About this image

A short explanation of the different methods for making new armor icons.

This is a short overview of the different methods for making new armor icons. The images showcases these methods. For the first example, I used the color preset for the default Sorcerer Robe to give the Devotion Paladin's default armor a new red color scheme. I called it the Scale Mail of Passion. There are two main methods for making a new icon for this armor:

Edit Method

You take the original Item_ARM_ScaleMail_Paladin_Devotion.DDS image file and edit it with Photoshop or other similar software. If you manage to do it well, this method results in icons that are indistinguishable from vanilla BG3 icons. But, there are several limitations to this method. First, you can only make icons for recolored armors or armors that have only been edited in a minor manner. You cannot use this method for any armors that do not have original icons. Second, editing the image can be very difficult and time consuming, and it depending on the changes made, it might not even be possible to make new icons that are of equal quality to the originals.

Screenshot method

You equip the new armor in the character creator screen, and use Custom Backdrops mod for a green screen effect. Then you simply take a screenshot and use that as your new icon. This method is much faster compared to editing the original icon, and there are no limits on the kinds of icons you can make. The downside is that your icons will not look the same as vanilla icons. There are also some important choices that you need to make when using this method.

You need to decide if you want the character to be visible on the icon. You can use the mod Invisible Head and Body to turn Tav completely invisible. This usually looks a little better on most armor, but it doesn't always work well with all types of clothing. Personally I think the Scale Mail looks better with invisible Tav, but the Dress Top doesn't look as good with invisible Tav. Due to the manner in which BG3 textures and 3D assets work, the invisible Tav method doesn't always result in correct looking armor.

If you take the screenshot with Tav being visible, you can obviously choose different skin colors to suit your creative idea. You also need to decide if you want to take the screenshot with a male or female Tav, regardless whether they are visible or not. Of course, if the armor is only available to one gender, like the Dress Top, then you have no choice in the matter.

Finally. You need to decide the point where you crop the image. BG3 character creator has three levels of zoom. Full body, torso and head. If you zoom to the torso, you get a clean cut at the belt. At the full body level, you can choose whatever point you want to crop the image at. The tooltip icons use a 380x380 resolution, so you would need a higher screen resolution than 1080p for clean images of the armor when the screenshot is taken at the full body level.

There are two main things to consider when choosing the crop point. If you do not have pants visible, you can use the same icon for all variants of the same torso visual. This results in less work for the modder, but it is a bit more inconvenient for the players. If you do include pants, you need to make new icons for each pants variant, which can be a lot of extra work for the modder, but also more convenient for the players.

My Basket Full of Equipment mod uses the bottom left icon method, with visible Tav and visible pants. Though for new modders I would actually recommend the above the belt crop method. It is less work, and unless you plan to make a lot of variants of your armors, it might not be worth the extra time it takes.

You should also decide the angle that Tav is when you take the screenshot. I always take the screenshots when Tav is looking straight ahead, but a slight angle might also look nice.

For headwear, footwear and gloves you would obviously only use the method with an invisible Tav. You can check the Invisible Head and Body mod for screenshot examples.

Check out my Sample Equipment Mod for more info.

If you have any questions, suggestions or comments, you can post them bellow.