Guide to WoW Signatures (with renders! :O)

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Tbh, the title should've been "WoW Signature+Render tutorial"
About 20 images here, so it'll take some time to load, i guess... Enjoy!
You'll need some basic WoW model viewer and Photoshop knowledge to do this:
First of all, make a character/creature/whatever you want to render in WoW Model Viewer. I choose to make a Nightelf. Make sure Hair/Ears/Beard ain't poking holes in blizzard's nice models.

Oh teh noez! The twirly particles will screw up the render!
Well, fear not, because there is a solution;
First off, open View>Show Model Control as such:

Easy enough?
next, you'll see that it says nightelffemale.m2 in the top box. Well, go ahead and change it to whatever gear part you want to remove particles on. Then unmark "particles".

There you go Rinse and repeat for shoulders/weapons, etc. Make sure that when you're done turning of Particles, switch back to nightelffemale.m2, otherwise you'll control the animations of the weapon/armor piece you edited.
Anyways: now for the rendering part;
Make sure you have the animation you want to use, and pause it. Then File>Save Screenshot
Save it as anything you want. I use the file format .bmp, because I don't really give a shit. Make sure it's saved.
Now, for the SPECIAL part! :O
Instead of closing down Model viewer, do this:
Put on "Mask" with View>Show Mask
Everything will turn black and white.
Then, press Lightning>Use Ambient Light
Voila! A perfect Black and white mask of your image! Go ahead and save it as Anything you wantMASK.bmp
Now Photoshop
Open the file you saved first (Not the mask!)

Then do File>Place... And select the mask image. You should end up with something like this:

Make sure everything is alright (that the images are the same, aligned, etc.) and choose your magic wand tool. Select the mask layer, and magic wand the black parts. Make sure Contigous is deselected.
Now, hide the Mask layer, and double click on the bottom layer to level it from Background, thus allowing it to have transparent sections.

Now, hit Delete, and you get a pretty much perfect render.

Okay, Signature making part. I'll actually submit this part, while I continue with the signature part. Which will be big.

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First of all: make a new file. Photoshop, ofcourse

Next, drag your render over to the new image.


...and resize...

I'm gonna make a simple background, with a gradient and a pattern overlay, but you can do w/e you want.


Layer styles are always nice :P


Added a pattern...

And text... With layer styles!


Here I lowered the Fill opacity to 0%... Gives a nice effect with the layer effects "Stroke" and "Inner glow"

After some Final touches. I know it's not anything special, but, here you go:

[Tinky]

Wow! Alot of help, +Rep awsome!

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Thank you

[Mesmoras]

This guide absolutely amazing. I mean it took me an hour or two to fully understand photoshop, but it was worth it +rep

How do i turn it into a file that can be used as a signature?

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When you save it, press "Save as...", write the name you want to save it as, and then change the file type (click on the box where it says "Photoshop PSD" or something) to .jpg, or .png , or something. Hope that helps.

[Mesmoras]

Thanks it worked now

[EcHoEs]

How do i resize picture? :O

[Phase228]

Image>image size
or Edit>Transform>scale
and great guide minimized very very good

[Obama]

gooooood job

[Pimpin_N0ob]

Now all I need is Photoshop...

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Thanks for all the positive responses
I'm formating my computer atm, but when I get back, I might just start making a slightly more advanced tutorial...

[Lethi]

Hey, great tutorial! =D

Can you explain how to add the texture, though?

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Well... to add a texture, just drag the texture file/image/w/e into photoshop, onto the signature.... Then mess around with it. delete the borders, change it's colors, etc. I like the smudge tool with scattering and maxed out shape dynamics gives a nice effect, if used properly.

[Trucido]

Cool tutorial Mate!