CREATE ANIMATED
SPRAYS IN TEAM
FORTRESS 2 AND
COUNTER-STRIKEFrag and tag in four easy steps
Expressing your individuality online can be
diffi cult, especially if you’re a gamer. While
running and gunning your way through
games like Counter-Strike: Source or
Team Fortress 2 it’s easy to get lost in the
crowd. But leaving your mark on the world
can also be easy. Animated sprays are a
great way to tell your enemy that not only
have they been pwned but that you’re the
one responsible.
Custom animated sprays were limited to
the most elite players in the days of Counter-
Strike 1.6, but now that Source is here, that’s
changed. Prepare yourself for a quick and
easy way to make your own spray and let the
lolcats run wild!1. CLEAN UP YOUR PICTURE OF CHOICE
The hardest part of making your own ani-
mated spray is deciding what pictures to use.
The choice is tricky, as the result should rep-
resent both your unique personal style and
your declaration of badassedness.
Once you’ve chosen your picture,
place it on a transparent background using
Photoshop. Open the original image, then
press CTRL+A to select the entire image,
press CTRL+C to copy it, and then create
a new canvas by pressing CTRL+N. The
new canvas will be the exact same size as
the image on your clipboard, so you can
simply paste it by pressing CTRL+V. It’s a
good idea to make a backup of your image
now in case you make a mistake later.
Cut out the area of the picture that you
want to be transparent with the lasso tool;
then press Delete. Don’t worry about get-
ting rid of everything at once, just remove
unwanted background one chunk at a
time. For bits of the image that are the
same color, you can use the magic wand
tool. This lets you select adjoining pixels that
are the same color quickly and easily. Repeat
this process for each image you want in
your spray. When you’ve clipped out all the
background that you don’t want, resize each
image to 128 pixels wide by using the Image
Size panel (CTRL+ALT+I).2. CREATE THE BACKBONE OF YOUR CUSTOM
SPRAY Once you’ve clipped your pictures,
open them up side-by-side in Photoshop. This
is the best time to add text to your spray. With
the separate frames next to each other it’s easy
to see exactly what your fi nished product will
look like in-game. Due to the Source engine’s
120KB spray fi le-size limitation, however, you
probably won’t be able to create more than fi ve
frames. Make sure everything looks correct
and save the fi nished 128x128 images in one
directory; name them so that they will remain in
the proper order.
3. CONVERT Now that all your images are
properly sized, you’re almost ready to create
the spray. Open VTFEdit ( http://tinyurl.com/
2caps8 ) and go to File > Import. Control-click
each of the images you want to use and click
OK. Select the default options on the Import
screen and press OK. To get a high-speed
preview of your spray, go to the Image tab and
press Play. If everything looks right, go to the
Info tab and make sure that the overall size of
the spray is less than 120KB. Then save the fi le
in C:/Program Files/Steam/steamapps/<your
username>/team fortress 2/tf/materials/VGUI/
logos for Team Fortress 2, or your C:/Program
Files/Steam/steamapps/<your username>/
counter-strike source/cstrike/materials/VGUI/
logos folder. Once you’ve saved the fi le, go to
the Tools menu and click Create VMT fi le, then
save the resulting fi le to the same folder.
Now, your fi les should be in order, and
you can fi re up your game and enjoy your
handiwork. From the game’s main menu, go to
the Options menu and select the Multiplayer
tab. Your new spray should be available in
the drop-down list. Before you venture into
the wilds of the Internet, you’ll
want to test your spray in a
private place, so create a private
server and make sure your spray
works properly there. If you make
adjustments to the spray, you’ll
need to disconnect and reconnect
to the server in order to see any
changes. Once you’re happy with
the way things are working, fi re up
your game and get spraying!4. NOT FEELING ANIMATED? Don’t
sweat it! Cut out your picture and save it
as a targa (.tga). Size doesn’t matter; just
save it to a place where you can easily fi nd
it and then import the image via Counter-
Strike: Source’s or Team Fortress 2’s in-
game menu.
how 2 mini
how 2 IMPROVING YOUR PC EXPERIENCE, ONE STEP AT A TIME
52 MAXIMUMPC | FEB 08 | http://www.maximumpc.com
Make sure that the background con-
tents are transparent; otherwise, when
you load up your spray online there will
be a big, ugly white background!Put your files side by side to make
sure everything looks right.VTFEdit’s import process asks you all sorts
of scary questions. Fortunately, you can just
skip over them by pressing OK.