2D Expansion Pack: Portraits & faction-specific loading screens [KOJ]

[deeviusnz]

Hi again,

I managed to get the portraits for most of the main characters working (kept the Balian one from the older version as personal preference) and they look really, really great.

However, I don't seem to be able to get the custom portraits for the generals, spies ect. working. Your instructions I have to admit are a little difficult to follow so I'm not sure if I have edited something incorrectly or what... I've noticed the custom icons for family members ect. in the family tree view but that's it. This is what I edited the descr_cultures file to look like:

culture southern_european
portrait_mapping southern_european
rebel_standard_index 0

...

culture northern_european
portrait_mapping northern_european
rebel_standard_index 1

Is that correct for playing as the KoJ faction?

Also, the custom portraits for Frederick Barbarossa and Frederick of Swabia don't seem to work either. After a bit of quick reading around I discovered that apparently the scripts for spawned armies are different to armies/generals that start at the beginning of a game, and thus custom portraits may be loaded differently. Do you know if any special instructions are required to get these to work? I've already tried adding the 'portrait frederick' lines in campaign_script which seems to be where the scripts for spawned armies are loaded from... but still no luck. I'm worried now that the custom portrait for King Richard will not work either, which would suck...

[rummtata]

Don't worry, we'll get this sorted out.

1. Did you start your campaign before or after changing the descr_cultures? Remember: The game consults this file only once, at the beginning, so if you change it later it will not affect your running campaign. Your kingdoms.exe might still be looking for the files in "southern_european".

2. Check your folders! The correct path for the "young" portraits is: "\data\ui\*culture*\portraits\portraits\young\*agent-type*". For a new campaign with your edited descr_cultures.txt that would be "\data\ui\northern_european\portraits\portraits\young\generals" for the generals, and so forth. Also, please note that the "dead" portraits for generals do _not_ go into a "generals" subfolder, they must be in "data\ui\northern_european\portraits\portraits\dead". Probably because no other character type uses individual dead portraits.

2. Named characters which are spawned via script can have custom portraits. If what I've read on the forums is correct, this was not possible in vanilla M2, but the feature was introduced with Kingdoms. I know it can be done - several mods use this feature.

However, my current information about how it works may not be accurate. I was told to simply put the portraits into subfolders matching the character's name, and the game should look for them there when the script is triggered. Give me a little time and I'll try and either verify this or get the correct info.

P.S.
You can always check which faction is mapped to which culture in the "descr_sm_factions.txt". Should be:

;;JERUSALEM

faction france
culture northern_european

[deeviusnz]

So... any chance you've managed to figure out the custom portraits for spawned generals yet?

[deeviusnz]

Ah, success! After starting a new game all seems to be well indeed; including all of the generals, spies as well as the spawned crusaders (Barbarossa and Frederick of Swabia)

Not sure what I might have been doing wrong. I think despite having the files in the correct places I had also copied and pasted some of the folders in multiple places in an attempt to get the portraits for the generals to work, but may have just ended up making the situation worse (perhaps it confused some of the scripts or something)

They look really good, adds a lot to the game I must say.

(apologies if my previous post may have come off a tad bluntly btw, both fans on my graphics card died a few days ago and system has been freezing/locking up ect. and have yet to RMA it, so I'm kinda on borrowed time a little bit at the moment, heh. Just jury rigged up a small fan to the side of the case to keep it going in the mean time. Hasn't stopped me from playing my campaign either, haha...

[atheniandp]

Very nice mod. +rep

Would it be possible to port over the Seljuk portraits from the Grey Wolf submod into your next version?

Also, I like your obsolete portraits. Is it possible to retain those, while adding the rest of the new ones you've made?

[rummtata]

Hey guys! Sorry for not reacting, I came down with a rather nasty flu and was effectively bed-ridden for several days. But what doesn't kill us... ^^

@deeviusnz: Glad to hear it's finally working for you, I *was* pretty certain that it works the way I described; as of yet I haven't seen a different opinion. It is strange, however, that for some of the portraits the alpha channel doesn't seem to work. Is it the same in campaign mode or do they just show their background in the battle UI?

Did you change anything about the pictures themselves (be aware that even saving them in the same format can delete the transparency information if you don't know exactly what you're doing).

I hope you can save your machine, don't take unnecessary risks with overheating your components, they don't like it ^^


@atheniandp: You can use those other portraits by simply copying the contents of "\data\ui\*culture*\portraits\..." from the submod archive to your BC folder. They will be in a different culture folder and therefore won't interfere. Combining them into a multi-author-portrait-collection is an interesting idea for later on, but it doesn't seem reasonable at this point, not when it is really just a matter of copy-pasting them into the right folder to use them. Come back and ask if you have any problems doing it =)

If you want to use some or all of the obsolete portraits, just copy-paste them *after* you've installed the rest and overwrite. Do you have the files or shall I upload them again?

[atheniandp]

That sounds pretty simple! How do I know which culture the Seljuks (or any other faction for that matter) belong to? Also, I believe the Grey Wolf portraits exist only for special characters rather than randomly spawned ones. Would that pose any problems?

Also, if it's not too much to ask, do you know of any tutorials that explain how to create your own custom characters, with their own individual portraits, ancillaries, etc?

Oh and yes, please reupload those obsolete portraits, because I never downloaded that file! Much rep awaits you in the future.

[rummtata]

How do I know which culture the Seljuks (or any other faction for that matter) belong to?

This is defined in the "descr_sm_factions.txt"

I believe the Grey Wolf portraits exist only for special characters rather than randomly spawned ones. Would that pose any problems?

Not per se. Special characters simply have a portrait in "data\ui\custom_portraits\*name-of-character*". You can put any portrait you want into the corresponding folder and it will be used for that character.

What you'd have to look out for is if the characters you are talking about are already in vanilla BC or if they are introduced with the submod, in which case installing only the portraits would achieve nothing.

do you know of any tutorials that explain how to create your own custom characters, with their own individual portraits, ancillaries, etc

You can find a comprehensive list of available tutorials here: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...rces-amp-Tools

And here are the obsolete custom portraits:

http://freakshare.com/files/wh5jvcmm...raits.rar.html

[Kaiser Quanah]

This look outstanding! Only thing though, Frederick "Barbarossa" (hinted by his nickname) had a red beard, which doesn't seem to be in the portrait of him.

[rummtata]

Haha, you're right, I didn't think of that. Quite embarrassing. I will tend to that matter with the next update ;-)

[stevietheconquer]

hello can i use those portraits in other mod too,like in ferrun aeternum?good work you did.

[rummtata]

You are free to use them for your own private purposes. If you want to publish them as part of another mod, you are also free to do so, just notify me and don't forget to mention me in your credits ;-)

[stevietheconquer]

ok,thanks will do this,as i now how hard it is too make portraits,as i am making some for fun;lol,and only can hope some of them look good.

[arthuros]

All links are down...

[Kaskad]

yes, links via Freakshare do not work

[TracePoland]

Nice Submod

[Dori_as]

Impressive Portraits , but All links are down...

[albinkhan]

someone do something ....all links are down..........

[Isıldur]

Links are down pls do something

[z3n]

I suggest uploading these instead to depositfiles, sendspace or mega. sendspace/depositfiles keep the files there for a long period of time, even if there are just a a download or three per month.