*exhales* Okay, I've been trying for about an hour to get a custom portraits pack to work. I did everything the documentation I can find tells me to. /sierra/arcanum/data/portrait. Properly named files. .mes not .txt. Etc. None of them are showing up in the game, and I'm becoming frustrated. I did use the search option before posting, but couldn't find much that told me anything new. So if someone could lend a hand, I'd appreciate it.
Welcome to the forum, Captain Vlad! Ok - This worked without problem for me a couple minutes ago: I added a portrait pack to the Sierra/Arcanum/data folder. Made sure the name read portrait and not Portrait. Made sure the userport.mes file was inside. Emptied the Sierra/Arcanum/modules/Arcanum/maps folder. Upon starting the game, there was the new portraits. Since you seem to have been doing everything else, hopefully that last step is all you're needing.
It ended up being something very, very simple. Filenames in the packs I'd downloaded all had '0's in them (ELM01). I found a post mentioning that, but I'd miss that aspect. They're working fine now...but now I gotta decide which one to use for my anarchic techno-girl. Thanks for your assistance. Was much appreciated. Took me an hour and half to think of asking on a forum...I was glad to see Arcanum still has it's base.