As an avid Baldur‘s Gate fan who lived and breathed the original games back in the day, I‘ve been a bit obsessed with Larian‘s Early Access launch of Baldur‘s Gate 3. Like many fans, I have some strong opinions about certain companion character designs…so naturally that drove me straight into learning how to mod in custom heads to correct this injustice!
In the 200+ hours I‘ve already sunk into BG3, modding custom characters with their own unique style has added an incredibly fun creative outlet between playthroughs. And the results can be downright impressive – we‘re talking professional quality, personalized models indistinguishable from the base game.
So whether you‘re hoping to craft your dream DnD portrait that actually resembles your characters for once, designing distinctive NPC followers to complement your full party, or simply want to learn some awesome character art workflows, this guide will equip you with the Blender skills necessary to export stunning custom BG3 heads.
We‘ll cover:
- Importing and rigging head models using Norbyte‘s Colada addon
- Placing missing assets like ears or hair
- Parenting everything to a control armature
- Exporting properly weighted and transformed .gr2 files back into the game
- Additional advice for achieving aesthetic cohesion
Let‘s dive in!
Why Create Custom Companions?
Before we get technical, I want to shout out what an amazing addition the modding community has already contributed to the early access so far. Creative fans have fixed issues, expanded content, and overall deepened the enjoyment for many players.
In particular character artists have already delivered tons of distinctive party members via head replacement mods alone. Needless to say inspiration struck and I had to try crafting my own!
But what actually compels people to spend hours of their spare time making free character mods for others to enjoy? As someone who has been there, I think much of it comes down to:
Personalized Roleplaying – Half the fun of RPGs is developing backstories for our characters and parties. Bringing a custom protagonist or companion to life through unique visual design makes immersion into their narrative so much more enjoyable.
Experimentation & Growth – Implementing an artistic vision or honing technical skills by figuring these workflows out brings a major sense of personal accomplishment. Plus feedback from others allows growth over time.
Shared Passion – Participating in modding communities bonds fans together over a common love for specific games like BG3. It feels great giving back new content as thanks to talented developers.
Less Limitations – Even AAA titles can only include so many fixed character options. Custom content exponentially expands possibilities, letting people play creations matching their individual preferences.
New Adventures – Importing distinctive original characters with personalized backstories breathes fresh life into repeated playthroughs, spurring inspiration for new roleplaying adventures.
So in short – increased immersion, creative growth, community bonding, enhanced options and replayability. That‘s what drives the passion behind custom companion mods!
Next let‘s overview the process so you can start wielding these benefits for your own BG3 parties.
Importing BG3 Head Models into Blender
To kick things off, you‘ll first want to make sure Blender (v3.6+) along with Norbyte‘s addon are properly set up on your system. Detailed steps can be found in my prerequisite guide here.
With our modding toolkit prepared, we can begin directly importing baldurs gate head models to edit:
1. Extract the myriad of head and customization options from your game install (hundreds to choose from!) using modding tools like Explorer Suite.
2. Inside Blender, use Norbyte‘s Colada panel interface to scan and import candidate models, like so:
3. The imported game model will likely have missing pieces like ears or hair. No problem! Just track down the associated asset in your extracted files, and import them as well:
4. Position the detached assets back onto the head manually, rotating/scaling as needed:
And that‘s the basics of importing heads from Ballers Gate 3! The addon bridges game files directly into Blender‘s powerful toolset. Awesome!
With your base assembled, we can now start perfecting the look through editing.
Editing Heads for Aesthetic Cohesion
Starting with a bald game rip head, we need to consider how any additions like hair will mesh across the entire design. The goal is maintaining a cohesive style volumetrically:
Consistent Textures – Any skin, hair, scars etc should feel plausibly part of the same physiological surface. Match brightness, tone and style.
Balanced Silhouette – Watch that new ears or hair don‘t break the harmony of the overall head shape language. They should integrate seamlessly.
Complimentary Colors – Hues that inherently look good next to each other will complement both attached elements and skin texture.
Unified Lighting – No disconnect from core model lighting direction or intensity. Consistent shadow and rim styling ties elements together.
Through iteratively applying this framework, we sculpt a unified vision:
With practice and studying anatomical forms, 3D art principles etc, maintaining harmony becomes second nature even when designing more outlandish additions.
Let‘s now prepare our model for export back into the game.
Parenting Meshes to the Control Rig
To avoid nasty graphical glitches or animation issues once imported into BG3, we need any detached objects like ears or hair properly influenced by the head rig:
1. Select added meshes and assign them to the model‘s Head M vertex group:
2. Add an Armature modifier targeting the main head rig object:
3. With Everything selected, Ctrl + P to parent while preserving transforms:
Following these steps ensures any additions animate seamlessly as integrated parts of the whole head model.
Exporting Custom Heads to BG3
With our model complete, aesthetically unified and rigged, it‘s time to export it back into Ballers Gate as a playable custom head!
The final steps before enjoying our creation in-game:
1. With the head object selected, Ctrl + A and Apply Transforms to bake positioning into the mesh
2. In the Colada panel, check Selected Objects and hit Export GR2
3. Save the file out to CustomCharacters folder with your naming convention
4. Fire up BG3 again and validate it working via the Player Customization Tool!
If all went smoothly, you now have a personalized high quality head replacement ready for your next adventure through the Forgotten Realms. Nice work!
Now that you understand the full workflow, let‘s briefly appreciate what an exceptional job Norbyte‘s addon is doing here. Streamlining these game asset pipelines is no small technical challenge. We owe the community of open source developers like Norbyte a sincere debt of gratitude!
Showcasing Quality Custom Companions
Before closing out, I have tohighlight some of the impressive BG3 follower mods already produced by the community. We can learn a ton from studying what experienced modelers are already pulling off:
Enhanced Shadowheart by FinalFatality
This stylized revamp of the companion Cleric demonstrates technical excellence across texturing, lighting and nailed aesthetic cohesion. Study this one!
Vhailor Companion by Syndrielle
Sydrielle‘s original hooded and armored companion design oozes with ominous atmosphere. Another wonderful example of how custom models can feel indistinguishably integrated.
Kalashtar Male Head by Kelrisa
From fringe to facial hair to piercing eyes with irises, Kelrisa‘s alien Kalashtar illustrates masterful attention to textural detail in custom head sculpts.
As you continue developing expertise with character workflows in Blender, I highly recommend both studying and contributing your own creations to the Baldur‘s Gate mod community.
The quality bar is high, but with some dedication to honing your craft you‘ll be pumping out portfolio-worthy professional game character art in no time!
Final Tips for Custom Companion Success
And that concludes my ultimate guide to importing and exporting phenomenal custom Baldur‘s Gate 3 heads with Blender!
To recap the top techniques:
1) Utilize Norbyte‘s Colada addon for streamlined game asset access
2) Assemble detached objects into a cohesive whole
3) Unify textures, silhouette shapes and color harmony
4) Properly rig meshes to the control armature
5) Export with transforms applied as .gr2 format
Mastering these steps opens up an exciting new avenue of creative expression for engaging with and enhancing Larian‘s wonderfully warped fantasy world.
As you experiment and iterate on churning out distinctive party members, here are a few final nuggets of wisdom:
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Sculpt hair and eyeball assets from scratch for maximum quality control over every element.
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Mind performance constraints. Keep polycounts as low as viable for quick rendering.
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Seek critiques from trusted artists. Feedback is rocket fuel for rapid improvement!
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Contribute some mods back to the community that granted us these great tools.
Feel free to hit me up with any questions, mod showcases or tales of your own headcanon Baldurian adventures! Now if you‘ll excuse me, I have some sprite overlays to paint…
Let your imagination run wild out there people!