Custom Portrait won't display

[zeros_and_ones]

I've searched all the old threads dealing with custom portraits, most of them seem to give the same instructions which were also included in the IWD2 readme file. I've followed those instructions, but I'm still not able to display custom portraits in the game.

I created a 'Portraits' folder in the 'Icewind Dale II' folder and searched a bunch of fan sites until I found the pics I wanted to use - most of them were already sized for IWD2 (210x330 for large, 42x42 for the small), but a few of them weren't. In any case I downloaded the .bmp files, gave them names shorter than 7 characters and added 'L' and 'S' to the large and small pics respectively, then saved them in the newly created 'Portraits' folder. I am able to open the files using Windows Paint and they display fine, so I'm pretty sure there was no corruption in the download (plus they came from a few different sites).

Anyway, in the game during portrait selection I click on custom and it gives me a list of all the .bmp files I saved - so far so good. But when I select the file all that is displayed is a gold question mark. None of the pics work.

The only thing I'm not sure about is whether they're 8 or 24 bit. To be honest I have no idea how to check or change it if they're not.

I would love some help if at all possible. Thanks in advance

[RTP]

it doesn't really matter if they're 8 or 24 bit, game should support both types (not quite sure for 36 bit...)

ok, here's a couple of suggestions:

-check your IDale version (do you have last update?)
or, if that doesn't help:
-open the pictures in Paint, and save them again as "24-bit bitmap", and as a new file, then try using them.

or maybe, if you had put pictures in a "Portraits" folder while the game was running, you should have restarted the game (I don't mean restart the game from the beggining, just exit the game, and reenter it), to load the pictures.

other than that, I'm out of ideas
what sites did you got the pictures from?

[zeros_and_ones]

-Well, I installed the only official patch I could find so I'm running ver. 2.01.
-I created the 'Portraits' folder and saved the pics in it while IWD2 was off, and have since launched IWD2, but each time it refuses to display the images.
-I got the pictures from "Tentamus Darkblade's Icewind Dale 2 Portraits" (page_1.page) - these are all formatted to the correct size for the game.

I really appreciate you helping me out with this RTP - it's just so irritating because, generally speaking, I'm not an idiot and shouldn't really have such a hard time with such a simple customization. I really don't want to start the game until I get the custom portraits in there because, I gather it may not be possible to change them later without a 3d party game editor - which I'd like to avoid.

[RTP]

Wow, great pictures page!

Anyway, opened the page, saved the first picture on hard drive.
opened the picture with Paint.
saved picture:

File name: ElfL
Save as type: 24-bit Bitmap

Imported picture, works great.

let me quote you (I think I know what your problem is):

I created a 'Portraits' folder in the 'Icewind Dale II' folder and searched a bunch of fan sites until I found the pics I wanted to use - most of them were already sized for IWD2 (210x330 for large, 42x42 for the small), but a few of them weren't. In any case downloaded the .bmp files, gave them names shorter than 7 characters and added 'L' and 'S' to the large and small pics respectively, then saved them in the newly created 'Portraits' folder. I am able to open the files using Windows Paint and they display fine, so I'm pretty sure there was no corruption in the download (plus they came from a few different sites).

one little problem.
pictures are in JPEG format, so you have to save them as 24-bit Bitmap mannualy (after you download them)
game won't recognize them in JPEG


EDIT: oh, and do not worry about perfect portraits, you can change them anytime you want.
click that page where you level-up your character, then click Customise, and then Appearence.