The Spray Guide

So I said I was going to do a post on how to do a spray, there are a few ways to do it, if you have a 256x256 jpeg you can import that from within the game. However if you want some transparency you're going to need to do a bit of work.

You'll need either GIMP or Photoshop and VTFEdit.

So fire up your image editor of choice(but what follows is for Photoshop) and do the following:

1. Create an image w/ a backround color made up of R 128 G 128 B 128

2. Create a new layer on top of this and put whatever you want on this layer erase anything you do not want from this layer as well.

3. You'll want to select only what you've drawn on the top layer to do this locate the layers pallete in the lower right hand side, press CTRL and click the top layer;

4. Then on the channels tab click the button to “Create Alpha channel from selection”

5. Then Flatten the image so you have only one layer.

6. Now Save the image as a TGA file; making sure the Alpha Channels is checked.

Now open VTFEdit and do the Following:

1. Goto File>Import and import your TGA file

2. In the dialog box that opens uncheck Generate Mipmaps, leave everything else as is, but make sure Alpha Format reads DXT5; hit OK

3. Confirm that the transparency works by going to View>Mask which will show you the Alpha map preview.

4. Save the File and remember where you saved it, we'll need to place it in two spots.

Place the File in the following locations

• \Steam\SteamApps\igor72982\team fortress 2\tf\materials\VGUI\logos\

• \Steam\SteamApps\igor72982\team fortress 2\tf\materials\VGUI\logos\UI\

That means you place the VTF file in the logos folder and the UI folder which is a sub of the logos folder.

Once that is done you'll fireup TF2 and go into the options, once there goto the Advanced tab and select your spray, now just press T when in game and presto.