Am I the only one who dislikes portraits (as a concept)?

[mrmonocle]

I mean the painted portraits were justified when the character models were simplistic, but now when the models are pretty customizable the portraits feel like a waste of work hours. I really liked what they did in Wasteland 2 with the opportunity to take a screenshot of your 3d model. DaO 2 also had no portraits and managed fine.

 

Discuss.

Edited April 9, 2018 by mrmonocle

[Heijoushin]

Nah, I love portraits. They're beautiful to look at and they help to bring a character to life. I acknowledge the downside that it can be hard to find exactly the portrait you need sometimes (I doubt Obsidian will ever be able to chug out 10 portraits for every race and class combination) and in that sense, Wasteland's system makes sense. But still, custom portraits are fun, especially if there's a certain theme you're going for.

[Lord_Mord]

The screenshots look so unpersonal. I hated them in Tyranny. I believe they are one of the reasons I never finished the game. The more real artwork is done, the better.

[daven]

The 3D pictures look terrible in Neverwinter Nights 2. I have to use the portrait mod whenever I play that.

 

On a similar sort of note, I much prefer the 2d Codec pictures in MGS1 compared to the 3d heads in MGS2.

[Aramintai]

No, hand painted portraits still convey what the character is about much better than a regular 3D model. I haven't seen any rpgs with 3D mugs for portraits that do their characters justice, I think we're not quite there yet graphics wise. When there comes a time when it will be cheap to make 3D portraits for a bunch of characters (preferably animated) of at least the same quality as Geralt's or Aloy's face then sure, I'll be glad to use them. But for now hand painted portraits ftw!

Edited April 9, 2018 by Aramintai

[geala]

I prefer 2d painted portraits, as long as they look realistic to a certain degree and can be easily modded, with which I mean you can make your own ones. I will exactly do this for certain chars, with DAZ Studio in my case.

[Mannock]

No, hand painted portraits still convey what the character is about much better than a regular 3D model. I haven't seen any rpgs with 3D mugs for portraits that do their characters justice, I think we're not quite there yet graphics wise. When there comes a time when it will be cheap to make 3D portraits for a bunch of characters (preferably animated) of at least the same quality as Geralt's or Aloy's face then sure, I'll be glad to use them. But for now hand painted portraits ftw!

Completely agree. The portraits as they are now are marvelous and the game would be worse off if they weren't there or replaced with something lesser.

[Night Stalker]

While there is the problem with portraits and in game model not syncing up, I still prefer portraits.

 

The screenshots look so unpersonal. I hated them in Tyranny. I believe they are one of the reasons I never finished the game. The more real artwork is done, the better.

 

I assume you are meaning the 3D characters you saw when you talked to people - yeah, they could have used some more work. Still, I found Tyranny to be a good experience overall.

[JerekKruger]

I much prefer painted portraits to screenshots style portraits used in, say, DA:O.

[Aramintai]

I mean, come on, can you even compare these:

 

Not for this game yet, not yet.

Edited April 9, 2018 by Aramintai

[Juodas Varnas]

I didn't hate the 3D portraits in Dragon Age Origins, but i definitely prefer the 2D portraits.

 

I feel they have so much more personality than a 3D portrait ever could.

[Sedrefilos]

I'm with OP. I don't like portraits because they limit you to your character model options and importing one is a chore. I usually pick one of the (very limited) portraits that I might not even like, and then I have to model my avatar around that. I mean, how regressive is this, not to mention annoying. And of course I cannot play with a model that doesn't look like the portrait. 

 

There are two things they can do with that imo:

a) make importing portraits done in-game easily

b) have the option to use an insta-shot of the character model as portrait. Many games have done that. 

[MaxQuest]

For single-player RPGs (that show portraits) do much prefer custom portraits. They convey character's personality and inner state better. And the look in their eyes is especially important for me.

 

For multi-player RPGs (that show portraits) do prefer animated 3D portraits (that are basically the upper part of hq character model)

Edited April 9, 2018 by MaxQuest

[Lamppost in Winter]

I find the in-game character models as portraits somewhat sterile compared to something drawn. I do have friends who resent not being able to have their exact character's face shown in the UI unless they draw it themselves or commission a portrait, but it's not like even the Deadfire CC is robust enough to really have a huge variety of faces anyway.

[Wormerine]

A customizable 3D portraits would be nice, but it probably would be more to expensive to do a decent 3D portrait that paint a 2d one. For 3D portrait to work it would need it be around Starcraft2 quality, and those are all non customisable characters.

 

A screenshot like in D:O or Tyranny just doesn’t cut it for me. They look odd at best of times, though I fought Tyranny was quite clever with it.

[jf8350143]

Unless they change the game into Dragon Age or Mass Effect or NWN 2, otherwise it's always better to have a portrait, simply because 95% of the time we look at our teams from beyond and won't be able to see their faces in a close range.

Edited April 9, 2018 by jf8350143

[SonicMage117]

My guess is out of all peeps who play rpg's in general, (outside the forums) it's probably split down the middle 50/50.

 

Personally I like portraits or even better, no pic at all (just a color abd name).

[Sedrefilos]

I propose the idea of having the characters' toes in their pictures instead of their faces.

[Karkarov]

It depends on the game etc.  A better question would be, why do you even have portraits at all?  They aren't "needed" per se, but they are nice for dialog.

Case in point, lets look at Divinity Original Sin 2 (I game I mostly don't like) versus Deadfire.

 

 

So, it is painfully obvious why using the character model works for Divinity, but is not so hot for Deadfire.  Simply put, their character models are much much higher quality.  Now don't get me wrong, I am happy with Deadfire's character models, and they are a huge step up from Eternity 1, but they are not where they need to be for them to be used as portraits yet.

 

I felt like models as portraits in conversations did work for Tyranny, but mostly because they did that hilarious emote thing with them which kind of brought it to life a bit.  Also they tended to be the whole upper body, not just the head.  I used Graven Ash facepalming as a avatar for some time after all .  That said Deadfire isn't even going that route, so I think the watercolor style adds a nice flair.

[bleedthefreak]

2D painted portraits FTW every time. I'd have preferred them in Divinity as well, though the 3D models do look fine there.

[Sedrefilos]

@Karkarov, yes, but in Deadfire they don't even match the portraits that good. Inconsistency. It's not a dealbreaker in the slightest, of course. it's just something they could work on more. Like Larian did :D

[rjshae]

I much prefer good artwork to static rendered images. However, if the character busts were animated (as in the character sheets) and portrayed the (helm-less) character's current status, equipment, mood, environment, and other information, that might also be attractive. Perhaps the designers would consider providing two alternatives as a game option for those with varying tastes?

[Sedrefilos]

 Perhaps the designers would consider providing two alternatives as a game option for those with varying tastes?

Yep, as others have done already (like inXile for instance)

[Progressive_Stupidity]

It's interesting that you brought up DOS2 as an argument FOR this when it's one of the things I really loathed about the game. The benefit of 3d models is that they can have animated facial movements and a more cinematic view. The benefit of painted portrait art is that it is (if done well) timelessly beautiful and unrestricted by technology in how the artist wishes to convey the character. DOS2 chose an approach that didn't take advantage of either of those things and, in fact, was the worst of both worlds. You've got these incredibly mediocre 3d models screenshotted as the only visual point of connection with the characters without the cinematic flair of something like Dragon Age where there's a zoomed in camera and facial movements/lip sync to justify it.

 

I would, however, like to see painted portraits evolve in that there are simply more provided for major characters to show a dynamic range of emotions in conversation. Like a combat portrait, a neutral portrait and then cover the most needed emotions like sad, happy, shocked, angry.

Edited April 9, 2018 by Progressive_Stupidity

[injurai]

Hopefully in PoE3 we can 3D print busts that we line up below our monitors.