Armed Assault Photography Tutorial (Basic)

Taking ingame screenshots is easy, even for amateurs  (though it will be explained from scratch in this lil tutorial). Search a spot , press the "Print" key, open Paint, insert and save.

But we aren't beginners, are we? We are the OFP/Armed Assault elite. We don't want to take pics for ourselves, we want to share them with our great community. Our goal is to reach the maximum of quality.

Let's start with getting the necessary tools. Listed below is every tool we need for this tutorial :

- Irfanview (A freeware picture viewer and editor) grab it from http://www.irfanview.com

-Fraps (for taking ingame screenshots) get it from http://www.fraps.com/download.php

- 2 modified variants of PhotoResize from my Homepage :

PhotoResize (for Primary use)

Photo Resize (under 100kb)


And thats it !

Lets begin :

First of all we need to start Fraps.

Fraps

Next step is configuring Fraps. Therefor we head over to "Screenshots"
and define a directory where the bmps are saved. Furthermore we define a hotkey that will be used for taking an ingame screenshot.

Fraps2

I am using the "<" key, as it is not used by ArmA.


Now we'll minimize Fraps and start ArmA. There are 2 ways of taking ingame shots.

First one is using "camera.sqs" :

Open the editor and load a map. Next place your soldier at your "spot" and add this command to his initialization field.

this exec "camera.sqs"; showCinemaBorder false



Now preview the game and you'll see something like this :



Now search for the best spot. Basically the camera can be steered like a helo (using the keyboard
 only), + and - are helpfull for zooming in or out.

Found the perfect spot? Roger, alright!

Press "L" in order to get rid of the crosshair.
It's time for Fraps to get to work. Press your designed capture key (in the example it's "<")
and the pic is saved in your Fraps directory.

Thats the first way of taking a screen.

The second one is far easier but you won't be able to take shots from any angle/height.

The 2nd way for taking ArmA screenshots

Place yourself as a civilian, preview and open your ArmA Settings. Now
 head over to "Difficulty", scroll down and disable the weapon crosshair.
Thats it now find your perfect spot and proceed like it has been explained in way 1 (a little hint : "<").

Ok now we are able to upload our images...........NO, we can't upload the bmp pics that have been saved in your Fraps directory. 56kb Dial-Up users and forum admins would kill us ;) .

Time for converting and resizing:

Converting and Resizing

Load up your image in Irfanview and save it as a jpg.
You are able to perform this action by clicking
File-->Save As

Something similar to this picture should show up.

irfan1


Save the image to a subfolder of your Fraps directory .

Next step is extracting the PhotoResizer exe to that folder.

The subfolder should look like this :

irfan2


Now select the jpg file and drag&drop it on the PhotoResize icon :



A command window should appear. Now the pic is resized and compressed and a new jpg with the ending "800" is created. Check the filesize, if the new pic isn't under 100kb drag it into this variant of the resizer (Click Here).
 Now its definately under 100kb.

Last step is uploading your image to the Internet and post it.

Head over to http://imageshack.us/ click on browse, select your image and upload it.

It may take a while to upload, just remain calm and wait for something like this to appear :


(Note: I pixelized the adds))


Now mark all the code from the box beside Hotlink for forums (1) and copy it (by pressing CTRL+C)

Head over to an ArmA Forum with Combat Photograhpy and paste (CTRL+V) the code to your reply box. You should also upload your uncompressed jpg and link (don't hotlink) it under the resized one.

There are CP Threads (Pics over 100kb will be punished) at :
Official ArmA Forums (click to load the thread)
ArmedAssault.info (click to load the thread)


If you use unofficial addons, don't forget to list them.

Stare at your posted pic, feel like a hero and get yourself a drink :)

This tutorial has been written by Deadeye a big thanks goes to RMK and Red Square Monkey.