Does anyone know where I can find animated starcraft 2 portraits? I really want the dark templar portrait, but all I can find are regular pictures.

Like this?

Actually, I wanted the Lenassa DT. Where'd you find that picture? Are there bigger pictures, like 168 by 256 pixels?

Warmer?

Man, do want! If I wasn't Taylor Swift, I'd totally want to use SCII portraits for avatars. Too bad they're too big for avatars. =(

D:! I need bigger ones. Anyone know where I could find some real-size (actual size in beta) portraits?

Can you post all of them? Or at least link them all here?

To add more to the topic, what unit portrait is your favourite from every race? Here's mine:

Terran - Raven
Zerg - Hydralisk
Protoss - Archon

You know what would be awesome? If units didn't have preplaced portraits, but rather a camera positioned in front of them, displaying whatever was behind them, so that the portrait shows the terrain too.

http://communitystarcraft.com/videos/unit-animations-from-blizzcast-6.php
I can make these into gifs (or pngs) if you want them. They will be huge.

If you want animated SC2 unit portraits, then capture in-game video with CamStudio, crop the unit protrait part and merge them in .gif.

Yeah but the quality of the portraits would not be in the condition they are now. Though I believe WarCraft III tried that but a little more detailed up (especially for talking) at the portrait but a completely bland player colored background. Plus the marines in both StarCraft and StarCraft II have a closed visor as a unit at birds eye view but an opened visor on the portrait. The same goes for Medics. However, the Marine in WarCraft III has an open helmet both as unit and in portrait. So I'd say WarCraft III did but the background was bland and therefore, did not show terrain. Though technically not a camera positioned in front of them.

The game could use two cameras, one to show the field (to the player) and one to show the portrait. The unit portrait animations could be as they are now, with alpha-transparency. The second (tiny) camera would show what's behind the unit without rendering the unit itself, and the unit portrait animation would be superimposed onto what this tiny camera is capturing. It'd be like greenscreening.

I don't think it works that easily. In WarCraft III, the unit and the portrait has the same amount of polygons, but the portrait has talking animations, idle animations while the unit doesn't have talking animations but full body idle animations. It also the background just player color. In StarCraft II for example, let's talk about the marine. The marine in the portrait has a lot more polygons and details but the unit itself has a lot less polygons and is in less resolution. The portrait have lights turned on while the unit does not. Second, the marine's face and armor is filling up the entire portrait, which does not show the background at all. Terran vehicles generally show the pilot's/driver's face that's inside the vehicle.







Notice how the portrait (Not cropped) is quite identical to the unit itself. WarCraft III did it already. The unit picture is in a render and does not reflect a background. The background of the portrait, however, remains black (Or player colored if not gray on other WC3 units). The portrait of the Marine in WarCraft III also lacked animations, especially talking.

Though the marauder's portrait is pitch black, and the Dark Templars (As seen in this topic) have a foggy background, or how the Zealot has something blue on his background (Either player colored or maybe his shields) and several Zerg units have their background too.

Also, there's this:
(Little is known about this picture, but has the same polygons as its unit looks but perhaps the background of units did exist like this but was discarded for higher quality portraits though when SC2 was already announced, they already had a Zealot portrait in high quality)

No, no, no, I was saying that they could show the scenery behind units while retaining high-quality portraits. Certainly not that they do or that they will.

Lemme go off on a tangent for just a little bit. In all of the Halo FPS games, the camera has two modes: first-person and third-person. In first-person mode, the player's body is hidden, and their "FP arms" are visible. In third-person, the FP arms are gone and the body is visible. FP arms have more polygons than the 3P bodies, so players see their own arms in vivid detail. So depending on the camera mode, certain surfaces do not render.

They could show backgrounds behind units by using this kind of a system. They have a tiny little camera in front of the unit. For this tiny camera, the unit itself does not render -- so everything behind it is visible. The unit portraits could then have alpha-transparent backgrounds, and be superimposed onto the background that the tiny camera captured. Lighting inconsistencies between the portrait and the scenery would be an issue, but the main idea here -- scenery behind portraits -- would be accomplished.

'Course, I don't expect them to use this solution because it is relatively inelegant.

Favourite portraits:
Terran - Thor
Protoss - High Templar (god this looks so future-ultra-developed, just like I have expected toss will be in sc2)
Zerg - Corruptor