START
WITH GREAT ART:
The
#1 most important thing, when making spray
paint color logos, is to start with high
resolution PHOTOs or art work. You must have
quality clear pictures or art work if you
want a GREAT looking CLEAR spray color logo.
If you take screen shots, then shrink them,
then convert them into a spray a logo, they
look coarse and crappy. Solid color cartoons
seem to easily hold their quality when you
shrink them. 24 bit originals are better
quality files to start with too, because of
more resolution, but they will have to be
converted to 8bit to guaranteed work EVER
single time. 24bit ".bmps" files give the SHARPEST
look and can be converted with Wally. Wally can be used WITH OTHER
file types (like ".jpg" or ".gif" files), but
--sometimes-- these other file
types (just like 24bit color files do) "occasional"
cause random troubles, so in the "The
COLOR Logo Bible" tutorial we have the newbies use 8bit ".bmp" files for a working logo
EVERY single time. "gif" files are usually 8bit 256 color
and or normally not good quality unless they are a picture
with only a few colors in it.
GET
AN EDITOR:
You
will need a good "easy to use" graphic
editor software program. I have an older
version of Photo Shop that I use, but it was not free. Photo
Shop comes in a 30 day trial version too. If you can still
find a copy, Paint Shop Pro8 is only a
30 trial version. You can also use Lview Pro,
or any other graphic editor program you could
find or might have to edit and prepare the
BMP file. The ability to edit the color table
(color palette) is a must. You could even
use WALLY itself to edit and create graphic
editor program, but its limited as an editor.
For links to any of these programs, see the
"Handy Links" section on the LOGO Warehouse Main Logos page. You can get "demo"
versions of photo editing software programs at
www.download.com, just search on the words "photo
editor" there (load software from those sites at your own
risk).
SIZE
DOES MATTER:
Computers
are "digital" so they "think"
in powers of 2. So, to avoid "spray
distortion" or "stretching"
when you spray your logo in games, you will
need to make sure that your logo's width and
height (in pixels) are a "multiple of a
power of 2" -AND- a "multiple of 16"
-AND- as BIG as you can legally make it.
This
means that for you to have great looking
logos, they should have:
A "valid"
height times width (as per the Valid Size Chart on page 3 of
this tutorial).
-AND- also have width and
height dimensions that are a
power of 2 -AND- a multiple of 16.
(16, 32, 64,128, 256, 512)
-AND- of course have a
width times height of equal to or less
than 10,752 pixels.
Width (in pixels) multiplied by height (in pixels) =<
10,752 pixels.
-AND- the logo should be
as big as possible.
-AND- the finished
tempdecal.wad file can NOT be bigger
then 15KB in size.
So
what all this means is the BEST
SIZE for a color spray paint logo is 64x128
or 128x64
in pixels Width x Height even though some others sizes will
work.
If
you have a file that is smaller then 64x128
or 128x64, its would be best to add to its
"canvas" and coloring the new extra
space with PURE BLUE (red=0,green=0,blue=255).
For example if you have a file that is 64 x
112, it would be best to ADD to its "canvas"
on its top or bottom, until it was 64x128 and
color in the extra added space with pure blue.
You might even want to add a visible color
there, then add some text for a caption,
maybe.
CUTTING
UP THE ORIGINAL:
When
you convert a ".BMP" file to "indexed color"
mode with Photo Shop you should use "adaptive"
sampling, it leaves an extra slot at the end
of the color table (color palette) to add in
pure blue. When you reduce the size of your
original, you might want to try several
different types of sampling to see which
distorts it the least. Its usually best to
reduce the original in 24 bit instead of 8
bit, add text in "RGB" mode, then
convert it to an 8 bit indexed color file,
then make the last color in the color table (color
palette) "pure blue", but
sometimes you simply have to experiment to
get the best sequence.
BETTER
LETTERING:
With
Photo Shop it seems that its best to have the
logo in "RGB" mode and use "anti-aliasing"
when adding text if you want the text to be
fairly "smooth". If you want the
text to be more visible on the spray at the
cost of smoothness, it seems best if you do
NOT use the "anti-aliasing" in RGB
mode. If you want it to look smooth use "anti-aliasing".
WALLY
ADDS IN EXTRA BRIGHTNESS and CONTRAST:
WALLY
seems to RAISE BRIGHTNESS and LOWER the
CONTRAST when it converts the ".BMP" files to ".WAD"
files for logos (when using the "HL
Decal Wizard"). Once you have converted
your file to a ".WAD" file you will need to use WALLY's BRIGHTNESS and CONTRAST to FIX it in
the finished ".WAD" file. Your logo's ".WAD" file
might need the brightness turned DOWN by -10
to -25 or more. The contrast might need to be
turned up from +4 to +15 or more. Make your
logo, then and spray it in a game, if it
looks bad, tweak the WAD file, re-spray it,
re-tweak it, use trial and error and make
yourself a MASTER PIECE!!.
SHOW
OFF YOUR WORK:
SUBMIT your finished tested
MASTER PIECE spray paint logos for posting
here at the LOGO Warehouse, and show them off
to the World !
LOGOs/ The
COLOR Spray Paint Logo Bible/ Page 5/
