Desktop background

Nordic_Pirate

Hey gang,

kind of a unique thought that I'm not even sure is possible. I'd like to get a "group photo" of all of my characters together in some backdrop that hasn't been chosen yet. I'd obviously have to take the pictures at the same time of the day, etc...

Are there any programs that would make this easier to do? Is this even possible? Is there an easier way than overlaying 8 photos?

Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Nordic.

Turelus

Photoshop is how I did mine, it's not perfect but kind of works.

If you can get 8 images in the same area which kind of work I should be able to do something amateur for you.
Just put them all on top of one another and then use transparency to line them up and erase areas of the layers above to show the characters.

These were my two character next to each other.

Nordic_Pirate

Turelus wrote: »

Photoshop is how I did mine, it's not perfect but kind of works.

If you can get 8 images in the same area which kind of work I should be able to do something amateur for you.
Just put them all on top of one another and then use transparency to line them up and erase areas of the layers above to show the characters.

These were my two character next to each other.

Awesome, that is what I'm looking for. Unfortunately, I do not have photoshop, but I might be able to find something that I can mess with.

Btw, grats on your "promotion" to Community Ambassador!

Turelus

Nordicly_Responsible wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Photoshop is how I did mine, it's not perfect but kind of works.

If you can get 8 images in the same area which kind of work I should be able to do something amateur for you.
Just put them all on top of one another and then use transparency to line them up and erase areas of the layers above to show the characters.

These were my two character next to each other.

Awesome, that is what I'm looking for. Unfortunately, I do not have photoshop, but I might be able to find something that I can mess with.

Btw, grats on your "promotion" to Community Ambassador!

Thank you.

There are other programs which should have layers as well GIMP is considered the alternative for Photoshop and is free to download.

Screenshot taking wise try and find somewhere with a nice background you want but something like a wall you can line up against and thus have markers for where each character has to stand.

If you can get a friend to take the screenshots you'll get even better results, mine is slightly twisted because of the camera zooming over shoulder rather than straight in.

Night_Watch

Edit: I did it the hard way - overlaying

Just dropping in to say how I got a group photo of my characters in another game!

I'm using a very old version of Paint Shop Pro (Jasc) but there are many modern utilities for picture manipulation - including some that are free to download and use.

Here is what I did;

To get the images needed

With game in windowed full screen and art package open for easy switching between them:

1. Find an area accessible to all characters - preferably somewhere well lit with a neutral background that, if possible, has a low amount of colour variance
2. Mouse zoom to see as if looking through character eyes and capture the background (screenshot) - this is not necessarilly to be the background for group photo
3. Line up (each in turn) character too the chosen background area - I made a 'jig' that I taped to my monitor to help with alignment of characters
4. Screenshot at least three times - so I could pick best shot later
5. Paste each screenshot into art package and save the image

To get the background for group photo:

In [2] above I got a 'working' background to play with. The background you want to use for the group photo can be got in the same way and can be any scene from game!

Putting it all together;

1. Take a good look at the character images and choose the best image of each character - I took one character image as the 'main' and compared the images of other characters for matching purposes - wanted best lighting and sizing match
2. With each selected character image I cut out the character as tidely as possible - PSP(Jasc) took ages as I kept zooming and cutting bits away to get best overall character image neatness - other programs are able to cut out characters very quickly and easily
3. Save work as going along - save each individual character by name for ease of use
4. Cut each seperated and neatened character from image and paste to new image with a blank background - I made a too large new image with a single colour background (green) - essentially I was kind of 'green screening' charaters into background
5. MUST NOTE HERE - I was using transparencies - the green being the colour to be transparent (choose a colour that will not conflict with same colour in character image)
6. Open up the background image you want to use
7. Cut character from it's own image - remember to set up transparency if needed
8. Paste character image as transparency into background image
9. (layers can come into this but I'm just giving as easy a description I can from memory)

This looks like a lot of work and it can be! The results on first, second ... tenth attempt can be somewhat lacking. With practice though a good result can be had.

Sorry I do not have any of those opld images left to show as example. And I'm sure there will be faster / better ways to get what you want. Also, I'm sure others can give better descriptions - I'm writing from memory!

Regards.

Edit: cleaned up a bit.

Night_Watch

Turelus wrote: »

Photoshop is how I did mine, it's not perfect but kind of works.

If you can get 8 images in the same area which kind of work I should be able to do something amateur for you.
Just put them all on top of one another and then use transparency to line them up and erase areas of the layers above to show the characters.

These were my two character next to each other.

Yeah! That's it - I cut each character out and pasted on a background though.

Nordic_Pirate

Night_Watch wrote: »

Edit: I did it the hard way - overlaying

Just dropping in to say how I got a group photo of my characters in another game!

.

Thanks a ton for that, I may need to sit down and take the time to do this way as well. Looks like the one thing everyone agrees with is a neutral background, I'd really like to have it with my EP Chateau in the background, I think that'd be legit...but with the rolling smoke, near impossible I bet. Lots to consider, thank you!

Cheers,

Nordic

Night_Watch

Nordicly_Responsible wrote: »

Thanks a ton for that, I may need to sit down and take the time to do this way as well. Looks like the one thing everyone agrees with is a neutral background, I'd really like to have it with my EP Chateau in the background, I think that'd be legit...but with the rolling smoke, near impossible I bet. Lots to consider, thank you!

Cheers,

Nordic

Hope you can get a good result. It can take a little while and a lot of work to get just the right image but worth it in the end.

Regards

Rouven

GIMP is free and very powerful. Lot's of tutorial videos around as well. I guess you could do that nicely with layers for the characters. I don't play around enough, I have to re-learn every time I want to do something.

OmniDo

Of all the screenshots Ive taken over the years, only four have I ever used for desktop wallpaper.

SydneyGrey

I've been wanting to do that for months, but I've been too lazy to begin it. I have GIMP and Corel Paint Shop Pro, and I recommend both of them.
One of these days I'll get around to finally doing it.

Gargath

Try LunaPic Free Online Photo Editor, it also can mix 2 or more photos with soft borders and plenty other effects.

And this is my latest desktop background

Nordic_Pirate

Those are some awesome screenshots!!

Geroken777

Screenshots? Pfft, here is mine currently:

It's homemade

Zaldan

if the backdrop is an in game location you can take the pictures then use free online photo stitching to create something like this



3 of my characters I made for a sig