How to Combine Screenshots?
INTRO
I am just visiting the Realm of Dream Quest area. Along the way, I passed many beautiful lands, starting from the fertile jungle to the somewhat desiccated flora familiar from the Zao Steppes. Until I ended up here, on this charming island where I can receive my rewards. It’s very pleasant here, and the views are well worth the visit. I wish I could show you the whole island, but… the game screen is unfortunately too small.
We face a similar problem with houses that are slightly larger than standard. We made a great decoration, we want to show it to the world, unfortunately, a part of the house is cut off because it doesn’t fit on the screen. We also have problems with cut-off walls, and the inability to center our decoration on the screenshot.
These and many other problems can be easily solved with the most basic graphic programs that everyone has! In this article, we will show you how to deal with it!
COMBINING SCREENSHOTS
All you need is… MS Paint!
This simple tool gives us all the capabilities to expand the area of your screenshot. Of course, you can use any graphics software to complete this task.
Let’s now present the example of combining two screenshots to show you the west side of the island with a lovely autumn grove.
▷ Prepare two screenshots you want to combine.
Here we have the additional difficulty – water animation. Note that in both the left and right screenshots the frame of water animation must be the same.
▷ Note where one of the images edge ends and find the corresponding part of the image in the second screenshot.
In this case, we note that the left edge of the right screenshot has its counterpart on the left screenshot. The locations are marked with a green square.
▷ Enlarge the images enough to see them from the level of single pixels, and match the corresponding pixels.
Let’s paste one screenshot into the opened image with the second screenshot. We must, of course, enlarge our working area accordingly beforehand. Having enough zoom to see the individual pixels, adjust the position of the pasted image to the one we want to expand.
▷ Overlap a column of pixels on the corresponding, IDENTICAL column of pixels in the second screenshot.
Now we need to move one screenshot, on top of the other by overlapping the corresponding pixels. This will combine the two parts so that they look like a naturally expanded area of the game window.
Combining screenshots is easiest done by having a graphics setting “none”, because of the most clear elements. However, it works analogously on “anti-aliasing” or “smooth retro”. The difference is only in more details and multicolored pixels. 🙂
In this way, we can combine as many screenshots, as we need. I can finally show you the entire island where we land by completing Realm of Dream Quest! 🙂 See for yourself:
6 Makadamias is too much!
Remember to save the image in .png format!
REMOVING CHARACTER
Now that we know how to combine the screenshots and expand the area depicted by us, it is worth noting that your character is standing on each of the combined parts. And it doesn’t look good at all! it’s worth considering this already when taking a screenshot or simply removing our character from the existing image, to achieve this effect:
We can remove our character from the screenshots by preventing it from appearing in the game window or when the image is already done in the simplest graphics programs. About how to do it, you will learn in another guide:
COMPLICATIONS
LIGHT EFFECTS
The biggest difficulty in combining screenshots is the lighting effects. These are extremely complex and depend not only on the settings of the client but also on the equipment we wear or the time in the game. To get the desired effect we recommend:
▷ Pay attention to the time of day in the game.
The best lighting effects are precisely at night. The closer to midnight, the better the contrasts are. So you don’t have to analyze on your watch in RL to take screenshots every minute, but pay attention to the small window that appears in the client, which shows the level of night advancement. Always aim for the same setting.
different times of day and night
▷ Take off items that make your character emit light.
By this, we mean both decorative light sources (rare items, fansite items), those that give our characters additional properties (resistance), but also wands or rods, etc. Before taking a screenshot, simply make sure that your character itself is not a source of light, which can interfere with the later combining of screenshots.
▷ Pay attention to clouds.
If you do not take screenshots at night, but during the day – shadows from clouds will appear in your game window. Pay attention to whether they interfere with the effect of combining screenshots.
▷ Pay attention to light sources on the edges of the screenshots.
Sometimes there is a light source in our game window, on the edge. By moving your character away in the opposite direction, we lose sight of this light source, and as a result, the light effects that were emitted by this object also change. While we are unable to change this, we can simply pay attention to it by choosing where we stand.
ANIMATIONS
We have already encountered this problem in the example of Realm of Dream Quest area. We were prevented from easily combining one screenshot to another by the animation of the water (both the waves on the water surface and at the edges of the island).
Each time combining screenshots, we have to match them choosing the corresponding frame from the animation.
wrongly selected frames of water’s edge animation
USE IT AS A DECORATOR
I have already shown you how to link screenshots together, and by the way, the entire island, where you can find the famous Music Box. And you may be further wondering: “But why do I need this knowledge?”
1) Many contests involve decorating an area on the Tibia map, not a house. Alternatively, the player himself has the choice of choosing a house or a location on the map. If this is allowed by the rules, it may be worth expanding the area, which will give us more options.
2) Some houses are too big and non-standard in shape, others have walls in the center, making it impossible for the character to stand so that the game window includes a view of the entire house. It is in such situations that the ability to combine screenshots helps.
I own Upper Swamp Lane 8, which is a perfect example of the last case. The house has a wall perfectly in the center. When I stand north of it – it cuts off a nice-looking row of trees and plants to the south. On the other hand, when I stand south of the wall, the house is trimmed with the line of the wall, which also looks unaesthetic.
That’s why it’s a good idea to combine screenshots together to be satisfied not only with the decoration we made, but also with the way it is presented. My house after screenshot modifications is fully exposed, and decorated – it presents all the details. Plants protruding slightly outside the house area are not cut off by the trimmed image, and the whole is aesthetically centered.
OUTRO
Thanks for taking the time to read this guide. We hope that now combining screenshots won’t be a big problem for you anymore and that your decorations won’t be cut in the least appropriate place! 😉
If you still have any doubts, or questions, let us know in the comments. We will be happy to advise you!
See you somewhere in Tibia! ❤️️
Makadamia