Problems with Race Portraits

from GalCiv2 Forums
I'm completely new to this game (owned it for 3 days), so for all I know this is an ancient bug, or not a bug at all, but I can't use the search engine to find an answer to my question, because the search feature NEVER WORKS.

Anyway, I'm very curious about the way race portraits are displayed in the game. There seem to be two sizes of them; a little square one used in selection screens, and a wider one that's used in diplomatic dialogues.

All races seem to have a small "RaceImage", and minor races have a wider "RaceImage_Trade". (Major races have a wide movie, instead.)

The problem seems to be that the minor races always use their small square portrait, so that on the diplomatic screens, the portraits are stretched, and the "RaceImage_Trade" files are never actually used in the game.

So, what's the deal?

Is this a new bug, or an old bug, or the way the game has always been, or just a personal problem? ^_^
6,390 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I'm completely new to this game (owned it for 3 days), so for all I know this is an ancient bug, or not a bug at all, but I can't use the search engine to find an answer to my question, because the search feature NEVER WORKS.
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The forum search engine was never very good but now it is absolutly awful.

, the portraits are stretched
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I get this also.


Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Some of the popups that use a wide image use the square one, but the actual trade screen uses the correct one for me (if the race has one, the mustachioed Alan Bradley for one doesn't).
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ah. I've only been playing for just a few hours, so far, so I hadn't seen all that many examples.

Amusingly, the only portrait that I'd traded with before making my post was exactly that mustachioed human, so I was mislead!

I checked and most portraits do work correctly in the actual trade dialogue.

Thanks! (Still should fix those popups, though. ^_^)
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The "mustachioed Alan Bradley" actually does have a wide portrait - but the RaceConfig entry for the LentzLandians, which uses that portrait refers to the small portrait (gfx/race/raceimage30) rather than (gfx/race/Minor_Human_Offshoot).

I also see the small, stretched portraits in the "first encounter" popups but they're fine in the trade window.

I wonder if events that create new races and factions refer to the correct trade portraits, since the naming syntax doesn't seem to be the same for the pictures. (Raceimage53 / Trade_Minor3) Same with ones that create races with the "offshoot"-type pictures. (Jagged Knife, etc.)

Also, the standard custom "mesh-head" portrait doesn't have a wide version, which is understandable. :P
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I created a bunch of custom races, and i had two pictures for each, one square and one wider, for trade. But the game dosent automatically pick the wider one for trade, so you have to open the custom race raceconfigxml, and edit it manually to direct the game to load the wider picture in trade screens.

Im using Vista, so my custom races are always saved at user/documents/my games/GC2twilightarnor/

Open the custom race xml with notepad and edit thiese lines:





The game will automatically look for a file named "youracename"_trade.png on the portrait folder, so if you dont have that file, it will use the square one, and stretch it. In my case, i save the "..._trade.png" pictures on the Race folder, and its named different, so i had to make a few changes.