On the Care and Feeding of MSF Avatars

[Azathoth]

Warning! Exceedingly long ranting imminent! For those who wish to skip what nonsence this madman has written and just wants to get on with making an avatar, feel free to proceed to the part labeled Disclaimers/Notes. For those even more pressed for time, proceed to the section labeled Step 1.

Hello there! I hope no one minds that I have the presumption to post something such as this after being on this forum just a few days, but during my time here I have had several avatar revalations which I thought would greatly aid any and all newcomers after me in the creation of their own lovely avatars!

I am mildly to moderately computer and forum savvy, yet I sometimes have difficulties in some things which other people clear joyously, laughing at the very idea that someone could not understand them (I still have no idea how some people can place pictures in their signatures). It is with this in mind that I am creating this small guide with step by step instructions and links to useful pages! After reading this, it is my hope that even the most inept forum user out there can craft his own lucious anime-girl avatar to grace the space underneath his name!

Most of this knowledge can be attained through questions and some internet searching... but my hope here is to help those who come after me avoid the embarrasement and ridicule which comes from asking such questions! Here you can read the information laid out to you... and leave no trace behind that indicates you ever did not hold a vast knowledge of avatar construction!

Disclaimers/Notes, where the author staves off the wrath of potential victims with a well-placed "I told you so."

This guide presents "means to an end". It is but one of many ways to get what you are looking for in an avatar. It might not be the absolute easiest, but it certainly works, and works well.

This guide is mainly intended for still pictures. Some of the information can indeed be used successfully for moving avatars, but the size changes and cropping features given here will not work on them.

This guide also uses him/his as the primary form of pronoun since the creator is male, and too lazy to use gender-neutral pronouns and sentence restructuring just to appease unruly feminists.

This guide is meant for new arrivals who might not understand everything about editing avatars, it is not meant to insinuate that any current forum user is inept at using them.

This guide may contain self-demeaning comments and the occaisonal rant by the author. Feel free to skip past these as they arrive.

Finally, feel free to copy and use the useful portions of this guide in any way you see fit. As for the rantings and self-depreciations... they are mine, and require a licensing fee.

Step 1, where the author finally shuts up and begins to explain to the reader just how to go about crafting his own personal avatar.

The first thing you need on your road to creating a forum-worthy avatar is a picture of the object of your affections. It might be a rock, it might be a sword, it might be a half-naked girl wielding twin RPG launchers. Basicly anything the readers heart desires.

For this first step, I reccomend google images. It is a search engine for online images, and can be found here: http://images.google.com/imghp?tab=wi

Now all that remains is to type in the name of the thing, or type of thing that you are searching for. For this example, we will go with Hikaru Shidou, the leading character of the anime Magic Knights Rayearth. Simply type in Hikaru Shidou, then hit "search images".

After a short time, we are given a multitude of Hikaru-related images. Search through them, and find the one you think looks best. For the purpose of this example, the author chooses to pick the one in the middle of the first page, three images up. The words beneath it read: Mahou Kishi Shidou Hikaru (Guerrera ... 210 x 382 - 28k - jpg members.tripod.com

Click on this image, and you are taken to the original page in which this image appeared, with a google bar at the top and a small picture of the image you just clicked on. From this bar, click on the words: "See full-sized image."

Then you are taken to a blank page, hopefully with the picture you are after displayed in all its glory. Beware, some websights do not allow this sort of viewing, and for your efforts you might get a blank box with some derogatory statement about the sights rights... In that case, back up and try another image which is not being hosted by such ingrates. But hopefuly the object of your affections is not protected by such unnecessary restrictions, and you can move on to the next part.

If you have a bad memory, get out a piece of paper and a pen. Right click on the image and select "Properties". Either write down or memorize the dimensions of the image you have just selected. In our example's case, it is 210 x 382. Now right click it again and select "Save Picture As". Now you will be prompted as to where you wish to save it. In my case, it saves automaticly to the My Pictures folder in My Documents unless I say otherwise.

Now look at the name you are prompted to save it as, in our examples case it is simple, just "hikaru". In other cases, the name can be exceedingly long and confusing. It is this author's opinion that you save the picture under a simple and understandable name. "Hikaru" is good enough. Now... do you have those dimensions? Slap them on the end of the picture's name, then hit "save". Believe me, it will help later.

Part 2, In which the author clears up any misconceptions the reader may have in regards to the size of avatars allowed on MSF forums, and how to edit your avatar to the size desired.

There are two ways in which you can upload pictures to the forum for use as avatars. One way is that you can upload them directly from your computer, but to do this they must not be larger than 120 x 120, and the file no larger than 39 KB. Another way is to link your avatar to an offsight image hoster. This eliminates the 120 x 120 limitation, but the KB restriction still stands. 200 x 200 is considered the largest reasonable size for the offsight method, but it is allright to go a bit over (My own avatar is currently 120 x 240).

"But Azathoth!" you exclaim. "The image you are using for your example dose not fit either the 120 x 120 standard... nor the 200 x 200 one!"

Calm down gentle reader, for I am not finished with said example image yet... not by a long shot.

The next step is to go to a very useful sight I managed to stumble across. This sight allows you to shrink or expand any image to any dimension you see fit. It also allows you to crop images. You can find this sight here: http://www.resize2mail.com/advanced.php

Now hit the "Browse" button located on this page, then find that picture that you saved earlier in My Pictures and double-click on it. Now... observe the height and width boxes right below the box that now holds the target. To maintain scale, it is best if you entered the desired height or width in the appropriate box and leave the second one blank. In this case, we are going to be working on width and leaving height blank. Since the picture is roughtly in the shape of a rectangle stood up on its end, I am chooseing to set the width at 120. This makes the picture wide enough to continue the line from the edge of the sailor fuku box just underneath your name (Observe my avatar to understand what I am talking about).

Enter 120 in the width box, and leave all others blank. Then go down and hit "okay".

Now my lovely image is 120 x 218. This makes it large enough to fit the parameters of the second type of image uploading. To fit the first type (not reccomended, since usually "bigger is better"), go back and look at the dimensions of the image. Find out which is largest, height or width, then resize that as 120. Now you see your resized image at the bottom of the page... along with a slightly odd gray box inside of it. The box is for cropping the outside edges of images. Click and drag the box into position, then hold shift and drag to change its shape. Everything inside of the box will be saved while anything outside will be sheared off when you hit the "crop" button on the page.

But since my image is beautiful and needs no cropping, I can simply move on to the next step. Right click the resized image somewhere outside the gray box and select "save picture as" once again. This time, I save it as "Hikaru120 x 218". Now for the next-to-last step.

Step 3, where the author praises the mighty image-hosting websight!

This step is almost laughably simple, yet if you are going for the 120x120 computer uploaded avatar you may skip it entirely.

First, go to this sight: http://imageshack.us/ Then, hit "Browse" and find your newly resized 120 x 218 image. Double click it, then enter your email address (I use my junk e-mail address for this, but if ye want spam, then so be it!).

Important! Make sure to checkmark the box labeled "remove size/resolution bar from thumbnail?"

If you dont, there will be a horribly ugly black bar underneath your image which will carry over to your forum avatar.

After that, click the box which says "host it!". After that, you will be taken to a page which has a small version of your image, along with several boxes with web addresses in them.

Scroll down until you find the box labeled "direct link to image". Highlight and copy the web address in that box. I then urge you to open a word processor and save that link, and any others you make in the future. It will come in handy when you have a multitude of avatars to choose from.

Step 4, where the author finally arrives at MSF and the home strech!

Here we go! Can you keep up? Lets go!

Log on to MSF forums!

Head to the top of the page and click "profile"!

Scroll down to the bottom of the page!

Go to the box labeled "Link to off-site Avatar"!

Paste the web address you copied from ImageShack!

HIT SUBMIT!!

You did it! You are now in possession of your own personal avatar! Congratulations!


Small note: For those who are... *cough* smaller *cough* than 120 x 120. Need only look to the box labeled "Upload Avatar from your machine" and hit "Browse". They then can double click on said smaller image and hit "submit"... though it isnt nearly as fun.

Final note: It is my dearest wish that people confused about crafting avatars leave this guide with an understanding and an assurance they did not have before reading it. If any questions still remain, please PM me or ask them here and I will try to answer them to the best of my ability.

[Xia]

I approve of this post :o

Also, while 200 x 200 is the theoretical max, we'd rather you stay below that. If you want a suggestion, 150 x 150 is a nice size I personally recommend.

No taller than 200, no wider than 200, blah blah.

Have fun and keep it clean folks.

[Raijin]

Mraa?

[Azathoth]

Huzzah! I finally recieve my due recognition!

*wins at the internets*

^_^

Oh, and the only reason mine is over 200 is due to scale. I wanted the width as 120... and scaling up thats what the height ended up as. *shrugs*

[Xia]

Less due recognition more me being to lazy to point out where exactly we had the tutorial to do this.

We have it, but its somewhere in some thread.