How are portraits assigned to named characters?

[Ancient]

I've been hunting around trying to find the answer to this, on the .org and twc forums and by sifting through .txt files, but no luck so far.

I know there is a way to assign/change the portraits, because the devs made several changes to the portraits in v1.2, maybe it's being handled inside a hex db and not a .txt file, if so I'm just looking in the wrong place. I looked inside the unpacked directories for .txt files, thinking there might have been one hidden in there that controls portrait assignments, but no luck. I've tried searching the RTW subfolders for specific character names and portrait filenames inside of files, like 'Flavius Julius' and '058.tga', hoping there was just a lookup assigning the specific portraits to named characters, but I've turned up little besides frustration thus far.

I do know that if I add a new starting character to a faction in descr_strat.txt, they are automatically assigned a portrait(not randomly or based on name, it's the same portrait each time and adding a second one also always gets assigned a second, different portrait). No matter what I've made different about the characters VnVs, the first addition always recieves that portrait and the same with the second one, always that same second portrait. This is leading me to believe that those two portraits I keep seeing are also defined somewhere, but where?

The campaign I'm working on will require new portaits for all but the youngest existing family members(starting in 215 B.C., so the existing faction leaders and heirs will very well be dead and gone by then), and I would like to have some level of control over which portraits are assigned based on the character's intended role(governor, general, or both), and the portrait of their father. Until I(or someone else) can figure this out, I'm dead in the water. Not sure how I can rework the ages and family lineups of the factions that will still exist in 215, unless the portraits can indeed be changed around to my liking.

Any help or insight on this would be greatly appriciated.

[Hans Kloss]

I know that is not much help but here is something that I have recently have come across :



same custom character added to the same faction in exactly the same place in family tree.Exactly the same entries in "descr_names_lookup" and "descr_names".There were two different mods and there were significant differences in "names" file (text folder),first one had already custom names added while latter was default.Looks like portrait has been change to this one :



Maybe portraits are assign to characters in relation to their position in this particular file ?

[Ancient]

Correct me if I'm wrong, aren't those two portraits you ended up with civilians, not generals? That in itself is a bit odd. I'm also curious what effect addition of names might be having on the rest of the factions. I am at least getting general's portraits of the correct culture, there is just no method to the madness. I did also try adding a different leader_pic_<faction>.tga in my provincial campaign, and it works in the selection screen, but the normal leader's portrait remains in the strat map(Flavius for Julii, etc.).

I will look into data/text/names.txt and do a few controlled tests to see what effect any changes are having. A few things are (seemingly) certain:

1) The assignment of portraits to new characters defined in descr_strat.txt is not random.

So far it seems that general #5 & #6(most factions have 4 to start with) are bound, for some reason, to the same portraits. I have not changed or added to any of the names files or gone above 6 generals per faction yet, but perhaps the portraits being assigned will change when I get home and am able to try one or both.

2) What name you assign doesn't seem to affect portrait, so long as it is a valid name for the faction from the three 'names' .txt files, otherwise the campaign will not run(crashes back to campaign selection).

I have tried several different existing names for specific characters in vain, no change to the portraits. Changing Alexander's(Seleucid) name to Antiochos, for example, still yields the same portrait with a different name. When his age was changed, he was still using the same portrait, just the old version of it with gray hair.

I was able to slightly control the portraits one way so far:

By renaming the .tgas around so that the one currently being used is replaced with the one I want, renaming ui_0.pak to saved_ui_0.pak, and renaming ui_1.pak to ui_0.pak, then I moved the extracted folders containting the portraits into /data/. That worked, but is not exactly as easy as it sounds. I needed an excel spreadsheet just to keep track of what was going on, and so many of the portraits look similar that it's hard to tell if you've got the right ones when you do start renaming them.

I'm surprised how little anyone has gotten into portrait modding. I would think it as important an aspect of a modded campaign as what units are available to what factions, available mercs, etc. I'm assuming the few mods that are in release have not touched on changing portraits yet.

[Dol Guldur]

I'm surprised too, Ancient. I guess a lot of mods don't need to change them because they are not full conversion.

My own posts on the matter, as you will see, seem to indicate they are random but some patterns did show up. If someone has the time they could do lots of tests but it is difficult - perhaps stick a 1, 2, 3 etc. on the tga portrait graphic of that file number to make it easier?

[Ancient]

I'm guessing if one was dedicated to a specific mod, it woudn't be too terribly difficult to totally replace the images for every portrait manually to make a TC work. The sheer logistics and random nature of it is mind boggling though. It is also apparent from MJ's findings that the 'names' .txt files may have something to with it, which is even weirder, and is also something that will undergo hefty changes for any TC. I can't even fathom how CA handled it myself, short of the way I mentioned in my last post, which is nuts if you try to actually make it work. Truly organized individuals would have a hard time with all that. I'm hopeful it is just one of the many things CA kept either hidden or hard-coded, and it's not just that I am a talentless buffoon.

:prays for CA to correct the unmoddable portrait issue in time for BI's release:

Surely if I state that it's unmoddable someone will strive to prove me wrong...

It really doesn't make sense that there isn't a .txt file or some .db to control portrait assignments. We all know that CA made changes to them with the 1.2 patch, and it may come down to us begging Jerome to elighten us. If you take a look in /data/descr_characters.txt, the file that controls the models displayed on the strat and battle map, it seems that file may not even be used as it is calling to .tgas which are nowhere to be found, .pak or otherwise. I had this file pegged as the one which would handle the portraits until I had a look inside, but again, no luck.

I guess some of us are going to have to keep an open eye out for mods that encompass any portrait changes, and figure out how to do it ourselves from their work. :crosses fingers: