Stop MSN/WLM Resizing Emoticons!

[Deano]

Stop MSN/WLM Resizing Emoticons!

Description:
I'm sure were all very annoyed with Microsofts size limits on emoticons, especially when we want nice decent sized smileys with extra detail to show our friends! I see this asked and searched for allot on the Internet so I've decided to setup an article on the subject to explain how you can achieve 50x50 emoticons or larger in MSN/WLM Messenger.

Firstly How?
The first thing you may ask is how is this possible? Well to answer this question we have to explain how Windows Live Messenger works with image icons... Firstly a normal emoticon is limited to 19x19 dimensions, this is what annoys us because sometimes an emoticon is not suitable at this size! However what little people realize is that animated emoticons can be as big as 50x50! This is how we can get around the 19x19 restriction!
Basically you take the non-animated emoticon and duplicate it's frame so it is an animation, but without animation, confusing? well just think of it this way. WLM thinks the smiley is animated and allows a maximum of 50x50 but the user doesn't see the image moving.

This is the best way to approach this problem, since everyone with MSN/WLM will see the results, there is another option however it's called the 'WLM Plus Stuff Plugin' and it completely removes the size limits on emoticons, however only friends with the same plugin will see the large emoticons, those without will be caught by the 19x19 or 50x50 rule.

How-to: EmoteMaker
Here I will place a step-by-step guide on how to animate your non-animated emoticon in EmoteMaker. Coming Soon...

How-to: Gimp
Here I will place a step-by-step guide on how to animate your non-animated emoticon in Gimp. Coming Soon...

[Deano]

MS Animator 1.0
Well after much exploration the answer relies in one of Microsoft’s own tools  , MS Animator 1.0. Were not sure why is program manages to make a GIF that MSN cant resize, maybe its another of Microsoft’s un-uniformed products (which is great for us remember so MS isn’t that bad  :p).

Export your image as a GIF (DO NOT use MS Paint to convert your image to GIF as this application will compress the s**t out of your image) You can get a good piece of image software which can convert images to gif without compression http://www.photofiltre.com/.

Now you have a GIF file you now need to get MS Animator, because Microsoft made this program a long time ago we cannot get it from the MS website any-more, you can of course find some websites that are hosting the file here are some:

http://www.jhepple.com/support/ftp/AniGif/GIFAnimator.exe
http://www.ptcuser.org/rugs/U52/downloads/msgifani/msgifani.exe

Now you have MS Animator you can now open it (duh), once open you will see this:



click "open" and locate the image you require, I chose my good emoticon:



As you can see the emoticon is really good lol, now you see a lot of options become available, this is where we split the tutorial up, if your image was already more than a single frame then skip a paragraph, if not then you need to read the next paragraph.

You now need to click on your single frame, click "copy"  then click "paste". You should now have 2 frames like this:



Now we need to setup some options, first make sure your first frame is selected and go to the animation tab, now make sure the setting match the image below:



As you can see I removed some unimportant things from the shot… Because they will definitely be custom to your image. Although there is no noticeable animation you still need to make it loop because if not MSN WILL resize your image.

Now this is done you may want to consider making any extra colour transparent, so that is looks good on every different colour background it can be possibly placed in. to do this go to the “image” tab and tick "transparency" . You may also need to select a colour from the pallet if it isn’t already the colour you want. Here is a preview:



Now click the save button and then add your image to MSN, it should now stay the size it was meant to be and not resize.

Created By: Dean Williams

This tutorial was firstly created by Profirio back on our old forums, he was the one who found out how to do this and then made the tutorial that explained how to do it.

his email is: porfirio.ribeiro@sapo.pt

His site went on extended holiday