How to prepare a character for SC using Irfanview.

First of all you need to download and install Irfanview. Once you've done that open up your full size character using the program, and resize it to be no more than 125pixels wide and 175pixels high (shortcut ctrl-r). Once inside make sure the 'Set new size' puddle is ticked, as well as 'Preserve aspect ratio'.

Tip: Set the height to 175 pixels then look at the width, if it's wider than 125 set it to 125 instead. If your character comes out too short you may need to crop some of the character from the bottom.

Tip: Before you resize make sure to make your canvas as small as possible (without cropping the character of course).

Now that you've shrunk it down you need to manually add a black outline to the character in MS Paint. I should warn you though that this technique doesn't work very well if your original outline is too thin.

The diagram below shows the various stages -

• the original
• the original with the outside area filled to show you what's really there
• the outline
• everything outside the outline filled with a solid colour
• the final image

I would recommend saving the image to your desktop and opening it in paint, so that you can zoom in and look at the pixels close up.

(Image courtesy of Beeko180)

Lastly you just need to save the final image as a gif:

• Fill the outside area with a solid colour that doesn't appear anywhere in your image (eg; the fluoro green)
• Open the image in Irfanview
• Click the Save button (computer disk)
• Choose GIF from the dropdown at the bottom (save as type)
• When the JPEG/GIF save options menu pops up look at the GIF section (at the bottom), and tick the box for 'Save transparent color' and then 'Choose transparent color during saving'.
• Click the Save button
• When the image pops up again in a new window (it will be enlarged), click somewhere in the fluoro green area (or whatever colour you chose).

You will now have a transparent gif such as this:

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Dinosaurs had eggs bro, the chicken came way later.