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| How to Make Chat Characters (or What I Look Like As An AVB) |
| Read these instructions completely at least once before attempting to make your own character. Especially read the notes at the bottom of these instructions. Read those several times. Believe me, you won�t regret it! 1. Open the program. 2. Click on file/new. 3. Fill out the screen that pops up: character name, description (optional) and author. Click next. 4. Click the radio button for your color settings (I advise 256). Click next 5. Choose your transparent color, use a color that you will not be using in making your character. I normally use light grey. I advise you not to use black or white. Click next. 6. Choose your drawing size. I use custom size and change the width and height to 400 each that is the maximum allowable. Click next. 7. The next screen is an informational screen. Read it. Click next. 8. The next screen is also informational. Read it. Click finish. 9. What will show up now is where you�ll build your character. Left to right - There should be a list with �Character Icon� at the top, then �Character Contents�, then �New Pose�. Below �New Pose� should be �Disabled� and �Neutral�. �New Pose� should be highlighted. Next to this list is a bunch of little boxes, those are your tools. Float your mouse arrow over each item. A little pop up will tell you what each item is for. Next to that is a box with a background the color of the transparent color you chose � this is your workspace. Next to that is a row of 16 colors. Next to that row is a row of 256 colors (no, I didn�t count them). At the bottom of this workspace, the left side should say �For Help, Press F1�. Remember that. To the right is the pixel count, it should say 400x400 if that�s what you chose. Ignore it, it�s not important. The next box shows at what pixel (x and y axis) your mouse arrow is resting. Ignore that as well. It doesn�t serve any helpful purpose in my opinion. Okayyy..next! 10. Make sure �New Pose� is highlighted. 11. Click on file/import. 12. Negotiate through your computer to find where you hid the .bmp files you should have already made. Double click on that .bmp file. It should show up in your working space. If it doesn�t, a different box should have popped up. It�s a �sizing box� for lack of a better term. 13. Size your .bmp file to the program�s specifications. Hopefully it�ll be close to what you want. Click OK. 14. Now your .bmp should be in your working space. That is if it wasn�t already there. If it was, ignore step 14. Onward.. 15. Click on the color you chose as a transparent color. Hint: it should be in the 16 color row. 16. Click on the tipped paint bucket, then click somewhere in the background of your .bmp. That will fill in any background. Kinda. It works best if you have a single color background. If you don�t, you�ll have to clean it up pixel by pixel. Have fun! Kidding! I�ve had to do that. Takes a long, long time. Not fun! But it is worth it. You want to have a character worth having your name as author, right? Another problem that may occur is it�ll color inside of the picture you�re using. Click on edit/undo BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE. You�ll have to find where the �leak� is in the picture and fix it. Most times you�ll use black to patch it up. My characters all have a black outline. Just like a comic. Yours may not, especially if you are using photos. I don�t advise that. It is called Comic Chat, remember? Onward.. 17. Clean up .bmp to your satisfaction. Yippee! You�ve completed one pose. 18. Click on character/add pose. 19. Choose pose you wish to add. Click add. I advise one each of: laugh, bored, angry, happy, scared, shout, sad, coy, point to self, point to other and wave (more on these later). I also advise having several neutral poses. It keeps your character moving. It gives it more life. My characters have anywhere from around 10 to 20 neutral poses, sometimes more or less. It depends on how many .bmps that I�ve found/like/made for the character. 20. Repeat steps 11 through 18. 21. Repeat steps 19 and 20 (then 11 through 18) until you have all the poses you want. 22. Okay, you have all the poses you want and they�re all cleaned up to your satisfaction. 23. Click on �Character Icon�. 24. Click file/import. 25. Import the .bmp file you have designated to be your icon. The icon is usually a �head and shoulders� pose of your character, but it can be anything you want it to be. 26. The �sizing screen� will most likely pop up again. Size to fit. Click OK. 27. Click on the first �New Pose�. 28. Look in the tool button thingie. See the one that looks like a red cross-hair? Click on that. 29. Now you have to go through each pose you�ve made and add that to the picture. It should show up on the upper left-hand side of your workspace. Drag it to the center of your character�s head. That is, assuming it has a head. This is where your �talk bubble� will come from when you are finally ready to chat. 30. Click on file/properties. Make any changes or add anything you would like to have here. It should show two tabs � Character and Colors. Character tab has � character name, description (optional, I seldom use it), character gender (optional, I use it), author (that�s YOU!), copyright info (optional, use it if your character is all original), characters URL (optional, use if you want your character to be �downloadable� � more on that later). Color tab � you can change your transparent color (optional, I never use it) and you can change your palette mode (optional, I never use it). Click OK. 31. When done with that, click file/save. Save in the Microsoft Chat Editor folder. You may have to look for it � c:/program files/Microsoft chat editor. It will save as an .avs file. 32. Click file/make a character file (.AVB). You don�t need to make any changes to the screen that pops up. Click on �create character�. 33. Click OK when done. 34. You have a character. Yippee! Please click on "Next" to find out how to make your character downloadable. |