Replacing portraits for NPC's using something like Artbreeder.

[rookery.]

So I had a thought. The portraits of the NPC's are often what players really see of the NPC when they are interacting with them. A lot of them are looking pretty dated and blocky. Was thinking that maybe they could be replaced or spiffied up through something like Artbreeder.

 

I realize there are a LOT of NPC's but if not ALL of them, then how about the big hero ones? The iconics maybe? I can't imagine it would take much more than downloading the portrait pic of say Manticore, redressing it in Artbreeder and replacing it.

 

Anyways, that is my thought.

 

Hope you all have a great holidays!

[Greycat]

I suspect it'd be harder than you think. I *don't* think those are static images. Why?

 

Do this experiment. Find a character with two noticably different looks. (Or just roll one and make two really different looks - free tailoring before level 10 after all.)

 

Go look at your personal info (ID used to do this.) You'll see one look.

Change costumes - look again. You'll see it changes to match.

 

I don't think what you see for NPCs is static, but grabbing the image the same way. Which lets things like AE use the NPCs we make - it'd be the same back end. (When we had the old "hero ID cards," it did the same thing.)

 

 

[TheZag]

Make a character with a cape and aura then hit change costume and look at all of the 'same' costume.  The cape and aura are on different frames of animation in each one.  So everything Greycat said but you can look at them side by side.  The game takes a 'screenshot' of the character model when it needs to put a picture in a frame.

[Vanden]

No character, player or NPC, has a portrait in the game files. All portraits are dynamically generated by the client in real-time as soon they're needed for a window, and not a moment sooner.

[rookery.]

Oh I did not know that. I wasnt thinking to do players...since he costume options would be hugely impossible. I just thought the npcs had static images... wonder why they did it that way?

 

Anyways Thanks for the replies!