Diary of a Pod Pilot

Credits for this guide go to Velarra, who initially instructed me on this. I just decided to write it out and publish it because some of you might still find it helpful. Instruction filepaths are for Windows Vista and I assume Windows 7 as well, and assume that your client resides on the C: drive. Users of other OS’s will need to investigate the correct paths for themselves, sorry!

1. Ingame, click the character you want to start with and do ‘capture portrait’. This will appear under ‘C:\Users\<Name>\Documents\EVE\capture\Portraits’ (for both TQ and SiSi clients, beware of overwrite!). If you are porting a portrait between TQ and SiSi I suggest you make guideline screenshots of the sliders and settings. These are found in the screenshot folder under ‘C:\Users\<Name>\Documents\EVE\capture\Screenshots’.
2. Enter character creation, re-sculpt or re-customization, whichever applies. Sculpt, dress and decorate to your liking and press ‘next’.
3. Open a second explorer window and head to ‘C:\Users\<Name>\AppData\Local\CCP\EVE\c_program_files_ccp_eve_tranquility\cache\Pictures\Portraits’. This is the folder where the game saves the snaps if you use the four portrait boxes in portrait mode. You might find some old shots here. Either save them somewhere if you want them, or clear out the folder for now.
4. Copy the capture from step 1 to the folder from step 3.
5. Open the image from step 4 and start tilting / turning / zooming ingame until you feel it somewhat looks like your old portrait again. You can use Windows Photogallery, or another image viewer that will allow you to switch back and forth between images rapidly.
6. Hit the snapshot option ingame, and you will see a second picture appear in the folder, this being what you just captured ingame. If you are using Windows Photogallery, then press next to go to your new portrait draft. Sometimes it might not realize a new image was added, if so close Photogallery and simply open the new image.
7. Uh oh, it probably still differs a bit! Click back and forth rapidly and you can see the character “jump”, giving a good indication of what you need to change still.
8. Keeping the drafted image open (this is important for Windows Photogallery, because it will only refresh the image when it is opened, not when you take a snapshot when viewing the old image), make your adjustments and take another snapshot in the same slot as you used before. If done correctly, the image in Windows Photogallery will refresh.
9. Click back and forth again, you should be closer to the desired result now. A small tip here is use certain points in the background image as a landmark. Was the shoulder covering it, or not at all. Did the head reach up that high? If all else fails hold some fingers against the screen to “mark” the distance. Remember to clean icky finger stains from screen afterwards.
10. Keep repeating step 8 and 9 until both images look the same, or close enough.
11. Happy with your new portrait? Hit finalize and return to the game.
12. Soon your friends and enemies will likely be jealous on how you were able to customize without losing your old pose. Either laugh in their faces, or link them to this guide to enlighten them how you did it.

Nano-tatoo love

Yay hurrah for Incursion 1.4 and all the goodies it brings, though the first thing I did after logging on was giving Faber her beloved nano tattoos back. I also fiddled a little with piercings, but felt that made the image just too busy. So that is how she is going to look for a while, at least until I decide to next play with her portrait again.

I am so in love with the character recreation option. Everything was remembered except I had to turn and tilt the entire character back into position, and zoom in / out a few times to get the right distance back. However, and I had a little rave about this, clicking back and forth between customization and portrait remembers ALL settings. Unfortunately the turning and tilting has to be done again upon each re-customization, which I am not sure if it is a bug, or if the data for that is not remembered, or if that just wasn’t finished in time. I do hope that at some point all settings will be remembered. But this is a big step ahead already.

Also, for those of you who are really enthusiastic about the character creator, I noticed a few thin-band tank tops added to the clothing collection. Sweet, more choice! I cannot wait however until we get collections, right now many characters still look very similar in fashion. But well, good things come to those who wait, right?

As for the piercing option, I have to nitpick slightly about the diamonds and other gem studs. They look rather plastic / cheap under hard light, soft light seems to combat it a little. I know those textures are just hard to make them look realistic, but that put me off a little. Some of the other studs on the other hand are really damn well designed. Good on you, Minmatar and other piercing enthusiasts.

Valnurana

Ok, I am really having too much fun with this now! Decided to let go of her “traditional” look and go with something more modern-day. She’s an Angel, after all, and this hairstyle flatters the lines of her face much better. I really like how the result turned out, had a lot of trouble making Khanid work until Velarra taught me yesterday on the principles of BESM: Big eyes, small mouth. I feel I am also getting the hang of using correct light, and choosing colors that match. So very glad CCP has allowed us to recreate a few times else this would have been a costly affair … well, once buying character customization becomes actually available again.

Now the question remains, shall I attempt to make an even better Myrhial, and is that even possible? I must think on that some more. At least my alts are at my standard of perfection, which makes me very happy.

Faber Demaunier

Since I wasn’t quite happy with Faber’s new looks, I’ve taken the chance on the final character creation offering to tweak her portrait a little more. One color lipstick rather than two, straight on eyeliner rather than the faded khol eyes and a different shirt. Amped up the light a whole notch to suit the background better as well. What do you think? Better, worse, anything more to tweak once tattoos are added? Thinking of going with subtle white / grey lines in the style of her old portrait but will have to see what choices we are offered first!

With the last bit of the Incursion expansion gone live, and a second chance given to everyone after CCP got flooded with requests (guilty!), I am proud to preset a comparison of the old and new portraits for my characters.

For those not in the loop: Myrhial Arkenath is my main character, just read the blog to learn all about what she does. Valnurana is an alt living on the same account, trained very lightly for hauling and trading stealing some days from my main’s training time. She has been mostly replaced right now, but she still serves as a market checker. Her main role these days is diplomacy on behalf of the entire alliance and running the executor corporation. Faber Demaunier is a relatively new alt, on her own account, who does all kinds of stuff in PRELI: mining, hauling, mission running, planetary interaction and trading. Soon manufacturing and invention will be added to that, even though she already pretty much qualities for T1 building.

Lastly, before you scroll down and ask: Faber does look like Lady Gaga in the Pokerface clip, ever since I saw that hairstyle in the creator I just had to do something with it! Not intended to be an exact match, but it’s sure caused some hilarity on alliance chat, and scored her a new title.

Old portraits

Myrhial Arkenath

Valnurana

Faber Demaunier

New portraits

Myrhial Arkenath

Valnurana

Faber Demaunier