Creating a World – Character portraits, creation and use

[Geoffrey of Villehardouin]

This seems to have worked. I had all 12 spawned and in addition 3 duplicates after I restarted M2TW, in a random order (different than yours). When starting the Dutch campaign, the priests are now selected from the entire range of 12. This was not happenning until I exited and restarted M2TW. So I guess the new portraits will not be available to current campaigns. For some reason the higher-numbered portraits are not save-game compatible.

At least there seems to be some kind of logic now. Thanks for your help.

[Gigantus]

The portraits are probably loaded into memory at the beginning of a game to avoid 'glitches' or 'shuffles'. One more thing to remember...

[NorthernMonkey]

Okay, so I downloaded a pretty obscure submod for Third Age - Total War, that adds the Romans as a faction. Yes, the Romans.
Anyway, it works perfectly, except for one thing - they only use one portrait, for generals and diplomats. Spies too, I'd wager, but it's not as apparent, since they use completely different ones. Searched the directories for quite a while and discovered that they both use the first one on the list.

Now I've been staring myself blind at the descr_ files and I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing. So I was hoping that you might have some insight into this? What could be causing it to go for the first file all the time, instead of randomizing?

[makanyane]

in descr_cultures there is a 'portrait_mapping' line, is there anything odd about that for the culture the romans are using? (look up descr_sm_factions to see which culture that is)


and erm, what the hell are the Romans doing in Third Age?

[NorthernMonkey]

Fixed it, thanks. ^^

And what are the Romans doing in Middle Earth? What they always do. Conquer! And looking badass while doing it.

[Noobio]

can

-diplomats
-spies
-assassins
-witches
-inquisitors

have custom portraits too, through descr_strat ???

[Gigantus]

I don't think so - it's only available for named_character entries apparently, would require testing.

[Noobio]

i know princesses and priests can have custom_portraits through descr_strat * (that's checked people! works as if they were generals)

Unfortunately, i don't, currently, have a mod with other types of agents enabled to try em out...

I know for sure that admirals, use the captains portraits too, for example..So no, custom portraits for that agent type

[Gigantus]

I just checked - I wasn't able to give a diplomat a custom portrait.

[Noobio]

Do you think that it would be possible through an "intermediate" way ?

if i only have 1 folder for diplomat portraits, in the "uber" SE culture, would it be possible that the portraits got assigned in the same order every single time, no matter what faction/culture i started my game with ?

[Gigantus]

I vaguely recall a conversation I had regarding the sequence of portraits used. There was a consistency, but it didn't work all the time.

[rummtata]

Hey Gigantus, I'm working on an extensive portrait project for which your tutorial has already been of much help. I still don't really understand how the game handles the .tga files though. When I replace the current portrait files with others, start the game and a new campaign OR load a running campaign and recruit new characters, sometimes the new files are used and sometimes they are not. I've even tried quitting and restarting the game several times without changing anything about the .tga, and it's the same: One time the portraits in the override folders are used, the next time vanilla ones.

I am thoroughly confused and a bit desperate because I don't know how to provide people with reliable information regarding the use of my portrait packs. I've already tried deleting the map.rwm because I thought maybe the targa files are stored there for quick access, but it didn't seem to make a difference.

Can you (or anyone else) shed some light in this matter?

P.S.: I'm modding a non-default culture folder and I'm using as many files as there are vanilla versions (200 for generals, 100 for everyone else).

P.P.S.: A few more questions, while I'm at it:

1. At which age, exactly, do characters turn "old"? And: Is it possible to change that?

2. In your tut you state that only generals "need" old versions. But will other agents use such portraits if they exist and turn "old", too?

3. Spies and Assassins seem to use the same portraits, which is lame. Can't I make the game use separate portrait folders? They are different agent classes, after all...

[Gigantus]

I haven't had the problem yet with the exchanging portraits. I do however recommend to every modder to eliminate potential VirtualStore problems that occur when replacing files. Simply run this tutorial form step 3 and then delete the medieval 2 folder in the virtual store.
If you are modding a non default culture folder make sure the corresponding portrait mapping entry in descr_cultures is correct. I believe southern_european is the default culture because it is listed at the top of the file, so make sure your new culture is listed at the end of the file.

1. This is determined by an entry in descr_campaign_db in the <family_tree> section: <old_age uint="60"/>
2. Never tested it, but it is possible
3. They are supposed to be rogues , nothing one can do about that - hard coded I believe.

[rummtata]

a lot Gig =)

It's neat that I now know how to change the age for the portrait switch, and I guess I'll just experiment with the other characters and report here as soon as I turn up something conclusive. Shame about the rogues, I could have made assassins so much more evil than spies... *sigh*.

Interesting link you provided, but pray tell: Does this "VirtualStore" feature only concern the "program files" folder? I use steam and all my TW-games are installed on a separate (non-system) partition inside the steam folder, so if this particular UAC feature only affects C:\program files\, It can't be the reason for the strange behaviour I noticed...

[Gigantus]

I am not sure if it only affects the 'program files' folder, to be honest, but I would suggest to apply it to your M2TW installation in the Steam folder as well - it won't hurt, I promise!

[irishron]

If you apply it from your C: drive icon, I promise it won't hurt. Your computer may love you for it.

[rummtata]

Looks like I had the UAC already completely disabled, probably for the benefit of one of my rather "antique" games ^^ I'll consider reactivating it and applying the fix to game folders only.

Since you're so well versed in TW-lore, perhaps you can also tell me something about the "random" selection of other .tga files, like the loading screens. I couldn't fail to notice that my kingdoms.exe always chooses the same loading screen during the initial boot sequence, and I wonder: Is this a fixed parameter, listed in some hardcoded file? That would mean it applies to everyone (does it?). What's so strange about that idea is that it's not the first file that is chosen, but "loading_screen_70.tga".

It could also be some random parameter that for some reason doesn't change on my end. But that doesn't make too much sense either. Any more insights? =)

[rummtata]

I believe I've just had an epiphany. Until now I've believed the game would read out the .tga files in the portrait folders when a new character is created/campaign started and store them in a hard-coded archive, so that changes in override folders affected newly created characters only. I no longer think that's true.

Can you confirm the following?

Changing the portrait mapping for a given culture does not affect running campaigns. The game will continue to look for portraits in the culture folder specified when the campaign started. Within that folder, however, changing the override files actually affects already existing characters.

Am I finally getting to the bottom of this...?

[Gigantus]

The initial loading screen is in most cases the same, I believe it is somewhere in the middle of the complete list. The random loading does not seem to start until the actual game starts.

IT appears that descr_cultures is one of the 'not save game compatible' files - meaning it only gets read at the beginning of the game and does not get referenced thereafter, others would be the script and desc_strat and a good number of others.
Characters will be assigned the numbered pics, if you change the pic the number\name will remain, hence it will use the new pic.

[rummtata]

This particular information would make a great addition to your tutorial ;-)