Quality Screenshots
INTRO
Greetings from sunny Meluna! ☀️
Dealing with the topic of decorating, publishing countless results of your fun in the game, or organizing decorating contests, it is easy to see that the quality of screenshots sent by you sometimes varies. While some aspects are a matter of taste and/or how we are used to the look of the game, there are issues, such as the format of the image, which have a direct impact on its presentation. Therefore, it is useful to know what to do and what to avoid when publishing your decorations so that they make the best possible impression. Although seemingly a trivial matter, it can be of great importance, for example, in the case of competitions, where, despite an interesting and imaginative decoration, the effect is spoiled by poor quality, devoid of vivid colors, and blurred screenshot.
Taking advantage of the fact that I am on this charming island called Meluna, I will show you on its example how to take quality screenshots from Tibia!
HOW TO TAKE A SCREENSHOT?
SETTING THE HOTKEY
Once upon a time, Tibia allowed us to take screenshots with the “prt sc” key. Unfortunately, those days are not coming back. However, players can still capture screenshots, using a built-in feature in the client. There are a number of situations, such as advancement, achievement, or death, which, if properly set, can trigger an automatic screenshot. We, however, will focus on taking screenshots in the context of decorations – that is, choosing a convenient moment to do so ourselves.
To do this, assigning a hotkey to the command is necessary. Expand the “Controls” tab in the settings, and go to “General Hotkeys”. There in the list find the item “Misc: Take Screenshot” and assign the desired key to it. Then confirm the whole operation with the “Apply” button, so that the client remembers the new settings.
FULL WINDOW OR GAME WINDOW?
Often in contests in which is necessary to capture a scene from the Tibia, you are asked to take a screenshot of the game window. A game window is nothing more than a part devoid of grey areas, where there is information about the character, access to settings, backpacks, etc.
This is because of the clearer perception of the decorations you have made. After all, such information as the equipment you have on you or the hunt analyzer is quite redundant in the context of decorating houses.
GAME WINDOW
game window
If you want your client to automatically crop screenshots to the game window, you need to check “Only Capture Game Window” in the “Misc” ➝ “Screenshots” tab. Remember to confirm your decision with the “Apply” button!
Is it worth setting up automatic screenshots in this way? Taking into account that in the context of leveling, deaths, and many other situations a full game window works better, and the fact that cropping the image is extremely easy even in MS Paint, the answer is – NO.
FULL WINDOW
On the other hand, when the rules of the contest require a full window, the organizer wants to make visible also the information related to the character. Such settings are required to make cheating and unwanted edits to the contents of the game window more difficult. Rarely is this requirement applied in the context of decorating a house.
full window
IMAGE FORMAT
.jpg vs. .png
We won’t build unnecessary tension and will reveal to you right away that the undisputed winner here is the .png format! 🥳
By converting .png to .jpg we can make the file take up less weight on our disc, however, we will lose:
▷ the clarity of the image (it becomes a bit more blurry, as colors blend and go out of contour)
▷ color brightness and clarity (shades become more muted and lack saturation).
This means that any image transfer through messengers and apps like Whatsapp, Messenger or Instagram can have a real impact on the loss of image quality, as they automatically convert images to .jpg format.
In addition, changing the format from .jpg to .png will not improve the quality.
Enough theorizing, let’s see the difference with an example.
screenshot saved in the .png format
screenshot saved in the .jpg format
In the screenshots above, you can see a significant difference, especially in the loss of color. However, let’s zoom in a couple of times to take a closer look at the quality:
screenshot saved in the .png format
screenshot saved in the .jpg format
By seeing such a difference, I think you understand that keeping your decoration in the wrong format can greatly impact its later reception. It is worth paying attention to such seemingly little things as the picture format.
Conclusion: Consider only .png!
GRAPHICS SETTINGS
NONE, ANTI-ALIASING, SMOOTH RETRO
NONE – is the option that is least modified by customer settings. At 100% resolution, the graphics in the game window look exactly as they were designed by the artists. As the game window is rescaled, the graphics adjusting to the new dimensions become slightly distorted and lose their original appearance. A sharp eye will immediately catch that some pixels or lines have become thicker.
screenshot in 100% resolution
screenshot in scaled resolution (zoom)
ANTI-ALIASING – is a setting designed to smooth out the game’s graphics. It was created for people who prefer less sharp outlines. The advantage of this option is that the changes are not noticeable to the eye when scaling the game window. The main disadvantage is the color blending effect.
screenshot in 100% resolution
screenshot in scaled resolution (zoom)
SMOOTH RETRO – this option can be called something between “none” and “anti-aliasing”. Smooth Retro is an attempt to preserve the original sharpness with minimal smoothing of contours. Graphics are not distorted, and the image does not appear overly blurred.
screenshot in 100% resolution
screenshot in scaled resolution (zoom)
As you can see from the comparison of the various options, none of them, when scaled, presents the graphics as designed. However, the anti-aliasing setting stands out the most.
ANTI-ALIASING: HOT OR NOT?
Lyxoph, one of Tibia’s graphics creators explains, why the non-filtering graphics setting, so-called “none”, was introduced:
“We included this option since we are trying to represent Tibia’s retro graphics the way they were meant to be. All graphics for the game are created with clean and crisp edges, keeping each and every pixel in mind. They are designed to look pixelated. If we didn’t care about keeping every pixel recognisable, we would have chosen an entirely different technique for representing ingame graphics in the first place, just not pixel art. We felt that the filtering of the graphics ingame hampered with our vision of what the game should look like. But of course, this is also a matter of taste and how you’re used to seeing the graphics over all the years. That’s why we left the option in to activate or deactivate anti-aliasing.”
Although anti-aliasing is a matter of taste, as the graphics designer admits Tibia was created to be a pixel art-based game and sharp edges are advisable. That’s where its charm lies. In addition, enabling this option also darkens the colors of many small graphics elements, and thus significantly reduces the quality of their appearance. This is due to the blurring of black outlines – the black color mixes with the fill of the element. See the hairband on my character below, it’s a perfect example. This effect can also be seen on white flowers, where darker shades are mixed with lighter ones.
In conclusion – the use of anti-aliasing is, of course, largely a matter of taste. However, there are a few arguments in favor of leaving pixel art as it is, intact. If you are not convinced, you can simply change the options at the time of taking a screenshot of your decoration! 😉
Conclusion: turn off the anti-aliasing option!
SCALING
“Okay, I turned off anti-aliasing, however, the image does not look as it was designed! What could be the reason for this?”
The answer is simple – you probably have unnaturally scaled graphics.
The game window in Tibia can be made smaller, or larger. We have a certain amount of freedom here. However, when applying such changes, the graphics must adjust to the size we have imposed. In the case of anti-aliasing, more and more new blurred parts are created, so that our eye does not catch a significant difference, but the messy effects begin with the “none” option turned on. That’s when the contours of objects become unclear- thicker in one place, thinner in another. Objects become distorted, and our eye picks up more and more random pixels.
Humm… 👎
setting: none (scaled)
No… 👎
setting: anti-aliasing (scaled)
Not yet… 👎
setting: smooth retro (scaled)
That’s it! Perfect shapes!* 
*as they were created by CipSoft artists,
original graphics (200%)
The best solution is to select the option to scale the image using integral multiples – that is, 100%, 200%, 300%, etc. This gives us a guarantee that the graphics on our screenshot will look exactly as designed. The same effect will then be achieved by using both the “smooth retro” and “none” options.
Conclusion: scale your screenshot using only integral multiples!
LIGHT EFFECTS
Light effects are difficult to play with on a daily basis. However, when it comes to keeping the decorations on our screenshots, it is worth taking them into account, as they may improve the result of our work!
hover your mouse over the screenshot
Admittedly, light effects do not affect the quality of a screenshot itself, but they can make our decoration look better. Ultimately, it’s all a matter of taste. However, remember that in the case of decoration contests, each member of the jury has their taste, and it may be worth giving a choice (if it is following the rules, of course).
house decoration by Norelli (without light effects)
house decoration by Norelli (with light effects)
Making two versions – with and without light effects – doesn’t cost us anything, for that it can help!
Conclusion: try both – decorations with and without light effects!
CURSOR
Often in screenshots, you can see the beautiful decoration and… a blue cursor. And there is no denying that this element is completely useless. Just like random items that clutter our decoration unnecessarily, this graphic addition appears on the screen without any purpose. It is worth taking this into account when taking a screenshot. Let’s try to keep our cursor out of the game window!
We can also change the settings and make the screen display only the default system cursor, which is invisible on screenshots. Just uncheck the “Highlight Mouse Target” option in the “Interface” tab. Don’t forget to confirm the setting changes with the “Apply” button.
Conclusion: turn off the highlighted mouse target!
OUTRO
I hope that this guide will be useful to both beginners in decorating and those who want to make their decorations even better. I may have succeeded in drawing your attention to aspects you hadn’t even thought of before!
See you somewhere in Tibia! ❤️️
Makadamia
One Comment
Lady Tiia Candia
ótimo tutorial 🙂