You know you are really hurting for information when with all your searching the one lead you have is a Ice Hole! Well this Ice Hole has been working in the graphics field for over 14 years professionally and has been using PhotoShop since it came out. Over 18 years. I have logged thousands of hours on the program. I still put in 40+ a week at work on PS and about 6-10 at home. I like it a lot! I have made a lot of CS:S tags. Here are a few:
I have animated ones also (As far as I know animated do not work in DOD:S. I am still trying though!). Could only show as gifs and they don’t work imported into CS:S. But that is CS:S and is another story.
You came here to see if my DOD:S sprays work. Don’t sweat it. It works. Here is a unedited screenshot of my success. The roughness on the lettering is intentional. Tried to make it look like a old weather beaten poster and at the same time be readable to get message across. I use this particular tag to recruit for my DOD:S clan One World Syndicate. I only use it in OWS [=1=] servers. I am not a complete Ice Hole!
Here it is:
Please read these through one time then read them again as you work on the spray. It will save you some trouble back tracking if you get ahead of yourself just making the spray and reading how to for the first time!
Too start you need to have PhotoShop or have a friend that has PhotoShop to help you. I am sure there is another way to get there without PS, but this is the only way I know of. You also need to the “.vtf plugin” “.vtf” is not a standard file format for PhotoShop. Without this plugin you can forget about this tutorial. Good news though. Its a free plug-in. Here are some unverified sources for download (I received it from a friend.)
This looks like a good site. Tons of info on VTF. All you never wanted too know about it. The link for the plug-in is at the bottom of the page “Photoshop Plug-in” under “Utilities”.
Optional site. Not a lot of info, just a screen capture of the interface when saving and the link for dl.
Then open the image you want or create the image you want. Make it RGB and 72 dpi. I think in Source dimensions are not a real concern. I still like to you use 16 x 16, 64 x 64, 96 x 96, 128 x 128 and 256 x 256 being the max (Pixels per inch that is). While working on it you can just save as whatever. PSD or layered TIFF. Once you have it where you want it then you can save out as “.vtf” You will have a ton of options come up in a pop window for how you want it saved.
I went through 30+ combos before finding what I liked! Here is the 1 setting you need for DOD:S spays:
Your done with PhotoShop. Now on to Valve.
Open the Valve folder where ever you have it on your computer. Valve folder is either on top level of your HD or in Program Files.
Valve/Steam/SteamApps/username/dod/materials/VGUI/logos/
Then COPY your “.vtf” file you just made in PhotoShop (You could also just save it right in there I guess.) here.
Then start up Steam. Then start up Day of Defeat: Source. Go to options and select "Import Spray...".
Here is what you want to see after hitting “options” in the splash screen of DOD:S(BTW I have a custom splash screen so yours will not have a Russian sniper in it. Just the standard Axis and Allied dudes that you always see. We customize a lot of stuff at www.owscgc.com!)
I know you are thinking I don't have to do that since I already put it in the correct folder, well you do since it doesn't have a ".vmt" file yet. By selecting "Import Spray..." you will be generating a ".vmt" file. If you don't you won't get it to show when you try too apply it. Even the little preview screen will be black. Just take a look if you don't believe me (Before you "Import Spray..." that is.)
Now if you are really hard thinker you probably want to just skip my step where I had you manually put the file in the right location. Well if you do that and try and import the ".vtf" file using "Import Spray..." you get nothing. It will not import it. And don't ask me why. I am just a artist that makes work arounds. A fix could take years and jack up a bunch of other things. Besides some of my work arounds take less time than the solution and work better! In the graphic arts world that I live in that is!
OK once you have ran it through “Import Sprays…” you can scroll down the list of sprays in the pull down above “Import Sprays…” to find yours you made. Then click Apply. And if you are already connected to a server you will either have too disconnect or wait till a map change to have the spray you selected show. Otherwise it will show the previous spray used. I suggest setting this before connecting to server.
Conclusion:
That’s it. It works! If is doesn’t then double check your image mode is RGB, size is 72 DPI and no bigger than 256 x 256 (You can try, but I have not and I think 256 x 256 is big enough in game. It is like the height of the models!)
Good luck and if you have issues drop me a line at:
