Difference between revisions of "Loading Screen Images"

You will first of all need an image to begin with. A good starting point is to take a screenshot of one in-game. An easy and highly predictable way to do this is to open up the Construction Set, find a nice view with the camera, and take a screen-shot. Screen-shots don't always seem to work, so if you have it available use the Snipping Tool that comes built in with Vista. In the CS you will need to disable markers, enable sky and try to keep any water out of the picture. You will also need to scale the size of the render box to a size that looks roughly accurate to the ''1024x512'' scale. Once you have this picture, you can begin editing.

You will first of all need an image to begin with. A good starting point is to take a screenshot of one in-game. An easy and highly predictable way to do this is to open up the Construction Set, find a nice view with the camera, and take a screen-shot. Screen-shots don't always seem to work, so if you have it available use the Snipping Tool that comes built in with Vista. In the CS you will need to disable markers, enable sky and try to keep any water out of the picture. You will also need to scale the size of the render box to a size that looks roughly accurate to the ''1024x512'' scale. Once you have this picture, you can begin editing.

Once you have your screenshot, scale it so it is at exactly ''1024x512''. Then, copy the Template to it as a new layer. It should fit perfectly. We're not worrying about colorizing just yet. Now, you should have a box in the middle of your screen. Deselect it, and go to the background layer through the layers dialogue. Draw a selection box that has its corners about half-way through the frame's border. Because they're on different layers, anything you do will not affect the frame. Once you have it selected, go to ''Select->Invert''. Now go to ''Colors->Colorize''. Set the ''Hue'' to about 46, and adjust the lightness however much you want. You should end up with a Sepia toned image around the frame. This what will appear in the game, as this is the best you can do with the limited resources available on GIMP. If you don't like it, buy Photoshop!  

Once you have your screenshot, scale it so it is at exactly ''1024x512''. Then, copy the Template to it as a new layer. It should fit perfectly. We're not worrying about colorizing just yet. Now, you should have a box in the middle of your screen. Deselect it, and go to the background layer through the layers dialogue. Draw a selection box that has its corners about half-way through the frame's border. Because they're on different layers, anything you do will not affect the frame. Once you have it selected, go to ''Select->Invert''. Now go to ''Colors->Colorize''. Set the ''Hue'' to about 46, and adjust the lightness however much you want. You should end up with a Sepia toned image around the frame. This what will appear in the game, as this is the best you can do with the limited resources available on GIMP. If you don't like it, buy Photoshop!