Blitzkrieg Screenshots by Lee Campbell
Taking In-game Screenshots
* Screenshots can be taken from any screen in the game by pressing the F9 key (or the Print Screen key in Blitzkrieg II).
* Screenshots are always saved in TGA ("Targa") format and are found in the screenshots subfolder under the Run folder. If this folder is not present then it will be created automatically the first time a screenshot is taken.
In Blitzkrieg II the images are saved in the screenshots
sub-folder under the main data folder.
* To clear the screen of any messages displayed in the top-left corner press the Backspace key first before pressing F9.
The "Pause" message can also be removed from the screen by installing one of the patches listed below. Combined with the backspace function this will ensure the screen is clear of any unnecessary text messages prior to the making of the screenshot.
Working with TGA Files
* Because of the quality of the image saved, TGA format files can be quite large. For example, each screenshot from a 1280x1024 game will consume over 5MB of disk space. Because of this, raw TGA files are unsuitable for posting in forums and on web sites so they need to be converted to a format that supports compression (e.g. JPEG).
* TGA files can be converted using any commercial application - Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro etc. - and also by many freeware programs.
One of the most popular is IrfanView.Simply open the TGA file with IrfanView (or other application) and use the application's "Save As" option to save in a format such as JPEG.
* Thumbnails for TGA files can be viewed in Windows Explorer as per other formats using the Thumb Plug TGA plug-in (linked below).
Full Map Screenshots
* Pressing CTRL-SHIFT-F9 together when a map is running will result in the creation of a TGA file in the Run folder (always called mapshot.tga) of the entire map. When the key combination is pressed the game will automatically move the focus of the map around in sections, save the images in a temporary location and then stitch them together when an image of every section has been taken.
Note: the files created can be several hundred megabytes in size. On some installations the process will crash the game immediately if the map size exceeds 14x14.
Application Screenshots
* Windows has simple built-in capabilities for taking images of application windows. To take a screenshot of a window in the map or resource editors press the Print Screen button on your keyboard. That will copy an image of the entire screen to the clipboard. This image can then be pasted into your preferred graphics editor. To capture only the active window hold down ALT as you press Print Screen.
* There are also a number of screen capture applications available with more advanced features, such as the ability to save in different formats, capture free-form areas of the screen and to capture screens from DirectX driven games.
Windows Vista users can use the Snip tool (included as standard) whilst users of older versions of Windows can use the free version of ScreenHunter which provides enough basic capabilities for taking and saving screenshots.
Image Hosting
* Registered forum members can upload images to the forum server at
bkpforums.com/phpUpload Alternatively there are several online image hosting services that can be used such as ImageShack
Links
IrfanView
Pause Text Removal Patch
Blitzkrieg II Pause Text Removal Patch
Thumb Plug TGA
ScreenHunter 5 (Free)
La Plata Screenshot Tool
(This increases the sight power and survivability of reconnaissance aircraft for the purposes of taking screenshots. It was released to coincide with the Blitzkrieg Portal-La Plata Screenshot Competition).