[tutorial] Making Portraits

[JuniorModder]

Hello modding community! It has recently come to my attention that quite a few people desperately want to make portraits, but are having trouble doing so.

 

Well, I am here to give you a easy to follow tutorial, showing one way to make effective portraits.

 

Things you will need:

 

Fraps

Gimp

Kotor Savegame editor Optional

Kotor Tool

KotOR or tSL

 

Step 1: Take a screenshot of your character in-game.

 

Load a save game. Then, make sure the character's appearance is on one of the party members or the PC. You can change this with Save Game editor.

Angle the character you want to make a portrait for, using First person view if nessasary.

Once your finished angling your character, have another character stand in front of him/her. As the other character, switch to First Person mode, and take screenshots by pressing the F10 key.

Make sure not to get them while they're blinking (unless you want to).

Step 3: Open your screenshot in Gimp.

 

Go to the folder where your screenshots are saved (You can choose a folder in the fraps window). Right click the one that looks the best, and select "Edit with Gimp". If that doesn't show up for you, you can load Gimp, and open it that way.

 

 

Step 4: Prepare the Image

 

Select the button that looks like an X-acto knife.

 

Make a large box around the character's head and upper body.

Then press enter. This will delete the extra part of the image that you don't need.

 

Now, select the icon that looks like a lasso.

 

And carefully trace starting in a corner. Trace the edges, and then the head and shoulders. Meet back up at your starting point. You want it to look as if the character is outside of the tracing, NOT INSIDE.

 

Step 5: Make your Portrait!

 

Click the Fill With Paint Bucket.

Then, select a good background color.

 

Under "Affected Area" click "Fill whole selection", and then click any area in the image except the character.

 

Here are some Touch ups that are very handy.

 

Touch up 1: Gradients

You know how one side of the background is darker than the other? This is a gradient.

 

Select the Gradient icon.

You can tinker with it however you want, but what I do, is click the dropdown menu beside "Mode:".

Then select "Burn".

Draw a line starting at the bottom corner of the image, going diagonally to the opposite top corner.

You should get something like this:

Again, tamper with it until you get a desired look.

 

Touch up 2: Saturation

 

Often, the color you pick is way to bright, and looks cheap when in-game. A good way to rid your portrait of this, is to lower the saturation.

Go up to the toolbar at the top of the window. Under "Colors" pick "Hue-Saturation". Then lower the saturation a bit, until it looks like it could fit into the game.

 

It also is good lower the saturation and put a very light gradient on the character . If you are comepletely done editing the background, press control a.

Lower the saturation a small amount.

Then, make a light gradient. To do this lower the opacity to around 30.0. Then make the gradient.

 

Step 6: Finish the Portrait

 

Now that you have a good looking portrait, you will need to resize it to be able to have it in-game.

 

Click the "Resize Image" button.

 

Resize the Width and Hight (X,Y) to 256 by 256.

 

Now it is completely done! Save it as PO_pCharacter'sName.tga.

 

If it tells you that tga can't handle the transparency or something, just click export.

 

 

Step 7: Putting your portrait in the game

 

Open up Kotor Tool. Go to BIFs/2da.bif/2da array/appearance.2da

Find the line where the character who is recieving the new portrait has it's information.

Find your characters Row number (It's under Row Label) You'll need to remember this, along the name of the appearance.

Close appearance.2da, and open portraits.2da.

 

Create a new row in portraits.2da. In Row Number, look up to the previes row number. Write the number that comes after that. In the next spot, write the name of your tga.

Next space: the gender (Male 0, Female 1)

Next space: the characters Row Number

Leave everything blank until you reach "Baseresrefe" In the next spaces, put the name of your portrait. If you have a dark side portrait, put the name of it in the last space. If not, put the same name you did for the rest.

Under files, click "Save as 2da v2.b".

Put it in your Override Folder.

 

Then you can give it to a specific character using SaveGame Editor.

I hope this helped you!

 

JuniorModder

 

 

EDIT: I forgot to say that raising the contrast a bit also looks good.

 

EDIT 2: Make sure you take your screen in a well lit area.

[VarsityPuppet]

I would suggest adding some screenshots. As much as I hate adding screenshots to tutorials myself, for a photoshopping tutorial, it's almost required.

[JuniorModder]

I would suggest adding some screenshots. As much as I hate adding screenshots to tutorials myself, for a photoshopping tutorial, it's almost required.

 

I did add screens.. Man why don't they ever show up?! I'll think of some way to fix it.

 

Can you see the first pic in the Spoilers?

 

JuniorModder

[VarsityPuppet]

I'm still getting nothing.

[ForeverNight]

Same, where'd you put the images?

[JuniorModder]

I got them off of my website, but I switched to ImageShack, so it should work now.

 

JuniorModder

[ForeverNight]

Yep, it works.

[purifier]

Nice job JM. I was working on a tutorial like this for someone else, so they would know how to do it - but I haven't had the time to finish it. But anyway, I like yours better, I'm gonna send them an E-mail and let them know about it.

 

Again, NICE job.

[jedi7000nathan]

um this should go in the tutorial section not holowan labs

[JuniorModder]

I can't post in the tutorial section. Moderators only I think.

 

And I edited it in the post, but I also recommend upping the contrast a bit.

 

JuniorModder

[Quanon]

Added to the tutorial section

 

EDIT: I'm not a moderator, though I can post in the tutorial section.

I can because I made some tutorials and they granted me posting in there.

 

Though its now posted with my... euh avatar and all, I did mentioned your name in the title, also mentioned I didn't make the tutorial but you did.

 

But like this it won't get lost in all the other posts in Holowan.

I'm sure a moderator will be able to fix it all up, giving them some work, lazy monkeys

[Queen of Night]

Your tutorial sounds good, I'm going to try soon.

[JuniorModder]

Here is an updated portrait:

 

I blurred a bit of the sloppy outlining, added another gradient, raised the saturation a bit (I made it too low), and upped the contrast.

 

Also when you take your picture, make sure the lighting is okay. I updated the post again.

 

Thanks for the comments! I hope this helped you!

 

JuniorModder

[VarsityPuppet]

Good tutorial.. I have a slightly different method however, and if you don't mind, could I perhaps add a bit to your tutorial?

[JuniorModder]

Good tutorial.. I have a slightly different method however, and if you don't mind, could I perhaps add a bit to your tutorial?

 

It depends, what do you want to add?

 

JuniorModder

[VarsityPuppet]

It depends, what do you want to add?

 

JuniorModder

 

Just a quick easy-to-do touchup that (I think) makes the portraits more resemblant of the vanilla portraits.

[JuniorModder]

Okay. Don't delete what I said though, just add it in the appropriate section.

 

Make sure you tell em' that the update is from you.

 

JuniorModder

 

EDIT: Wait, are you going to edit my post, or are you going to tell me what to say?

[VarsityPuppet]

Okay. Don't delete what I said though, just add it in the appropriate section.

 

Make sure you tell em' that the update is from you.

 

JuniorModder

 

EDIT: Wait, are you going to edit my post, or are you going to tell me what to say?

 

I'll just bump it. It's only like 2 extra steps so, it shouldn't be too hard.

[Tobias Reiper]

But one question: What's with the Handmaiden anyway? She looks funky.

[JuniorModder]

But one question: What's with the Handmaiden anyway? She looks funky.

 

Maybe your noticing that I reskinned her. Makes her seem less dead.

 

JM

[VarsityPuppet]

Alright, here's Varsity's official addition to Juniormodder's already awesome portrait tutorial.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Weeeeeeeeee!

 

Well, to illustrate what I'm trying to do, I'm going to backtrack a few steps. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out where I left off.

 

What we're doing here is creating an overlay.

I don't know how to explain what it does really... other than it accentuates textures and lines.

 

Click on the spoilers to see the steps. The screenshots are rather big, so I used the 'hidden' tags.

 

VP step 1

Show spoiler

(hidden content - requires Javascript to show)

First, copy the layer of the cut out character (in this case, the Handmaiden)

 

 

You'll see in the layer bar that there are two layers with the Handmaiden.

 

VP Step 2

Show spoiler

(hidden content - requires Javascript to show)

You'll want to select the top-most layer (or the duplicate you just created, just make sure it's above the original layer) and then click the dropbox. Once there, scroll down until you find the overlay option.

 

--->

 

VP step 3

Show spoiler

(hidden content - requires Javascript to show)

Once you've done this, you'll notice that the Handmaiden has suddenly gotten a little brighter and kinda funky. That's okay. Just go up to Colors > Desaturate and choose Lightness and click [Okay] or whatever the button says, and that issue shall be fixed.

 

 

You've just created your first Overlay layer! Congratulations!

 

 

VP step 4

Show spoiler

(hidden content - requires Javascript to show)

If you're greedy, you can certainly make more. Instead of going through the same painstaking process, you could just select the Overlay layer and duplicate that. It'll save you couple of steps.

 

 

You can also change the opacity of the layer if 2 is too many, but 1 isn't enough.

 

 

 

End product... based on my personal tastes

 

[JuniorModder]

Nice job, but I don't have Photoshop.

 

JM

[Quanon]

Uuuh, that's not Photoshop he's using.

Still looks like Gimp to me, unless VP changed the look of his Photoshop

 

Aah, layer "effects". Its named the same as in photoshop though.

Overlay "enhances", the light areas, as well the dark, creating a bit more contrast.

 

Its a nice more subtle effect. Other layer options often really BURN, the black and whites in a picture. Just to strong.

 

If you want I could at this extra bit to the tutorial in the tutorial section

[JuniorModder]

Lol I have a problem missing the obvious. It must be an old version of Gimp, or a different look.

 

Q: Sure thing, just give credit to VarsityPuppet.

 

JM

[VarsityPuppet]

Uuuh, that's not Photoshop he's using.

Still looks like Gimp to me, unless VP changed the look of his Photoshop

 

Yep. My computer's slow though, so even going as far as abandoning the Windows XP theme to boost performance is a valid trick in my book.

 

Aah, layer "effects". Its named the same as in photoshop though.

Overlay "enhances", the light areas, as well the dark, creating a bit more contrast.

Its a nice more subtle effect. Other layer options often really BURN, the black and whites in a picture. Just to strong.

 

A nice little something I picked up from a tutorial here at Holowan Labs

 

If you want I could at this extra bit to the tutorial in the tutorial section

 

By all means . Thanks Quanon!