Hi Biophysicist :D
- Background is one dialog set to fullscreen with an image on it. It could be that the background borders were changed and the image was made its background picture.
- The 2 text and button areas might be either new dialogs or dialog item panels on the background dialog
(not sure; sadly I never used panels before and only recently experienced that they are more powerful than multiple dialogs).
- Text writeout is made with setting the text of the label and a text writeout duration while text writeout is enabled.
- Portraits are dialog items on the background picture. Set them to LDR render mode. That will cause them to appear in the same layer as dialog elements.
I hope that helps. If not, just ask. :D

Biophysicist Regular ShmoeFirst, my apologies if this is the wrong section. I haven't done much with the non-data-editor parts of the map editor. Anyway, I saw some things like this, which would be great for something I have in mind, but I don't know how to, well, do it. I don't need an in-depth tutorial, just some general pointers.
May the mudkips bless you, and may the light of a thousand kittens shine perpetually upon your liver.