Alright so yesterday I tried getting that approval mod background working in Baldur’s Gate 3 again. You know the one – supposed to show cool character portraits during chats instead of just a plain black void? Yeah, that beauty. Thing is, it kept breaking. Like, completely black screen during dialogues. Talk about immersion killer.
The Usual Suspects Didn’t Work
First thing I did? Went crawling through the mod pages again. Found those big “compatibility” lists people post. Deleted the obvious conflicts everyone talks about. You know the drill:
- Took out any UI mods, even tiny ones
- Disabled that popular “Character Creation” mod everyone loves
- Double-checked load order using that mod manager tool
Launched the game. Hoped for the best. Clicked on Gale. Boom. Still staring into the abyss. Just pure black behind his smug wizard face. Cursed under my breath. Classic.
Digging Deeper (More Annoying Than Digging Ditches)
Fine. Fine! Time to go deeper down the rabbit hole. Started reading forum posts buried pages deep. Found suggestions that made my eyes glaze over:
- “Manually edit the mod’s JSON config.” NOPE. Not today.
- “Adjust engine settings in a config file no one can find.” Sounds like a trap.
- “Try version X instead of version Y.” Dude, it’s already the newest one.
Got frustrated. Almost shelved the whole thing. Took a break. Had some cold pizza. Came back with fresh eyes.
The Stupid Simple Fix I Almost Missed
So I kept digging. This one random comment way down in a thread caught my eye. Just one sentence buried under all the tech-babble:
“Bro, did you unzip the damn download folder before installing?”
Froze. Dead silent. Went straight to my Baldur’s Gate 3 mods folder. Found the folder for the approval mod background. Opened it. What do I see?
- The mod files? Yep.
- But they were sitting inside ANOTHER folder with the mod author’s name and version number.
Bingo. Total facepalm moment. I hadn’t dragged the inner folder with the actual files into the Mod Manager. I just plopped the outer zip folder structure in there. Like a total noob. Probably happened weeks ago when I was rushing.
Three Clicks Later… Magic
Okay, deep breath. Moved the mod manager out of the way. Went into the mod’s folder. Found the actual Pak file and the file inside that secondary folder. Dragged just those files into the Mod Manager’s main area. Made sure it was active. Clicked Save Order. Launched the game.
Loaded my save. Saw Shadowheart. Clicked to talk.
BOOM. THERE IT WAS. Her face. Shar’s fancy symbol. The cool background. Not a hint of black void. It worked. Perfectly.
Couldn’t believe it. Hours wasted because I left the mod files trapped inside an extra folder layer like some kind of digital prison. Lesson learned? Sometimes the fanciest mods break for the dumbest, simplest reasons. Always check your folder nesting, people. Always.