Overriding Portraits

Introduction

This page gives instructions for overriding the current portrait that your character uses in Avlis. This is for already existing characters. If you are creating a new character, go back and learn about creating a custom portrait.

Before you start through these directions, make sure that you've created your 5 portraits as described on the custom portrait creation page and that you've put them somewhere on your hard drive where you can find them.

Tools Needed

NWN Explorer -- a program available from NWN Vault that is not part of the standard NWN install, so you'll need to download it to use it. With it, you can open/edit just about any file used by the game.

What Portrait File Does My Character Use?

Ok, you've already created your character, and don't like the portrait that currently shows up, right? In order to change it, we'll have to find out what file is currently tied to your character. Follow these steps:

1. First, log in to Avlis, then hit the esc button and select Save Character. This will save a copy of your character's .bic file (contains all the information about you) to your hard drive.
2. Log out.
3. Next, using NWN Explorer, open up your character's .bic -- it will be in C:\Neverwinter Nights\NWN\localvault\ on your hard drive.
4. Scroll down to the line that says "Portrait" and copy down the value. For example, when I did this, mine was po_el_m_03.

Placing the Files and Changing the File Names

Now we're going to change the file names so that we can trick the game into using our new portrait. The key here is that we have to change the name of the CUSTOM portraits that you just created to match the name in you character's .bic file.

1. Find the custom portrait that you just created. It should be a .tga format and there should be five copies of it ending in _H, _L, _M, _S, _T.
2. Copy those five files into your ...\Neverwinter Nights\NWN\override\ folder
3. Carefully rename them using the value you extracted from the .bic and leaving the _H, _L, _M, ... etc on the end of each name.
4. Log in and enjoy your new portrait!

In my example, the portrait name was po_el_m_03. Using that example, I ended up with the following 5 files: po_el_m_03_H.tga po_el_m_03_L.tga po_el_m_03_M.tga po_el_m_03_S.tga po_el_m_03_T.tga

Who Can See My Portrait?

You can. Isn't that the whole reason you did this? Ok, ok. Anyone that downloads your 5 custom portraits files and installs them in their override directory will now see your new portrait. All others will see the original portrait that you picked when you created your character.

Someone Else is Using My Portrait!

Calm down. Take a really deep breath and hold it for 5 minutes. Remember that we are basically tricking the game to use the custom portrait IN PLACE of one of its standard ones? That means that anyone else that picked the same standard portrait as you on character creation will now show up as your custom portrait. If it really bothers you, just don't party up with them.