Help:Creating Images

The two primary goals for the images are:
 * 1) Make the attack easily identifiable by players who only slightly know the character and have seen each attack once or twice at most.
 * 2) Be a visual aid to explain how an attack works.

Image Guidelines

 * Use high quality PNG screenshots taken with a capture card, or straight from the PC version of the game.
 * Characters should use default colors, and face right (as if they are player 1).
 * Name images with the following format:.
 * Example: Lucas's Jab in Super Smash Brothers Ultimate would be named.
 * For moves using multiple images, add the image numbers after the input.
 * Hitboxes should be named similarly, but with "hb" at the end, and should be in .webm format.
 * Examples: Lucas's Jab hitbox in Super Smash Brothers Ultimate would be named.
 * For moves with multiple hitboxes, the number should come before "hb".
 * Only use letters and numbers, -, _,, and ~ in file names.
 * Images that have clarifying text should use the font Arial bolded, for the sake of consistency.
 * Combine multiple images together if the attack does an animation that can not easily be understood by one image alone.

NOTE: If the image fields are filled on the data page for a character, uploading the image for them is as easy as clicking the red link and uploading it, as the name field will be filled automatically.

Image Editing Tools
Consider taking a learning course (YouTube) on image manipulation basics to help you learn what tools are at your disposal in these programs.
 * Photoshop
 * Gimp
 * Paint.NET
 * Krita

Taking Screenshots

 * Have the character in default colors/costumes
 * Make sure the stage doesn't obscure the attack. Find a stage (or part of a stage) with colors that don't blend into attack
 * Be consistent with the stage. Use one stage for all the screenshots for that character. Using a different stage for another character is fine.
 * Screenshots should be indicative of the most "distinct" portion of the attack. For most attacks, this will probably be the first active frame, for others you may have to use better judgement to determine what is best indicative. For example, one may screenshot projectiles shortly after being cast instead of the exact moment they are cast, or sword attacks may be screenshot at the end of their arcs to show their full range.
 * Hide things that aren't related to the move in question if you can.
 * Avoid having the opponent in the screenshot unless needed (Ex throws, Sephiroth's Shadow Flare orbs etc.)
 * If they are needed, make sure they are easily distinguishable from the attacker (no mirror match, different colors).
 * A good choice for a dummy is a character related to the other in their series or lore.
 * It's okay to crop out parts of the opponent like an outstretched arm.
 * Try to avoid having the HUD in the screenshot if you can. Try moving HUD elements up/down slightly in the game's display options. Some games even allow you to hide the HUD completely (or via mods).

Images Need to be Readable When Zoomed Out
Remember, these images are shrunk on character pages, so make sure text and diagrams are still readable when shrunk. Before uploading an image, open it on your computer and zoom out to see if the image is still readable.
 * Crop the image so that extraneous details such as long ponytails do not take up too much space.
 * Consider moving objects closer together - these images are to help readers identify the attack and not necessarily show the attack's range.
 * Use colors for text and arrows that don't blend into the background. Consider adding an outline to them to better help them stand out.

Images with Transparent Effects
Building images with transparent effects are crucial for helping with move clarity and readability. This is especially true if a move is effect-heavy.
 * Get a black screen mod for the game in question. These are usually found on modding sites like Gamebanana or ModNexus.
 * Set your game resolution to 1280x768, keep resolution on.
 * Perform the move and use a freeze-frame technique to get a good image of the move. In Super Smash Brothers Ultimate, you can hide the Combo Display in training mode, and run the game frame-by-frame in the options menu.
 * Get a snip of the move that includes all the effects and open it in GIMP.
 * Open the image in GIMP, select Color > Color to Alpha, and use the Eyedropper tool to select the color of whatever the chroma keying background color is on your screenshot.
 * Adjust the Transparency and Opacity settings to get rid of as much of the background as possible, but also be sure that the options do not key out any pixels from the character themselves. This may need to be done multiple times to get an ideal transparent background. Eventually, you should have a good enough transparent render for the move.

Exportation and Upload
Once the image has been created, you can export it to a PNG and upload it to the site. We recommend using PNG-8 as the file type for image uploads, since the compression helps keep file sizes low without losing much quality.

After all that is done, navigate to our Special:Upload page (which can be found under the "Wiki tools" heading of our sidebar) and upload the file with the correct title. Remember, the naming convention of Dragdown images is "(Game Title Abbreviation) (Character Name) (moveId on Data page)", or you can click the red .png or .webm links on the character's Data page to upload there without having to rename.

Video Content
Video content is primarily used in Combo Theory boxes and other places on the site that benefit from visual information. In order to keep file sizes low, we'd prefer if you used the following method:

How 2 Video

 * 1) Set up the recording, such as with OBS. You don't need any special settings, but you should ideally make it fit your screen if it doesn't. Right click your scene, hover over Transform, click Fit to screen.
 * 2) Record your media.
 * 3) Download ffmpeg and open it with cmd/terminal, then copy and paste in this command:
 * Replace [videoname].blahblah with the proper name of your video file before rendering, while [outputname].webm will be the name of the output clip.
 * -ss and -to are the start point and end point, respectively. Use this to highlight the exact timestamp you want to render.


 * -qmax is how strong the compression should be. 30 is a good baseline, the higher the more powerful it'll be (and as a result the worse your video will be).
 * -an disables audio. You should leave this around for 90% of videos on the wiki.

4. After all the setup is done, render the video.

5. Upload it to the upload page and label it with the correct name.

6. Paste it in anywhere that videos can be used on the site!

Special thanks to Will from DLW for devising this method!