Alright, here is a new tool that i found out about that can make animated sprays easier than this method. I am not providing support for it, just ask on the guys forum for help. Here is the link. [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]
Quote:
Ok guys. I'm going to walk you through the steps needed to make a animated spray in Counter-Strike Source.
Yes, it can be done. (Note that this tutorial assumes you can make regular CSS sprays and are familar with saving as *.tga.)
The first step takes the longest, and that is the actual image creation. When thinking of spray ideas, it is important to realize that the CSS engine runs through the separate image frames very rapidly and to my knowledge this cannot be changed. So try and put together an animated sequence that will look good when run used in game. For this tutorial I will use a picture of my hero, Butters, using a camera. The animated spray will be of Butters holding a camera, with the flash going off and the words Owned underneath.
I use Photoshop, but similar programs , such as the free Gimp, can be used too.
1) Gather you separate images that will make up your animated sequence. As you can see I have a picture of Butters before the camera flash, and one with the flash added. You must make sure your images are 128x128 in size, or any acceptable dimensions with an area less than or equal to 128x128.
2)This is extremely important. Save your images as .TGA's with alpha channels checked and with the names spray001.tga , spray002.tga..etc. MAKE SURE THEY ARE IN CORRECT ORDER. For this tutorial i have 2 images, so they are subsequently saved as spray001.tga and spray002.tga.
3)You will need this program: [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]. Unzip the contents of the download. Now, copy and paste your spray TGA's into the: Animated Converter\hl2\materialsrc\animated folder. You will see a .TXT document in that folder also. You need to open this and change the last line "End Frame" number to the number of frames of animation you have. For this tutorial i have 2 images, so my number will be "2".
4) Now go back a few folders to your Animated Converter folder and click on convert.bat. You should see something similar to the following:
5)Now go to your "Animated Converter\hl2\materials\animated\" folder. You should see 2 files: spray.vmt and spray.vtf. THE FILE SIZE OF YOUR .VTF FILE MUST BE UNDER 120kb or your spray WILL NOT work. If you kept your dimensions to 128x128 or equivelent as stated in step 1, you should be fine.
Now, you must open the spray.vmt file. This can be opened in NOTEPAD. You will see the following:
Now save it. At this point you should have 2 files. The spray.vtf file and your code modified spray.vmt file.
It is now safe to rename these files to distinguish among other custom sprays. They MUST have the same name though. So I will rename mine: camera.vmt and camera.vtf
6) Now copy and paste these files into your Valve\Steam\SteamApps\USERNAME\counter-strike source\cstrike\materials\VGUI\logos folder.
Thats it! To select your spray, load up CSS, and select your spray from the drop down menu, you WILL not
need to import it. That should be it :).
-Bob00100 .
-----Found by ChaosBlue-------
Ok I know a guy made animated spray thread, but people want regular sprays for 1.6. This is not mine, its from the Counter-Strike forums so please do not get mad at me. I only come to help people.
Counter-Strike 1.6 Custom spray and installment.
Quote:
mctiddy wrote:
Finally, it is here: mactiddy's guide to making custom sprays for 1.6. Let us all hope that everyone will read
this guide before posting any questions about making custom sprays in the forums...
Alrighty lets begin.
1) The first thing you have to realize is that the 1.6 half life engine is shit compared to source. And that 8bit
textures dont look very good. Therefore, your custom sprays wont look very good. BUT, they can look ok. It
basically all relies on the picture or image you want to make a spray out of. Larger images, images with simple
colors, and images with large text work best. Let's recap:
Good: Large Cartoon Pictures, Large text, solid colors
BAD: Smaller images, photos, pictures with small details, pictures with small text, pictures with lots of different colors
So please, choose carefully. For this tutorial i will be using a photo of Butters in a towel. It's simple, and only
has 4 colors. Perfect.
2) CS or any Half Life based MOD will only except sprays of certain dimensions. You must crop or resize your
image to fit allowed dimensions. My original Butters image was 101x154. So in Photoshop (or any similar
program) I resized my photo to fit the allowed dimensions. This is a compromise. Using the image resize tool,
with constrain proportions checked, I resized my width to 80, and photoshop adjusted the height
automatically to 122. This is extremely close to the allowed 80x128, so all i have to do is resize my canvas to
128. So now my image is correctly sized, and still in correct proportion.
3)You must make a few quick adjustments to your image properties before you can convert to a usable
spray. In photoshop (or GIMP I assume), go to IMAGE -->MODE-->And make sure Indexed Color is checked.
Check it, and then click OK. Now, again go to IMAGE -->MODE-->And click color table. Now, Click the last
box in the table and change the color to solid blue. (0,0,255) or (0000FF). Click OK.
NOTE: THIS IS IMPORTANT, READ: IF YOU WERE WORKING ON A TRANSPARENT BACKGROUND, THE
PREVIOUS STEP WILL COLOR ALL TRANSPARENT PARTS PURE BLUE. This is perfect, this is how you get a
transparent image. EASY!
As you can see from the image, my transparent Butters background was colored pure blue. This method is
perfect because no matting occurs on the image and the in game transparency comes out amazing.
4)Go to File, Save as, and save it as spray.BMP. Must save as a BMP.
5)Now, youll need a program to convert this image to a decal. There are a few out there but for this tutorial
I will be using Wally. [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]
6)Open up Wally, and go to Wizard-->HL Color Decal. Point the program to your HL folder. (This really
doesn't matter, as you can see I have it pointed to my downloads folder) Then, browse for your saved BMP
on your hard drive.
Once your image is selected, click ok. You should see the following box with your image in it.
7)Now click FILE-->SAVE AS. Save as pldecal.wad . Now click FILE--->SAVE AS again. Save ALSO as
tempdecal.wad. Now, simply copy those files and paste them to your
DO NOT CHECK ON THE SPRAY IN OPTIONS or it will overwrite it. It be smart to save a backup copy of your
created spray just in case.
The Result: (In HL cause i dont play 1.6, though it will look the same)
Enjoy. -mactiddy
mactiddy made this not me.
If you guys don't have photoshop or anything else to resize or anything download infranview, It's free and useful [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]
Added link to wally uploaded on GzP for your conviniance.
Last edited by Bob00100; 08-14-2006 at 10:06 PM.
The Following 12 Users Say Thank You to Bob00100 For This Useful Post:
Hi, ur spray help is very useful , Just wondering is there anyway to make the time it takes to switch from 1 picture to another slower ? , becuase at the moment you can't read my sprays becuase it switches too fast!
12-27-2005, 08:09 PM
Linear Mode
