Make a Cameo for RA2 using Masks (PSP)
Submitted by ArgCmdr

You might have seen tutorials like this one before, as many people made these. Well, im now one more of them, since the other cameo tutorial here avoids the use of masks (so this one is made so you have a second choice, if you understand masks use, you go ahead with this one, else the other makes consistent cameos as well, just not as good as the ones achieved with this one)

First off, download this mask. Its a png file, which containing a single layer, in 16 million colors.

Then, you will have to open up the Layer Palette (In case you dont know where it is, right-click on any toolbar, and select Layer Palette.

After that, Right-Click in Background, and click on Duplicate

Select the Background layer, and press delete on your keyboard.

Now, having the background layer selected, open up your base image, resize it to 60x48 if it wasnt that size, and if the image is in correct proportion according to your judgement, copy it.

Now, back to the mask.png file, paste the image onto the Background layer. You will notice its invisible, this is because there is no mask yet, the duplicated layer is "full".

Here is when you should make the mask. Select Layer 1. Click on Masks, then on New, then on From Image...

As options, select: This Window (Dropbox that gives source window as caption), Create Mask From: Source Luminance, and uncheck Invert Mask Data. Click on OK ***

Almost done, see? A bevel effect has been applied to the image, consitant with RA2 as the mask is actually an empty icon from the game.

Now all you have to do, is apply cameo.pal (Colors ---> Load Palette ---> Look for cameo.pal on the Load Palette window), then make the shaded bottom lines (Select the downmost 7 horizontal pixel lines, paste as new image, go to Colors ---> Adjust ---> Hue/Stauration/Lightness, and just change Lightness to -20. Repeat three times this procedure. Then copy the result, and paste it back into the original place it was.

After that, you just need to make the corners be index 0 blue, that is paint the pixels at the coordinates 0,0 ; 0,1 ; 1,0 ; 58,0 ; 59,0 ; 59,1 ; 0,46 ; 0,47 ; 1,47 ; 58,47 ; 59,47 & 59,46, with the first colour in the palette (RGB 255,0,0)

Then save the file as a pcx, named XXXX 0000.pcx, where XXXX is the name of the file (future SHP file and ID for reference in art.ini, usually a four letter abbreviation followed by ICON or UICO -veteran version-, eg. MTNKICON, MTNKUICO), and proceed to convert to SHP (TS) with XCC Mixer.

That should be it, a perfectly consitant cameo for your use.

*** Note: This step may have different options in further versions of PSP or previous one. These are the options displayed in PSP 6.01, program used for the construction of this tutorial.

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