 3d portrait debate for NWN2.

 

While I agree that the custom option gives you endless possibilities, I also recognize that it takes a fair amount of effort, and can't really be shared under fair use for stuff like this.

 

Short of hiring someone like Dave Rapoza to bang out a bunch of slick portraits for all the various race/class options, I think what Pillars Of Eternity really needs is more "silhouette" options, at least for the protaginist.

 

BG had this, at least one for the male and female character.

 

I think PoE needs at least a dozen of these. One for each racial type.

 

Just put someone on the payroll to knock out some backlit or barlit portraits. Get a couple with hoods, a couple with generic helmets etc.

 

It's better if you just omit details (so you can cover all the possibilities) instead of trying to have each possible variation painted out.

 

Right now in the stock portraits, there are only like 4 that work as ideal generics.

 

I'd try to triple that number and hire a decent painter to do the job so they look cool. A PS modified photograph is going to look like just that, unless you have someone on the team who has a real gift for it.

 

There are a lot of digital painters out there who I'm sure could use the work. Kickstart something for the portrait arts division, and start casting a wide net for commissions.

 

Even if Justin Sweet might have better things to do with his time these days, I guarantee you there are a lot of people who grew up on the old Black Isle portraits who would love a chance to get in on a project like this, as long as they were compensated for their time and their talent.

 

A quality standard portrait pack for the next installment would really take it to the next level.

Edited October 16, 2016 by jasonwclark

[Sedrefilos]

I will only caution you in that Divinity Original Sin 2 also uses much much higher quality models for their characters than what Eternity, or Eternity 2 are likely to use.  So the effect, so to speak, may not work as well for Eternity 2 as it does Original Sin 2.

Wasteland 2 used much lower detail portraits than Pillars and I still used the model screenshot as portrait instead of hand-drawn. For me, Pillars' model detail was good. I'd had no problem to use my character's screenshot. And in Pillars 2 we'll have even better graphics. Why wouldn't they pump 'em up like Lrian did? The game will come out much later than D:OS 2.

Again: I'm proposing it as an additional option - not to drop hand-drawn portraits for model screenshots altogether.

Edited October 17, 2016 by Sedrefilos

[hrwd]

I'm all for options. Like IE mod. They never hurt, you know?