How to Put a Ship into Broken Mirror I

Requested by someone... Based off of the video that can be found here:

How To

1. Find top-down sprites of
   the ships you want to add to the game. These are difficult to find
   sometimes. You might have to get a program like Photoshop or Gimp to
   cut-paste the top view sprites from the main picture, like I did in my
   video.
   
2. Open the image with an image editor after you have
   saved it. Your image editor has to be Gimp or Photoshop. Since I only
   use Gimp, I'll explain how to use it. Look up Gimp in a search index
   and download it. There are both Windows and Linux versions.
   
3. Use
   the 'rectangular select' button to select the top-down view image of
   the ship. After several tries you should get the right size. Once you
   do, make sure you look at the bottom status bar as you click and drag.
   Do NOT let go of your mouse until after you see and memorize the two
   numbers that show the width and height of your selection box (ex. 150 x
   200)
   
4. Once you have your selection, go to File and New...
   then enter the two numbers you saw in order. First goes in the top box
   the second goes in the bottom. Click Ok and it will create a blank
   image about that same size. Go back to your selection (do NOT click
   anywhere on the 'canvas' or where the image is, click on the title bar
   instead) and CTRL-C it. This will copy it.
   
5. Go back to the
   empty canvas. Do a CTRL-P or 'Paste'. This will put the picture on the
   canvas. After that, maximize the window and click anywhere in the brown
   part outside the yellow and black lines that surround the empty white
   canvas.
   
6. Now go to Layer, then find Transparency. Select
   'Add Alpha Channel' (it doesn't appear selectable until you click away
   from your image after you've pasted it) and then return to your Gimp
   toolbar (the one that's in a separate window).
   
7. Find and use
   the 'fill' feature (looks like a paint bucket) to fill in the part
   behind your sprite with black. Black is less likely to show up on
   sprites after they've been cut and pasted.
   
8. Use the 'select
   by region' tool (looks like a wand) to select the black background, and
   press 'Delete' on your keyboard, or do a CTRL-K (clear). Once that is
   done, your sprite is now over a transparent background.
   
9. Not
   done yet! If your ship is not facing with the front pointing upwards,
   you'll have to use the Image > Transform > Rotate
   Clockwise/Rotate Counterclockwise features until you get it in
   position. Once that is done, you are finally able to save, but there's
   a trick to that too.
   
10. Once saving, make sure to change the last three letters in the file name after the dot (title.jpg) into 'png'. Then just keep clicking Okay until it finally saves.
    

1. Once
   you've done this to all of the ships you want to add, find and download
   the Broken Mirror .fla file. You can probably find it on Vex's site.
   Look for 'Source Code' and it should give you a .fla download. This has
   everything the Broken Mirror game is made out of, everything Vex did
   including some unreleased stuff!
   
2. You can open the file by
   double-clicking it or browsing for it after clicking File and Open.
   Either way, once you're inside, find a small icon that looks like three
   shapes (a triangle, a circle, and a square) and click on it. It will
   open a long menu. scroll down on this menu until you find 'player'.
   Click on that.
   
3. Once it loads, check and see if you can see
   a ship in the center. If you can't, select the first dot in the series
   of dots on the top screen (which looks like a kind of graph with a few
   purple and white parts). It doesn't matter which, as long as you can
   see the ship.
   
4. Double click the ship. This will change the
   top so it has a series of dots on one row. You can click on any of
   these dots to show all of the ships in Broken Mirror. Now, when you get
   to the ship you're willing to replace, click File and Import >
   Import to Stage... Then find your picture. Double-click it or click
   once and then click submit. Your sprite is now officially in the game,
   but you're not done yet!
   
5. Click onto the white empty space
   first to deselect your ship. Then click on the picture of the ship
   you're replacing. Press Delete on your keyboard, then select your ship.
   Move your ship into position so that the little + sign is in the center
   of your ship. If your ship has long warp nacelles, I suggest just
   centering the image, otherwise it will look too clumsy in flight.
   
6. Now
   you can edit your image all you want. Try clicking the icon on the left
   that looks like a mouse cursor with a little box on it. Now you can
   resize and even rotate your image (I do not suggest using the rotate
   feature). Do this and move it as much as you need. Rinse, lather, and
   repeat until all the ships you want into the game are there.
   
7. Go
   back to the 'shapes' menu and scroll down until you come across
   'Shield'. Do the same thing you did before in replacing ships (but
   replace the same ships with the same ships you replaced them with).
   This will denote the shape of the ship shields.
   
8. Now Save it
   (you should save after everything actually, just in case). Click on the
   tiny icon next to the 'shapes' icon that looks like one of those
   'director' boards where they film it and say 'scene 29, action'. I
   forgot what they're called >>; Click 'Loader' or whatever comes
   before 'Menu'. Now at the top where the dots and such are located,
   scroll down until you see 'Layer 24' (It will be labeled on the left of
   the row)
   
9. Find the small series of dots over a grey
   background on that layer. After a long loading time, click on the T
   icon (for text) and click somewhere inside the blue (or dotted white)
   lines. You'll see that this is where 'plug-ins' are loaded as default.
   You'll need to edit the ship stats and nothing else if you're just
   adding ships to the game, so click on the second dot in the 'dot box'
   on top, then after selecting the T icon (for test), click on any of the
   letters or words behind the main black rectangle.
   
10. Now find
    the name of the ship you just replaced. Hopefully you'll remember it!
    Check out Dondon's ultimate plug-in guide on Vex's website (you can
    find it amongst the stickies there in the Broken Mirror section) and
    find the part where 1=ship's name. Then use that as a reference to
    change the variables (or stats as the gamers like to call them). Just
    make sure not to change the wrong number. Dondon's ultimate plug-in
    guide shows what each place in between the semi-colons means (usually
    between the semi-colons numbers go to), and tells you what numbers you
    can put there and what they will mean to the game.
    

And before you reply, I don't want to hear comments like 'this did not help' or some bullsh*t like that. YOU NEED ADOBE CS3 PROFESSIONAL or some other flash editing software first. You can download a copy at adobe.com for 30 days. Any negative comments I will IGNORE. Questions may be asked, but only within the realm of necessity.

Again, I say NO COMMENTS THAT ARE BITTER OR JUST PLAIN WORTHLESS. I'm not a mod here unfortunately, so I can't delete the poor sod's post that does this, but I will ignore them completely. QUESTIONS SHOULD NOT BE SENT TO ME VIA PM. Ask your questions here. If they have some reason behind them, I'll glady help. I just don't want someone crabbing at me because they had another 'bad day at work' or something, like has happened in the past to my hard-worked tutorials by Admiral Vorta and Alien.

Enjoy!