icon making help

[b4tn]

Ok I have never been good at bits bytes and resolution math so maybe someone here can help. I am trying to make a complete icon with all of the bit sizes. what or how do i find the pixel resolution for each size 4 bit large and small 32 bit huge and small, 1 bit large and small etc.... I hope all this makes some sence to someone. Or how can I scale an exsisting icon down to fit in the smaller sizes with iconograhper?

 

[wdw_]

I will tell you exactly how to do it.

Create just the top 128 bit icon and mask.

Once you've done that all you need to do is select the 128 bit icon picture (at the very top), go up to the "Icon" menu and select "Complete Icon". This will automaticly resize your icon to every size imaginable. The icon will work in mac OS 9 as well as X. Took me a while to figure this out, but now I'm making insanly great icons. Infact, right now I'm making a series of Pixar based icons. here's a preview.

These all have transparacies. I haven't put the on the internet yet because there are still a lot of little things I need to fix and I'm still trying to figure out how to do Buzz Lightyear (because of the clear dome on his head).

Anyway hope this helps.

 

[symphonix]

Thats exactly right. In Iconographer, I recommend you work in the Thumbnail and Thumbnail mask views, and use the "Complete Icon" command to generate the lower resolution views. Then, you can go to the lower res views and tidy them up by giving them a slightly simplified icon.
For example, say you want an icon that is a sheet of paper with a flowchart-diagram on it, you would draw this in Thumbnail (128 x 128), then generate the mask. Then, edit the mask if you wish, I usually do a little mask editing to create a slight shadow and softer edge.
Then, uses "Generate Icon" to automatically produce the lower res icons. Switch through these and see how they look. At some point, the detail will become a meaningless blur, so you edit this icon to something that still makes sense and looks almost the same. In our example, we might make the smaller icon a sheet of paper with a single flowchart symbol on it. That way, in list view you still get a clear and meaningful icon.

SHADOWS are created by making a black area on your icon, matched to a grey area on the mask. GLOW such as lens flares are created with white on your icon and grey on the mask.