im having an issue with portraits working. ive put them in the correct folder in documents/baldurs gate/portraits. the files are all Large size at 210 × 330 24 bit .BMPs and named FEM1L.bmp or MAL1L.bmp and going up in numbers but not breaking the 8 character limit. I have something like 900 images. My issue is that they dont all show up in the portrait screen. maybe like 200 of them do and then i get a blank black screen. Is there a limit to portraits? ive seen people include thousands so i dont assume so i thought it might be a change in the new update. I dont understand what is causing this because all the files are correctly formatted and should theoretically work. anyone else have this issue and get it resolved?

I remember experiencing the same issue and (if my memory serves me well) the issue was with the numbers. Because of a bug in EE, the system sometimes (all the time?) can not separate Fem1.bmp and Fem2.bmp.

There is also an other problem with CAPITAL file names. Especially if that file comes after a lower one.

For example, ONLY put a file called Sorc.bmp in the portraits folder. It would work. Now put a druid.bmp file (not Druid.bmp). This time, the Sorc.bmp will not be dark.

The solution I found to both problems is to LOWERCASE all file names. There are programs to quickly do that (tolower for Linux). So name your files fem1l.bmp and mal1l.bmp instead of FEM1L.bmp or MAL1L.bmp.

See if that solves the problem.

I think that kinda helped it but still the same issue. I actually realized that my portrait mod is rather large. ive got 2,700 images. Roughly about half male half female. All the right size at 24 bit .bmps in the correct folder. your naming convention seems to allow me to get further up the list of images but i still hit an end and get blank black before all my images are shown.

I thought it might be an issue for when the image number count gets to the thousands. so i renamed those images thousand onward with one less letter in the prefix. so ma1.bmp instead of mal1.bmp same for females to avoid hitting 8 characters if that were the issue as well. if i choose male and hit the left button until i get black and then go back and choose female and go right i immediately hit black portraits. i Can send a link to the folder maybe you can test it and find what the issue is? https://www.dropbox.com/sh/nhl40mpfpr20xi0/AABwl1wyO7tpD_1WuL-SM8mba?dl=0

First of all, thanks for the link. There are some really nice artwork there.

After a couple of test, I am pretty confident that it is a memory issue like you anticipated. To make the experiments easy, I only used files from fe1.bmp to fe600. I excluded unique names, fem** files as well as all males. After that, I deleted and renamed the files from fe101-fe570 with only 470 files. I started from 101 because I noticed that when I go left on the portrait selection, BG engine shows fe9.bmp and then fe99..fe98 instead of fe570.

There are 39 MALE hardcoded (default) pictures. So I should have 509 possible pictures.

While choosing the portrait in game, I only went left, and I was able to see ALL of the 470 files. However, as I kept clicking left, I wasn't able to see most of the "default" BG male pictures. 30 of them to be exact.

Restart the game and this time go right, this time you can see the defaults but if you keep going, you will eventually see dark ones, which you could see if you had simply started going left.

So that made me think that there is a limit of pictures YOU can see while creating your character. For me this limit was 478 pictures. No matter which order I went, I saw black pictures after "viewing" 478 profiles.

Funny thing is, I could still select those dark pictures and it showed up in the game correctly. HOWEVER, everything else was messed up. Dialogs, character screen, journal, all had weird textures. So it maybe a good idea to keep the portraits folder below 440.

Wow! thank you for the testing. That was pretty thorough. So Im using a mod now thats part of BWS that allows me to see more images and the image name on screen at portrait selection rather than one at a time and also did some counting. with the named images plus the stock images im somewhere at 40. then i get a long string of FE.bmp portraits up until 485 and then darkness. so what i think we learned here is that there is indeed a limit to how many portraits can be installed. my number is at 525 max with the stock images including faces of good and evil. I think my portrait mod is going to have to loose a lot of weight. I dont know if there is a trick to extend more portraits or if there is a script. i found this https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/53891/portraits-utility-for-version-2-x-updated-for-version-2-2 which may allow me to add 485 male and female only portraits based on gender selection but havnt gotten it to work. otherwise it would be 485 and i would have to split it M and F. any ideas as if there might be a way to extend the portrait selection? glad you like the art selection...wish i knew how to get it to work

Yes, and our numbers are close so that can't be a coincidence. That looks promising but it would take time to test it. I'll see if I can find time but no promises :( . If you can see the file names, you can try deciding which portrait you want to choose outside BG, and then select it inside BG with the file name. See if it will work in game or mess things up like it did in mine. You can also try "pregenerating the character", close the game (to clear the memory) and then import that pregenerated character after loading. I have a feeling this may fix the memory issue that messed up my game.

I can't test those myself till the weekend. Wish you luck

Im trying some alternatives to see if it might extend using BWS but its a pain to install. I now i can hard replace the portrait with EE Keeper if it doesnt show up but i would rather do it in the game as to see if this mod can actually run. Ive thought about slimming down the image count but this will take time to select and pick out and i was so hoping i could use the ones ive already cropped. If you could test out some work arounds i would be very grateful. I to am trying a few things and will let you know of any success. I also had the same issue with selcting an empty portrait. the game was acting weird with gliches and flickers and froze at one point. i dont really know whats causing it. I looked also in the baldur.lua to see where it might handle portraits but was not seeing anything i could identify. than you for any help. hope to hear from you soon.