A Fire Emblem Fates Modding Tutorial for Editing and Changing Portraits

Hello! Welcome to a Fire Emblem Fates modding tutorial! We're going to be covering how to add a portrait into fates! The previous guide made by BooLean still works, but I wanted to help update it for those who don't want to use the Python method. For their guide, you can click on this link.

Before We Begin

I would like to thank Moonling for their BCH tool. They made it easier for us to edit the file formats.

I would like to thank Thane98 for creating Paragon, allowing us to mod the game.

I would like to thank BooLean for their original portrait guide.

Prerequisites

You're going to need the following items:

• Moonling's BCH tool by Moonling
• Paragon by Thane98
• Arc File Templates By BooLean (I put them together for easier editing)
• A dump of Fates - This is expected if you're modding Fates
• A photo editing software - GIMP, Photoshop or whatever you prefer.
• Your pictures for what you want.

When I first taught this, I had organized it by showing an example of what you should have. In this tutorial, I'll be going through each portrait type and how to get them into the arc file.

The Kanji's

Before we get into it, you need to first understand what each kanji means. You have to keep these as their kanji, otherwise the game will not recognize them.

For BUs and STs from top to bottom

キメ - Posed
怒 - Angry
汗 - Sweat
照 - Blush
笑 - Happy
苦 - Suffering
通常 - Standard

For CTs

ベース - idk what it means, google translate says base, but its the only kanji in CTs.

ST

In Fates, ST is portrait you normally see in cutscenes and supports. The key thing to remember is that each ST portrait's dimensions are 256x256. Make sure they are in those dimensions before replacing any of the portraits. Here is an example.



One you confirm that your portrait are those dimensions, its time to replace our arc files.

You're going to open up Moonling's BCH tool. You'll be greeted with this window.



Once you the tool, click "Open" and choose the "Sample_st" file. When you open it, you'll see something like this.



Clicking on the first kanji will show you this image.



You're going to click "Replace" and it will ask you to choose an image to replace. I'm going to replace it with my own Byleth image. Once you're finished, click OFF the image and then click back to the kanji. It should be replaced.



Now just do it for the rest of the kanji's and you should be fine. Do note that the blush and swear pngs are small pngs for a reason. Their position can be changed within paragon. You can have your own sweat png and blush as well.

Once you're done, click on "Save" at the top and choose your "Sample_st". When you reopen it again, it should have all of your portraits in there. You can also rename the file. The format is as follows, "YourCharacterName_st".

BU

Alright, so the only different thing about BUs are their dimensions. If you follow everything you needed to do for STs, BUs will be just as easy. BUs dimensions are 128x128.

What I normally try to do is take the STs and throw them onto a 128x128 template through a photo editing software. Here are my results for Byleth.



From here, do what you did for the STs. It's better than having me repeat myself. In the end, it should look something like this.



Once you're done replacing all of the BUs, save it to the appropriate file!

CTs

CTs are just a little different. You have to hand make the images so they fit the size and scale. The game reads the image from top to bottom, so whatever you have at top will appear FIRST, then the bottom is SECOND. The dimension size of a CT is 512x512.

What I normally try to do is make 2 512 x 256 images and line them up like so.



Once you're done making your image, open "Sample_CT" and you'll be greeted with the one kanji mentioned above. Click on it and you'll see this image.



Replace it, just like all the previous portraits. Once you do it, save it to "Sample_ct" and reopen it to confirm it has saved. Mine looks like this after saving.

Alright now that we're done making the portraits, its time to get them in game. Don't forget to change the names of the files. For my example, these are my new file names

Byleth_st
Byleth_ct
Byleth_bu

Portraits Module

If you have done my Character Creation tutorial, this part should be easy to understand. You will navigate to the Portraits Module on Paragon as seen below and you will be greeted by this screen.



We're going to make 2 new entries for our character. One for ST and one for BU. CT automatically connects, so no need to worry about making one for it.

Click "Add" twice and scroll down to the bottom to find your entries. Click on the top one first as we're going to start there.

Portraits (Common Entries)

ST and BU portraits are similar in most of the configuration. There are only some minor differences, but I will go over that after the initial work.

• FSID - Internal name of the file. Format is as follows, "FSID_ST_YourCharacterName". The "ST" should be changed to "BU" when doing the BU entry. Remember, the file name must have your characters name or it will not show up.
• Name - This is your MPID from the Characters module. In my case it will be "MPID_Byleth". The space below will show the name.
• Name ? - Just use the character's name in CAPS, so mine is BYLETH.
• Advantage Emotion - Most cases its the same Kanji as Happy, so it should be 笑
• Disadvantage Emotion - Suffering is the main Kanji, so 苦
• Portrait File - This is where you reference your specific file. If you're doing your ST, its the ST file. Same goes for BU files.

After that, it should end up looking like this.

Okay, now for the specifics.

Portraits (ST and BU entries)

In order for these portraits to show up in game or in supports, they need to be correctly positioned. Most, if not all, entries are the same in configuration. Just copy a set of numbers from another portrait and paste them in. The next part is all guess work and configuration to your liking. Here are the settings for ST.



Here are the BU settings



You can change and move them around if you need to. You can use the support dialogue menu to test if the positions for the sweat and blush are correct, then go from there. BooLean's guide has much more specifics in where the coords are. Please go check it out here!

Now we're all done! You can tell it worked if you go to your Character's Module and it connects.



Thank you for reading my guide! I hope I have helped in some sort of way! If you have any questions, please asked them in the comment section down below. I'm also very active in my discord! Feel free to join and ask me questions there!