Avatar

An avatar is a small picture that accompanies each post by a user on the Puzzle Pirates forums. These images are used to help other forum readers quickly identify postings made by particular users.

To set an avatar
To set an avatar for use on the YPP forums, click on "My Profile" on the top of any page while reading the forums. Next, click on "Change my avatar". On this page there will be two options available to define an avatar.
 * Choose an image from our predefined avatars: These images are cartoonish, some are animated, and they are not unique to any particular user.
 * Upload your avatar here: Any image that meets the size requirements can be uploaded to the forums as an avatar.  Images must be uploaded from a personal computer and not from the world wide web.

After updating your avatar, there will be a delay before you see the new avatar. This is caused by the image-caching that makes the forums run faster. To view the new avatar, click "My Profile" again to view your profile with the prior avatar, then click Refresh (on Internet Explorer) or Reload (on Netscape, Firefox or other browsers).

Size
Currently, avatars may be no larger than 60 kilobytes and 150 by 150 pixels in size. Prior to the switch to mvnforum in August 2005, avatars were limited to 6 kilobytes and 80 by 80 pixels maximum.

Avatars on the YPPedia
The YPPedia has archived hundreds of avatars used in the history of the YPP forums. These images can be found cataloged by the forum or account name of the artist in the avatar artists' category. In addition, these same avatar are sorted by the account name of the user whom they were created for in the avatar art category.

To add an image to the avatar collection there are two steps to follow.
 * 1) Upload the image to the YPPedia using the Upload file link in the sidebar toolbox. Be sure to name the file Avatar-Artistname-filename, where artistname is the forum name of the artist and filename is the original filename given to the artwork.  If the original filename is unknown, be sure to use a descriptive name describing either the pirate or user depicted.
 * 2) In the summary field enter  , substituting the forum name of the artist for artistname and the forum name of the recipient for recipientname.  Make sure to use the forum or account name for these fields, as the avatar template will create links back to the forums with these names.

If you have already uploaded an avatar to YPPedia and wish to correct the image tag, go to the image's page and click on the "edit" tab. Edit the text to use the correct tag detailed in step 2 above (in the text editing box, not the edit summary field) and click on the "Save page" button. Do not reupload the image because that will not change the text.

Avatars for sale
Many artists will offer their creative services, offering to create an avatar for a specific price. Many of these offers can be found in The Mariner's Muse section of the forums. Some avatar artists sell their work for under a thousand PoE, while some charge over 100,000 PoE for a completed avatar.

Screenshots and graphics editing
To take a screenshot of the game either
 * Use the /print command, or press F12 if you use the default Puzzle Pirates chat shortcut configuration. The image will be saved into the screenshot directory, which can be changed in the client options.
 * On Windows, press the Alt and Print Screen buttons. This will save an image of the currently active window to the clipboard.  This image can then be pasted into a graphics editing program such as Paint.
 * On a Macintosh, press Command-Shift-3. This will save an image of the entire screen to the desktop.  This image can then be edited in a graphics editing program.

There are many free programs available for graphics editing. All Windows computers come with MSPaint, a basic editing program that allows for simple manipulations such as resizes. The GIMP is a free open-source software program that has many advanced features. Paint Shop Pro has a free 30 day trial available.

Related articles

 * Avatar article on Wikipedia
 * Category:Avatar art
 * Category:Avatar artists

Other links

 * Avatar artists directory - New & improved up to date!
 * Direct link to the change avatar page
 * Third directory of avatar artists
 * Second avatar artists directory
 * Original avatar thread
 * When and how to use internet image formats
 * Avatar selling thread