Creating A Custom Portrait

Step 1.
Using an image editor of your choice that supports the Targa (.tga) format, create a new blank image 256 x 512 pixels in dimension. Example software includes Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro.

Only the top portion of the image is displayed in the game, so that the actual size of your portrait is 256 x 400 pixels. The bottom portion of the image MUST be blank and unused. If it is not blank, your computer will light on fire and explode when you try to save your game -- er, well, or it might just crash.

Areas of the image:

canvas is the entire image
portrait is the area used by the game
blank is the unused area (but required)

You can also download the sample portrait I created, shown left. (This portrait is meant to be humorous, and should inspire you to do better!) You will need WinZip to unzip this portrait. If you view my sample portrait in your image editor, you will see it has the blank area described above. Remember, if you don't leave this area blank, you will experience crashes when you try to save your game.

Step 2.
Create your custom portrait, whatever it may be, in the 'portrait' area. Remember, even though the total size of the canvas is 256 x 512 pixels, only use the top 256 x 400 pixels as diagrammed above for the portrait itself.

Step 3.
Now you need to create five versions of the portrait for the game to use. You have already created the largest version, so you can just resize it to make each of the four other smaller versions.

The dimensions of the five versions needed are:

256x400 (on a 256x512 canvas) - used for the Player Character Bio
128x200 (on a 128x256 canvas) - used for the character sheet
64x100 (on a 64x128 canvas) - used for the in-game portrait
32x50 (on a 32x64 canvas) - used for the party members and radial menu
16x25 (on a 16x32 canvas) - used for the chat thumbnail

Step 4.
You must save the images as Targa (.tga) files, (selecting the '24 bits' and 'uncompressed' options of your software). Compressed Targa files will not work in NWN. The filenames for the five versions must follow this pattern:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxh.tga (for the 256x512 canvas)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxl.tga (for the 128x256 canvas)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxm.tga (for the 64x128 canvas)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxs.tga (for the 32x64 canvas)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxt.tga (for the 16x32 canvas)

Where the prefix "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" is a name you create, is 1 to 15 characters in length, and the same for all five versions.

The 'h', 'l', 'm' ,'s', and 't' that follows the prefix indicates the size of the image (Huge, Large, Medium, Small, and Tiny).

So for my sample portrait, I created these five images:

robinsample_h.tga
robinsample_l.tga
robinsample_m.tga
robinsample_s.tga
robinsample_t.tga

As you can see, my images all have the same prefix of "robinsample_" (since it is 12 characters in total, it follows the rule of being between 1 to 15 characters), and I also have each of the five versions - 'h', 'l', 'm' ,'s', and 't'.

Once you have either created your portrait, or downloaded one, you can use it in the game.

Place the jpeg or etc of the file you'd like made into a portrait, unto your portrait folder, no converting needed. Boot up NWN, and at the main screen, bring up the console with the ~ key. Then type

ConvertPortrait Filename

NWN will then automatically resize and make 5 proper correct working copies of your picture.

haha, that was fast....

Place the jpeg or etc of the file you'd like made into a portrait, unto your portrait folder, no converting needed. Boot up NWN, and at the main screen, bring up the console with the ~ key. Then type

ConvertPortrait Filename

NWN will then automatically resize and make 5 proper correct working copies of your picture.