Cultures and Portraits Revamp

[cybrxkhan]

Hey folks, so I actually lied last time when I said the early Ethiopian portraits were the last ones I was showing for this next version of CPR. I forgot to show a little preview about the custom portraits I mentioned a while back, so I'll just make a mini-mini-dev diary here to explain what they're about.

Basically, a few of you who've played with CPR for a while may recall in the pre-HIP days, CPR used to have custom portraits. These were files you could add into CPR in order to customize your portraits; for instance, there was an option that changed the Mediterranean portraits to use Western looks while still keeping their clothing and hair. However, these customization options were removed when CPR was integrated to HIP, as it was annoying to maintain them. Anyways, thanks to some suggestions by Urzhail, these custom portraits are making a return, though a bit differently than they used to.

The custom portraits are now defined as unique, separate portrait sets that are unusued in-game; they also come with custom cultures (unused in-game obviously) that use them for reasons I will explain shortly. Currently, there will be four custom portrait sets/cultures:

- chinesegfx (Azn): Asian appearance with East Asian clothes and hair
- commiegfx (Commie): Western appearance with Russian clothes and hair
- otakugfx (Otaku): Celtic appearance with East Asian clothes and hair
- urzhailculturegfx (Urzhailian): Western appearance with Greek clothes and hair

chinesegfx and otakugfx have been used in CPR for a while, but the other two are new; here's a preview of them as they look in-game (the commiegfx, early and late urzhailculturegfx sets representively):

Anyhow, how would you use these? There are two methods. Either you use the custom portraits in ruler designer to make a character who has a look you like, or you replace all references to the old portrait set with the new one in the cultures code (for example, replace every instance of "byzantinegfx" with "urzhailculturegfx" to make the Byzantines have a Western appearance with Greek clothes and hair). The latter method will make sure everybody of a certain culture looks the way you want them to, while the former is a bit safer and easier. I've provided instructions in the HIP download on how to do all this, so worry not. I understand the overall process might be a tad bit involved, but I figured it was a nice compromise for those who still wanted custom portraits without having to resort to the old method; I also think it's a bit smoother too.

If you have further questions on how this is supposed to work, or have requests for certain custom portrait options, feel free to ask.

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

"I've seen things...terrible things....you couldn't stand it for a second"

Er..the eyes in the first three portraits look a weeeeee bit...dead or vampirishish. Don't you think ?

 

[cybrxkhan]

"I've seen things...terrible things....you couldn't stand it for a second"

Er..the eyes in the first three portraits look a weeeeee bit...dead or vampirishish. Don't you think ?

Eh, I guess. I think they look more like demon spawn or zombies or something. I'll just comment it out in the code. (I think it's one of the Russian portrait eye colors, but whatever)

 

[Aardvark Bellay]

Eh, I guess. I think they look more like demon spawn or zombies or something. I'll just comment it out in the code. (I think it's one of the Russian portrait eye colors, but whatever)

Well, it made me laugh. *TheHorror*

Just mentioned it to catch your attention.
Maybe you should hint the guys with that fantasy mod (vampires, werewolves etc; forgot the name) to that. It looks perfect for it.

 

[StarlightTW]

Eh, I guess. I think they look more like demon spawn or zombies or something. I'll just comment it out in the code. (I think it's one of the Russian portrait eye colors, but whatever)

No, Cybr, don't do it! I wanna have my ruler be known as the guy with the creepy, unearthly gaze that can stare into the souls of all brought before him. xD

Edit: Or at least just tell me where in the code it is so I can delete the commenting out.

 

[IconOfEvi]

Okay I'm in love with that girl second from right on the top row

What hair is that?

Can also possibly do someday a East Asian faces and hair with Arab clothing? I love some of their clothing options

 

[zijistark]

Okay I'm in love with that girl second from right on the top row

What hair is that?

Can also possibly do someday a East Asian faces and hair with Arab clothing? I love some of their clothing options

I'm also in love with her. This could be a problem, you know.

Speaking of which, we REALLY need to set a graphicalculture for Isis (HIP's "God" character, not to be confused with the terrorist militia) and give her some DNA so that she's really hot. The only trick is that it can't use a CPR graphicalculture (or can we specify a vanilla fallback culture? I forget), as Isis needs to be hot and seemingly screaming "ancient Egyptian goddess immortal" with her DNA in all HIP installations. Currently, Isis doesn't have any custom DNA, so her look changes from patch to patch (aside from the fact that she's using westerngfx), and lately she's turned into a little chub, so SOMETHING MUST BE DONE HERE.

 

[cybrxkhan]

No, Cybr, don't do it! I wanna have my ruler be known as the guy with the creepy, unearthly gaze that can stare into the souls of all brought before him. xD

Edit: Or at least just tell me where in the code it is so I can delete the commenting out.

If you go to "Historical Immersion Project/interface/portraits" you should see a bunch of files named "portraits_[name of portrait set].gfx", like portraits_sogdian.gfx or portraits_chinese.gfx or something. Open the one you want to change in notepad++ or notepad or something (in this case it will be portraits_commie.gfx). In the code you'll see several instances of stuff under eye color:

		eye_color = {
			{ 58 109 193}
			{ 120 74 46 }
			{ 34 103 36 }
			#{ 166 223 244 }
		}

Just remove the #.

If you know what you're doing, this means you can also add in new eye colors too if you want. Now you can have purple and pink eyes!

Okay I'm in love with that girl second from right on the top row

What hair is that?

It's one of the Russian hairs.

Can also possibly do someday a East Asian faces and hair with Arab clothing? I love some of their clothing options

Oddly enough one of the first portrait sets I did for CPR was East Asian faces + Arab clothes, and I used it for some Central Asian groups; I removed and deleted them a while back as they were obsolete with the newer portrait DLCs, but yes, I can put that on my to-do list.

I'm also in love with her. This could be a problem, you know.

3d girls > 2d girls

Speaking of which, we REALLY need to set a graphicalculture for Isis (HIP's "God" character, not to be confused with the terrorist militia) and give her some DNA so that she's really hot. The only trick is that it can't use a CPR graphicalculture (or can we specify a vanilla fallback culture? I forget), as Isis needs to be hot and seemingly screaming "ancient Egyptian goddess immortal" with her DNA in all HIP installations. Currently, Isis doesn't have any custom DNA, so her look changes from patch to patch (aside from the fact that she's using westerngfx), and lately she's turned into a little chub, so SOMETHING MUST BE DONE HERE.

Fallback cultures work in a certain way I don't exactly recall and don't want to bother with (i.e. 2deep4me). Generally if you want her to look like an actual Egyptian muslimgfx would actually be the closest, in my opinion, but we can also do with her like what they did for Muhammed in vanilla CKII. But anyways we can discuss this elsewhere, in the HIP secret evil HQ.

 

[CrackdToothGrin]

I'm also in love with her. This could be a problem, you know.

Speaking of which, we REALLY need to set a graphicalculture for Isis (HIP's "God" character, not to be confused with the terrorist militia) and give her some DNA so that she's really hot. The only trick is that it can't use a CPR graphicalculture (or can we specify a vanilla fallback culture? I forget), as Isis needs to be hot and seemingly screaming "ancient Egyptian goddess immortal" with her DNA in all HIP installations. Currently, Isis doesn't have any custom DNA, so her look changes from patch to patch (aside from the fact that she's using westerngfx), and lately she's turned into a little chub, so SOMETHING MUST BE DONE HERE.

Here you go.

There's no alpha for it, and it's twice the size of the usual portraits in-game, but feel free to find a way to use this if you want.

 

[zijistark]

Here you go.

There's no alpha for it, and it's twice the size of the usual portraits in-game, but feel free to find a way to use this if you want.

Awesome! In our secret clubhouse, we were just debating about what kind of portrait to use for Isis after determining that we were going to make our own portrait set with the background as the top layer specifically for her. Appropriate age for Isis, how to get a decent game-appropriate look for 'sexy Egyptian goddess' google image results, whether only brothers without sisters have fantasies about having a hot sister, etc, and you just swooped-in and saved the day. Thanks, Crakd, we'll use this.

 

[Urzhail64]

Hey folks, so I actually lied last time when I said the early Ethiopian portraits were the last ones I was showing for this next version of CPR. I forgot to show a little preview about the custom portraits I mentioned a while back, so I'll just make a mini-mini-dev diary here to explain what they're about.

Basically, a few of you who've played with CPR for a while may recall in the pre-HIP days, CPR used to have custom portraits. These were files you could add into CPR in order to customize your portraits; for instance, there was an option that changed the Mediterranean portraits to use Western looks while still keeping their clothing and hair. However, these customization options were removed when CPR was integrated to HIP, as it was annoying to maintain them. Anyways, thanks to some suggestions by Urzhail, these custom portraits are making a return, though a bit differently than they used to.

The custom portraits are now defined as unique, separate portrait sets that are unusued in-game; they also come with custom cultures (unused in-game obviously) that use them for reasons I will explain shortly. Currently, there will be four custom portrait sets/cultures:

- chinesegfx (Azn): Asian appearance with East Asian clothes and hair
- commiegfx (Commie): Western appearance with Russian clothes and hair
- otakugfx (Otaku): Celtic appearance with East Asian clothes and hair
- urzhailculturegfx (Urzhailian): Western appearance with Greek clothes and hair

chinesegfx and otakugfx have been used in CPR for a while, but the other two are new; here's a preview of them as they look in-game (the commiegfx, early and late urzhailculturegfx sets representively):

Anyhow, how would you use these? There are two methods. Either you use the custom portraits in ruler designer to make a character who has a look you like, or you replace all references to the old portrait set with the new one in the cultures code (for example, replace every instance of "byzantinegfx" with "urzhailculturegfx" to make the Byzantines have a Western appearance with Greek clothes and hair). The latter method will make sure everybody of a certain culture looks the way you want them to, while the former is a bit safer and easier. I've provided instructions in the HIP download on how to do all this, so worry not. I understand the overall process might be a tad bit involved, but I figured it was a nice compromise for those who still wanted custom portraits without having to resort to the old method; I also think it's a bit smoother too.

If you have further questions on how this is supposed to work, or have requests for certain custom portrait options, feel free to ask.

I have passed into CK2 godhood. *tear* All hail the Urzhailians ! It shall be my default race for EVERY SINGLE DAMN CK2 game character I PLAY !!!

Just a question...will all the new "cultures" be listed under the culture drop down menu accessible within the Ruler Designer ?

 

[cybrxkhan]

There's no alpha for it, and it's twice the size of the usual portraits in-game, but feel free to find a way to use this if you want.

Well, that was quick. Thanks!

And here it is in-game:

...whether only brothers without sisters have fantasies about having a hot sister...

For those who know about it, c.f. Bakemonogatari episode 3, Senjougahara and Araragi's dialogue. And this was the placheolder I was using for Isis when we were figuring out how to get this static portrait to work in the first place:

I might reuse it in the future for... something...

I have passed into CK2 godhood. *tear* All hail the Urzhailians ! It shall be my default race for EVERY SINGLE DAMN CK2 game character I PLAY !!!

Just a question...will all the new "cultures" be listed under the culture drop down menu accessible within the Ruler Designer ?

The new cultures are accessible in ruler designer, yes, both for ethnicity/appearance and as an actual culture (in the custom culture culture group). Though of course as an actual culture they don't really have any features, they just have a few silly names and dynasties for the lulz but that's it, they're intended for just ethnicity/appearance usage but I ain't stopping you from doing whatever you want with them.

 

[Urzhail64]

Then I might have an additional portrait set suggestion for you.

Byzantine portrait skin - see if you can lighten the skin tone to Western skin color.

Norse hairstyles with the full range of eye and hair colors.

What I normally do is select the Bohemian portrait set (it's my current favorite portrait set for the Western portraits/Norse hairstyles) for my ruler and set their culture to the one I want on the third tab of the Ruler Designer - where you pick the traits etc. So this way, I can have a Livonian culture ruler with the Bohemian portrait. Although I prefer the Polish culture. Those winged hussars are too sexy to pass up as a retinue even if they don't really historically appear for a while.

- Urzy

 

[DarkReborn]

Stupid sexy sister render.

 

[Ruskhan]

any news on Saxon portraits?

 

[cybrxkhan]

Then I might have an additional portrait set suggestion for you.

Byzantine portrait skin - see if you can lighten the skin tone to Western skin color.

Lightening the skin tone is kinda outside of my ability and personally I'm alright with the current skin tone of the Greeks (Iberians less so, but the paler skin mini-mod is currently unavailable due to potential conflicts with PI mod policy so I won't touch that for now.

Norse hairstyles with the full range of eye and hair colors.

What I normally do is select the Bohemian portrait set (it's my current favorite portrait set for the Western portraits/Norse hairstyles) for my ruler and set their culture to the one I want on the third tab of the Ruler Designer - where you pick the traits etc. So this way, I can have a Livonian culture ruler with the Bohemian portrait. Although I prefer the Polish culture. Those winged hussars are too sexy to pass up as a retinue even if they don't really historically appear for a while.

- Urzy

Do you mean like a portrait set with Western appearance and Norse hair and clothes?

any news on Saxon portraits?

Saxon portrait set has been re-added in the most recent HIP release, also inculdes early era version utilizing the early Western clothes DLC (I believe I posted a preview of that a couple of pages back).

 

[Urzhail64]

Lightening the skin tone is kinda outside of my ability and personally I'm alright with the current skin tone of the Greeks (Iberians less so, but the paler skin mini-mod is currently unavailable due to potential conflicts with PI mod policy so I won't touch that for now.



Do you mean like a portrait set with Western appearance and Norse hair and clothes?

No, the re-addition of the Saxon culture portraits makes it moot. It was also one of my favorites too.

Saxon portrait set has been re-added in the most recent HIP release, also inculdes early era version utilizing the early Western clothes DLC (I believe I posted a preview of that a couple of pages back).

Back to the Byzantine faces, well you don't have to lighten the skins. Do you think you can put in Norse hairstyles to go with Byzantine/Hellenic faces and Byzantine (preferable) OR Norse clothing and call it "Varangian ?"

I played my first game with the Urzahilian culture using it for a doukessa of Cyprus..works VERY well. I'd say it's hands down the best looking portrait set in all of CK2 as far as combination of faces/hair goes. One thing though..do you think you can make the red hair color somewhat more redder.

And while not a biggie for me..the child portrait for the Urzhailian culture is Mongol child portrait. It should be the Western child portrait.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Back to the Byzantine faces, well you don't have to lighten the skins. Do you think you can put in Norse hairstyles to go with Byzantine/Hellenic faces and Byzantine (preferable) OR Norse clothing and call it "Varangian ?"

I can put that on my to-do list, certainly.

I played my first game with the Urzahilian culture using it for a doukessa of Cyprus..works VERY well. I'd say it's hands down the best looking portrait set in all of CK2 as far as combination of faces/hair goes. One thing though..do you think you can make the red hair color somewhat more redder.

Glad to see you like it; I'll also see if I can get a redder hair color.

And while not a biggie for me..the child portrait for the Urzhailian culture is Mongol child portrait. It should be the Western child portrait.

Oh, that's an oversight on my part, since the Custom culture group uses mongolgfx as the default, I'll have that fixed.

 

[JoeSteel]

Any idea when we might be able to lose the byzantine faces? Usually play as the alans but these byzantine faces make me cry.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Any idea when we might be able to lose the byzantine faces? Usually play as the alans but these byzantine faces make me cry.

CPR doesn't remove any existing faces. The newest HIP release just included a custom portrait that uses Western faces with Byzantine clothes and hair, see the instructions provided in the HIP download on how to apply those.