How-to : Make a custom portrait for your AAR character in less than 5 minutes

[R.P. Gryphus]

NOTE : This note will be deleted after we take care of the question whether or not this thread should be stickied here or just put into some workshop forum. Because yeah I'm wondering where's the best place to put this little tutorial so it reaches people making and loving AAR in the most efficient way. So I'm humbly asking the staff to stick this thread here in this forum so to make it easy of access and reachable by everyone coming here posting their AAR, wanting inspiration to start their own, etc. Thank you!

Greetings!

This little tutorial will show you how to create a custom portrait for your AARs in less than 5 minutes, so this will allow for more personalized stories for those who like to use in-game images. Please note that you must have UNPACKED your Medieval 2 beforehand, which is easy and quick. Also, as a golden rule in everything that regards modding, always make a back-up of your file in case you screw something up.


1. Create your portrait first. Its dimensions must be 69 * 96 pixels, with the extension .TGA and you must have 3 images which must be titled as follows: portrait_young, portrait_old and portrait_dead, the latter being in black and white preferably.

2. Once your .TGA images have been created, go create a folder here with your character's first name in small letters : steamapps\common\Medieval II Total War\mods\THEMODYOUPLAY\data\ui\custom_portraits

NOTE : If in your 'ui' folder you don't have a folder titled 'custom_portraits', you will need to create one IN WHICH you will create another folder for your custom character. It is one folder per character.

3. Drop your images in your newly created folder.


1. Open the file descr_script.txt in Notepad++ which is located here: steamapps\common\Medieval II Total War\mods\THEMODYOUPLAY\data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign

2. In this text file are all the factions of the game and their starting generals. Find the faction you want to play. All faction sections begin with this line: faction venice,

So go to the search tool and search with that line, replacing 'venice' with the faction you want to play in your AAR. NOTE that between the words 'faction' and 'venice' it is NOT a 'normal space', but a 'TAB space'.

3. Several other lines will follow this line which are your starting settlements. Go down until you see the 'character' line. Here is an example with the Venice faction in Stainless Steel 6.4 :

character	Vitale Michele, named character, male, leader, age 47, x 168, y 173 
traits Factionleader 1 , GovernorInclination 1 , NaturalMilitarySkill 1 , GoodAdministrator 2 , GoodTrader 2 , ReligionStarter 1 
ancillaries apothecary
army
unit		SE Bodyguard				exp 1 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
unit		Urban Spear Militia			exp 1 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
unit		Urban Spear Militia			exp 1 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0

4. What you want to do is add this line to the end of the 'character' line: portrait NAME, where 'NAME' must be the name of the folder having your custom portraits. Here is an example :

character	Vitale Michele, named character, male, leader, age 47, x 168, y 173, portrait NAME
traits Factionleader 1 , GovernorInclination 1 , NaturalMilitarySkill 1 , GoodAdministrator 2 , GoodTrader 2 , ReligionStarter 1 
ancillaries apothecary
army
unit		SE Bodyguard				exp 1 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
unit		Urban Spear Militia			exp 1 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0
unit		Urban Spear Militia			exp 1 armour 0 weapon_lvl 0

5. Save and that's it. You have a custom portrait for your starting general.



If you want me to create a tutorial about how to change the names of your starting generals, let me know in the comments! À plus!

[King Athelstan]

Nice guide! I remember editing the names etc for Rome 1 a while back, but it would be very neat to have a guide for that for m2 here as well, so you're well on your way to create a custom general. In fact, I'm getting ideas for AARs already, and I haven't ever written a proper one

[R.P. Gryphus]

Thank you. In fact you are giving me the idea to create a proper all-in-one tutorial on how to create a custom general in your campaign, whatever the mod you use, which will include how to create a name, portraits, give him traits, ancillaries and troops. Not sure though it this is needed or not, so maybe I better wait for some response first. ^^

[King Athelstan]

I'd find use of it at least

[Cookiegod]

but how do you give that guy a specific picture out of those that you made?

[R.P. Gryphus]

Well this tutorial pretty much says it all. What exactly do you want to know?

[Cookiegod]

Lets say you put Braveheart, Saladin, and Hans into your custom made folder. You also gave each of the three characters that portrait NAME tag signifying that the character is to use a custom image which it can get from the folder NAME. How will the game know which of the characters will get which image? How will the game know that for example Vitale Michele should have picture X and not picture Saladin?

[King Athelstan]

As I understood it each folder was for one portrait, as young, old and dead - You'd have separate folders for separate portraits, but I might be wrong here

[Cookiegod]

ah ok so each guy would get his own folder, and the name should be exactly his name

[R.P. Gryphus]

1. Create your portrait first. Its dimensions must be 69 * 96 pixels, with the extension .TGA and you must have 3 images which must be titled as follows: portrait_young, portrait_old and portrait_dead, the latter being in black and white preferably.

2. Once your .TGA images have been created, go create a folder here with your character's first name in small letters : steamapps\common\Medieval II Total War\mods\THEMODYOUPLAY\data\ui\custom_portraits

3. Drop your images in your newly created folder.

One folder per character.

EDIT : I'll add to the OP that if you don't have a custom portraits folder, you need to create one in which you will create characters folder.

[R.P. Gryphus]

I think I have misunderstood your question lol

So the way it works is that in the ui folder, you have many folders. One of them should be titled 'custom_portraits'. Some mods don't have it though so it is safe to create one. This folder should/can contain other folders titled according to which character they refer to in the game. The code in descr_strat that reads 'portrait NAME' refers to the folder of the same name. This named folder should contain 3 images in .TGA format that reads as described in the tutorial. Hope it helps you understand better. ^^

[Alwyn]

Great tutorial, thanks! Tutorials and 'how to' guides in the Writers' Study go in the Writers' Lounge, so please hold on to your hats while the thread moves to its new home.

[Edit to add] TAKEDA ⬤ SHINGEN, now that the thread is here in the Lounge, I wonder if you'd like to edit the thread title and OP to indicate that this is for Medieval II.

[R.P. Gryphus]

I'm afraid it will be buried in the Writer's Loundge, hence why I ask to stick it where it initially was. And this is for Med 2, indeed, another reason why I thought it'd be more appropriate to stick it in the Med 2 AAR forum.

[Cookiegod]

I think I have misunderstood your question lol

So the way it works is that in the ui folder, you have many folders. One of them should be titled 'custom_portraits'. Some mods don't have it though so it is safe to create one. This folder should/can contain other folders titled according to which character they refer to in the game. The code in descr_strat that reads 'portrait NAME' refers to the folder of the same name. This named folder should contain 3 images in .TGA format that reads as described in the tutorial. Hope it helps you understand better. ^^

Thanks m8! All clear now. It was at the very end of a 36h nonstop work day that I asked and as you can see I was very much confused.