Alweth's easy Portrait Grabber

Alweth · Mon, 15th Oct '12, 9:04am

Rejoice!

If you're like me, you've often seen fantasy art and thought to yourself, "That would make a really neat BG2 portrait." However, the time it takes to get the image, scale it properly into two different files, etc., prevents you from doing much of that unless you plan to use the portrait yourself.

Thanks to yours truly, that is no longer a problem! Now the world can be flooded with every possible BG2 portrait under the sun, because I have written a simple (Windows only, sorry) app that quickly grabs a section of the screen, scales it into the right dimension(s) and saves it with the proper name for you.

So please go forth and make a bunch of really awesome portrait packs.

Thank you.

HOW TO USE:

Click, Capture Large, Capture Small, or Capture Both. The screen will go greyish. Select the region you want to make into a portrait by left-clicking and dragging. When you release the portrait will be taken. If, while still holding the left mouse button, you press the right mouse button, the behavior will switch so that the bounding box moves with your mouse rather than being resized by it. Right click again to continue resizing. The Capture Both button simply takes one screen capture area and converts it to both different image sizes.

WHERE TO GET IT:

From the Google Code page: http://code.google.com/p/portrait-grabber/

Click Download.

Source code is also available there.

Taluntain · Mon, 15th Oct '12, 5:03pm

Sounds useful, even if a bit late to the party...

Ishad Nha · Tue, 16th Oct '12, 4:45am

You can change portraits in mid-game. If all else fails you can hex-edit your save file. I had to do this after Unfinished Business messed-up the portrait for Minsc. Near Infinity tells you where to look.

Alweth · Thu, 18th Oct '12, 5:53am

Quote:

Originally Posted by Taluntain

Sounds useful, even if a bit late to the party...

I know. I was so surprised there wasn't something like this already. That's why I finally gave up and made it.

Marceror · Thu, 18th Oct '12, 5:31pm

Alweth, do you expect to make this compatible with BGEE, if it doesn't happen to be, for whatever reason, at release?

I'm holding out for BGEE before returning to Candlekeep again for a new adventure.

Alweth · Fri, 19th Oct '12, 6:04am

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marceror

Alweth, do you expect to make this compatible with BGEE, if it doesn't happen to be, for whatever reason, at release?

I'm holding out for BGEE before returning to Candlekeep again for a new adventure.

The Portrait Grabber allows you to specify the sizes of portrait it creates, so, to my knowledge, it should work immediately with BGEE. You just need to set the appropriate size values when you run the program. Portrait Grabber doesn't save anything on your system other than the portraits, so you want to be careful that you set the right sizes every time you run Portrait Grabber.

Marceror · Fri, 19th Oct '12, 6:16am

Alweth, I may give this a look when BGEE comes out next month. I'm considering doing my first evil runthrough of the series (after 12+ playthroughs, I've never done a serious evil campaign). Thanks for putting this together!

Taluntain · Fri, 19th Oct '12, 7:41pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alweth

The Portrait Grabber allows you to specify the sizes of portrait it creates, so, to my knowledge, it should work immediately with BGEE. You just need to set the appropriate size values when you run the program. Portrait Grabber doesn't save anything on your system other than the portraits, so you want to be careful that you set the right sizes every time you run Portrait Grabber.

How about putting in selectable presets for all the IE games and allowing the users to save/load their custom sizes for other games too?

Alweth · Sat, 20th Oct '12, 9:14am

Quote:

Originally Posted by Taluntain

How about putting in selectable presets for all the IE games and allowing the users to save/load their custom sizes for other games too?

What are their sizes? I might add them.

I probably won't add setting saving, since I like that this program doesn't add or leave anything on your system, and is just the EXE. Also, it would save someone a maximum of about 5 minutes if they end up using my program hundreds of times for something other than BG, while it would probably take me at least 15 minutes to add the feature, so...

Taluntain · Sat, 20th Oct '12, 4:00pm

The sizes are listed in the readme of every game but I don't have a full list handy... I'm not sure if all of them are listed here: http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/cross-over.php

Alweth · Mon, 25th Mar '13, 1:11pm

For what it's worth. I've updated the app so that it works with BG:EE too.

MrMermaid · Wed, 27th Mar '13, 5:55pm

Potentially very useful tool, but I'm finding it very buggy and tricky to use.

Some hopefully useful feedback: the Medium picture seems to be the largest of all three, I've had at least two (out of ten pictures I was trying to format) occasions of becoming stuck in the picture-taking part, and I've also noticed there's a one-pixel border on the left and upper edges of the Large and Small pictures.

After some trial and error I've managed to get some reasonably good BG portraits ready, though, and overall I'm very impressed with this little program!

Mon, 15th Oct '12, 5:03pm	#2
Taluntain SPS Account Holder Founder Resident Alpha and Omega Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Cori Celesti Posts: 20,801 Blog Entries: 13 Like: 158 Liked 121 Times in 79 Posts vBActivity - Stats XP: 53,151 Level: 58 vBActivity - Bars Level Completion: 49.38% Daily Activity 135.76% Weekly Activity 77.69% Monthly Activity 81.08% Achievements Awards	Sounds useful, even if a bit late to the party...
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Thu, 18th Oct '12, 5:31pm	#5
Marceror SPS Account Holder Editor Chaos Shall Be Sown In Their Footsteps Join Date: May 2003 Location: Sword Coast Posts: 2,394 Like: 21 Liked 92 Times in 75 Posts vBActivity - Stats XP: 5,824 Level: 23 vBActivity - Bars Level Completion: 66.5% Daily Activity 3.31% Weekly Activity 1.89% Monthly Activity 4.6% Achievements Awards	Alweth, do you expect to make this compatible with BGEE, if it doesn't happen to be, for whatever reason, at release? I'm holding out for BGEE before returning to Candlekeep again for a new adventure.
	__________________ You do want to venture forth, don't you? So gather your friggen' party already!

Fri, 19th Oct '12, 6:16am	#7
Marceror SPS Account Holder Editor Chaos Shall Be Sown In Their Footsteps Join Date: May 2003 Location: Sword Coast Posts: 2,394 Like: 21 Liked 92 Times in 75 Posts vBActivity - Stats XP: 5,824 Level: 23 vBActivity - Bars Level Completion: 66.5% Daily Activity 3.31% Weekly Activity 1.89% Monthly Activity 4.6% Achievements Awards	Alweth, I may give this a look when BGEE comes out next month. I'm considering doing my first evil runthrough of the series (after 12+ playthroughs, I've never done a serious evil campaign). Thanks for putting this together!
	__________________ You do want to venture forth, don't you? So gather your friggen' party already! Last edited by Marceror; Fri, 19th Oct '12 at 6:45am.

Sat, 20th Oct '12, 4:00pm	#10
Taluntain SPS Account Holder Founder Resident Alpha and Omega Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Cori Celesti Posts: 20,801 Blog Entries: 13 Like: 158 Liked 121 Times in 79 Posts vBActivity - Stats XP: 53,151 Level: 58 vBActivity - Bars Level Completion: 49.38% Daily Activity 135.76% Weekly Activity 77.69% Monthly Activity 81.08% Achievements Awards	The sizes are listed in the readme of every game but I don't have a full list handy... I'm not sure if all of them are listed here: http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/cross-over.php
	__________________ Help Support Sorcerer's Place! Join the Sorcerer's Place page!

Wed, 27th Mar '13, 5:55pm	#12
MrMermaid Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a persistent one Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: Usually somewhere along the Sword Coast, sometimes up in Ten Towns or the Outer Planes... Posts: 112 Like: 6 Liked 6 Times in 6 Posts vBActivity - Stats XP: 314 Level: 6 vBActivity - Bars Level Completion: 48.85% Daily Activity 3.31% Weekly Activity 1.89% Monthly Activity 49.52% Achievements	Potentially very useful tool, but I'm finding it very buggy and tricky to use. Some hopefully useful feedback: the Medium picture seems to be the largest of all three, I've had at least two (out of ten pictures I was trying to format) occasions of becoming stuck in the picture-taking part, and I've also noticed there's a one-pixel border on the left and upper edges of the Large and Small pictures. After some trial and error I've managed to get some reasonably good BG portraits ready, though, and overall I'm very impressed with this little program!
	Last edited by MrMermaid; Wed, 27th Mar '13 at 6:13pm.

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Tue, 16th Oct '12, 4:45am	#3
Ishad Nha Gems: 6/31 Latest gem: Jasper Join Date: Aug 2011 Posts: 156 Like: 0 Liked 2 Times in 2 Posts vBActivity - Stats XP: 406 Level: 7 vBActivity - Bars Level Completion: 30.99% Daily Activity 3.31% Weekly Activity 1.89% Monthly Activity 2.46% Achievements	You can change portraits in mid-game. If all else fails you can hex-edit your save file. I had to do this after Unfinished Business messed-up the portrait for Minsc. Near Infinity tells you where to look.

Mon, 25th Mar '13, 1:11pm	#11
Alweth Gems: 1/31 Latest gem: Turquoise Join Date: Oct 2012 Posts: 5 Like: 0 Liked 1 Time in 1 Post vBActivity - Stats XP: 27 Level: 2 vBActivity - Bars Level Completion: 11.67% Daily Activity 3.31% Weekly Activity 1.89% Monthly Activity 2.46% Achievements	For what it's worth. I've updated the app so that it works with BG:EE too.