What if you want to make your own avatars for Virtual Places Chat? Well, to make AVs for VPChat, you'll need a few things:
First step is to have a picture. Find these anywhere: On your computer, around your house (scanner needed for pics not on your computer), on other websites. Caution, be careful what you take from other sites, espcially if the pictures are artwork belonging to someone. If its for making personal avatars that you aren't going to put up at another site, then it's okay. But if you are going to make a gallery for other people to get avatars, then ask permission if you can. Or, at least, try to give them credit or use a general disclaimer. And no taking AVs from other sites and putting them up on yours.
Okay, you've got your picture. Now, there are several ways to do this. If the picture isn't too large, just resize it. Use the chart seen on the page later.
If the picture is too big, or you only want a part of the picture, then, you have to use the Selection Tool in PSP and create an area to copy. You might want to use just the rectangle selector for now. The oval could still work, but let's concentrate on making your first AV for right now.
Example: I have a picture of Sakura, Kero, and Li Showron of Cardcaptors that I found at Animated Lust (Rated PG!). It's too big for an avatar, so I decide to make avatars of each character.
I start with Kero. I take the rectangle selection tool and outline the part of the picture that Kero is in.
I go to Edit and select Copy. Then I go to Edit again, and select Paste, then As New Image. A new, smaller picture of Kero is created.
Optional: In the new Kero pic, there are parts of Sakura and Li appearing in the corners. If you want, you can use color and edit these parts out. Just choose the Eyedropper and pick up the background color and then use Pen or Marker to color over the parts you want left out. I'm going to leave the parts in, though.
Now, I go to Image and click Resize. A little window pops up with various sizes. I choose Custom Size, and type in what I want for the width and the height. In this case, since the avatar is going to be regular size, I type in 48 X 64, and click, "Okay". The picture shrinks --or grows, depending on capture size-- to Regular AV Size.
Now, click Save As and go this way:
Now, I have a nice little AV of Kero that I can use in VPChat! ^_^
Making Megaheads, Gigaheads, and even Tours is done the same way. Just change the size.
Sizes Chart:
| Avatar | Size (width x height) |
|---|---|
| Reg. | 48 w X 64 h |
| Megas | 102 w X 116 h |
| Sm. Tours | 51 w X 41 h |
| Tours | 141 w X 62 h |
Small Tours can only hold two Reg. AVs. The larger Tours can hold up to 10, I think. But you can only use Reg. AVs if you are going to use a Tour Bus. Tours should be something long, like most logos, or vehicles, or panaramic veiws. These just work better for Tours.
That's all you need to know if you are just making the AVs for yourself or friends. If you are making a gallery for a website, though, here's a few more tips.
To put the images up on a website, you first have to upload the image files to your site editor.
Then use the following to make the image appear on the page:
Note: Due to the fact that anything between the "greater-than", "less-than" signs used in HTML tend to disappear in my site editor, I'm going to leave them off for demenstration purposes. If you want to see how these tags work, just go to my Avatars Page, go to the Tool Bar, and click View, then Source. A Notepad will pop up with the HTML for the page. That's a good way to study and learn HTML.
img src="Filename" alt="Name"
img src= sets up the the image by Filename (the name you gave the picture when you saved it. It's the one with the .gif or .jpg endings.) alt= sets up the name people see if they move their cursor over the picture. It's a good way to let your viewer see just who or what --or even where-- the AV is suppose to be of. Try it with these AVs from my Avatars page:
Drak Pack
 |  |
This brings up another thing: Presentation. The simplest way is to simply load up the images and put them side-by-side. A little neater way is to use tables. Click View and Source to view the tables on this page.
Here's a list of a decent number of AVs per table row:
Reg. AVs: 10/row Megas: 5/row Tours: 3/row.
Gigaheads are larger than Megaheads, so maybe 3 or 4 of those per row, while Small Tours are a little more than the width of a Reg. AV, so 10/row of the Small Tours will work, as well.
Later on, you might even paint your own AVs and Tours. The "Be Right Back" AVs in my Avatars Gallery was made my simply making an AV of the right size, and making a colored background, with a different color for the font. In this case, red with a gold "Mushu" font. (Mushu is only available in the Mulan Animated Storybook CD-ROM from Disney). The Megahead "BRB" is black with red "Creepy" font. You can also draw on the AVs. The "Playin' Yahtzee!" sign is gold background, red "Marvel Script" font (available in the How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way CD-ROM), and drawn dice in a "YAHTZEE!" of 1's. The Megaheads of Mega Man firing, as well as the Mega Man Devil and the Mega Man Angel, is made of sprites I made with the pattern found in the Mario Paint Player's Guide, from Nintendo Power. The MM Devil and Angel were made by editing the orginal sprite and using the Mirror option in PSP. You and a friend could use them together, like "mated" AVs.
For more HTML tips and ideas for AVs, go to:
Draka's HTML Tips. This is a page I created about the stuff and tricks I learned while learning HTML. There are links to some great places to learn more about HTML.