Table of Contents...

1. Before You Begin
• Having the Templates
• Having the Programs
• Loading the Actions
• Reading the Readmes
• Getting a Source Image
2. Making a Shield
• Putting our Source Image into a Shield
3. Making a Flag
4. Using Your Flag In-Game
• My Reference Flags and Shields
• Contacting Me

Its contents should be 10 files:

Now make sure that you have all these files. You might notice that you don't have "palette.act". If you don't you can download palette.act right here. "flag palette.act" is for Paint Shop Pro. "palette.act" is for Photoshop.

Having the Programs...
Speaking of which, now that you have the files, make sure that you have the programs necessary. All you really need is Photoshop. The version is not important, so long as your version of Photoshop comes with the "Displace" Filter, and actions. You can find out if you have the Displace filter by going to your menubar, clicking Filter > Distort > Displace. If you don't have the option, you don't have the filter, and you won't be able to get flags. For actions, check Window > Actions.

Loading the Actions...
The next thing that you need to do is to load the actions properly into your Photoshop. Click on Window > Actions in the menubar, and then click the right arrow in the circle thingy, at the top right of the window that appears. Then click Load Actions... Here is a little picture to make things clearer:

Reading the Readmes!...
READ the readme_Shield.txt and readme_Flag.txt files as they already explain all of this stuff already! If you use both these guides together, there is no way you can go wrong. They are quite well-written readme files ;).

Getting a Source Image...
Ok now we'll need to get a source image to make into a flag. So let's hop on over to the "Victoria Flag Requests" Thread and see what requests are out there. Ahh, here's two common examples of the requests that you'll see when you peruse this thread.

One of them just shows a big graphic of the flag they want you to do. To grab the image, simply right-click the image and select "Copy":

The other one shows some links which you click to see the image. Sometimes you won't see the image - this is because of bandwidth leeching restrictions placed at the other end. Therefore, I recommend that you actually drag the link to the address bar and drop it there. That way 99% of the time you'll see proper image:

Now, there is a third type that you might encounter which is just a broken image. . Just right-click this and select "Properties". Then highlight the URL of the image and copy it (CTRL+C). Then press OK and then paste (CTRL+V) the URL in the address bar and press enter. Now right-click the image that appears and copy that sucker. A tricky one she is.

You should have your source image now.

Preparing the Source Image...
Now you should go to Photoshop. Make a new blank image (CTRL+N) and then paste your image (CTRL+V) and voila! it should appear before your eyes.

Now, Walter Hawkwood doesn't want the small coats-of-arms in his Russian Eagle silhouette, but he still wants to keep the large red shield in the middle. So let's do this for him. If you don't feel comfortable enough with Photoshop to do this, or you are comfortable enough with Photoshop that this part of the tutorial is a waste of time for you, feel free to skip. Otherwise, let's continue on.

Basic Photoshop Editing...
So what we're going to do is cover up those small coats-of-arms with black. Simple enough. One thing you MUST ALWAYS REMEMBER is to always, always add an extra layer on top so that you are not modifying the original image. Because if you move on to part B and then all of a sudden you didn't like that job that you did on part A, then you have to undo all of your work on part B AND part A, redo part A AND part B... ugh... what a pain. So press the new layer button on the layer window (SHIFT+CTRL+N).

Now the two large coloured squares on the left toolbar are the primary (top left) and secondary (bottom right) colours. Usually only the first is the one that's used the most. If it is not black in colour, then we need to change it to black in colour by clicking on it. The Color Picker window will appear, and then we can use the eye dropper on our image to select the colour we want (Note the eyedropper on the right wing of the eagle in the picture).

Another way to change colours quickly is to hold down ALT. This will change your cursor to the eyedropper. Then simply click on a part of the picture, and your brush colour will change to that colour. Convenient!

A useful tool that you will use often is the Zoom Tool (Z). This is the magnifying glass on the toolbar to the left. Press it, and left-click on the image. It will zoom in. Now left-click and drag and make a selection box. The zoom will then zoom in as big as the box. Thus, the smaller the selection box that you make, the closer it will zoom in. To zoom out, hold down the ALT key and click and the screen will zoom out.

OK now we are finished editing our picture and are ready to make a shield. Save your source image as a PSD file so that if you screw up you always have this step to fall back on.

Putting our Source Image into a Shield...
Select the whole image (CTRL + A) and copy the image as it looks (CTRL+SHIFT+C). If you didn't do this, then the computer would only copy the current layer. But you want to copy all the layers together, which is what Copy Merged (CTRL + SHIFT + C) does.

Open up "shield_master_vic.psd" You should see this:

1. You copy merged on a non-visible layer. If you don't know what this means, then go back to your source image, click on the Background Layer, and try Copy Merged (CTRL+SHIFT+C) again. Click on the "Examples" Layer Set in the shield_master_vic.psd file and paste your image again.
2. You didn't click on the "Examples" Layer Set, but instead you clicked a layer underneath it. Click on the "Examples Layer Set" and paste your image again.
3. You didn't Copy Merge. Go back to your source image and Copy Merged (CTRL+SHIFT+C).
4. You screwed up in some other way. Try going back and copying your source image and pasting it back, making sure to go through all the steps correctly. If this doesn't work, E-mail me.

Transforming the Image to Fit on the Shield...
OK, if you're at this point then you're doing fine! We now need to resize our pasted source image so that it fits in the same size and orientation just like that united nations flag. So, our new layer (should be called "Layer 1") selected, click Edit > Free Transform (CTRL + T). Now, it gets complicated, but you should see in the top, just below the menu bar, something like this:

Copy the values in above and press the checkmark (CTRL + ENTER). Now what this does, is the values you entered will rotate and squish your flag (distorting it slightly) so that it will fit in the appropriate space.

If you're really gutsy and you know exactly what is going on, consider this alternative also for flags like the Soviet Flag, which tend to be really long:

In either case, your screen should end up looking something like this:

If You Don't See Ripple Shadows On Your Flag...
You need to turn on visibility for Overlays. To solve this, just click on the Overlays layer in the Layers Window (more specifically, the eye to the left of the Layer title ). If you don't see the Layers Window, you can access it by clicking Window > Layers in the menubar.

Saving your Shield...
Save (SHIFT + CTRL + S) your shield as a 24-bit bitmap. This means it will end in .bmp and it should be around 36.1 KB. If you see these settings, you're OK:

Making a Suitable Input Image for the Flag-Maker...
Mad King James' flag-maker worked wonderfully after I tweaked a few things, so there's no reason to waste perfectly good material! A big thank-you to Mad King James for his flag-maker action. Now, if you didn't load the actions files, it would be a good idea to do that now. Once you're sure that you have the actions, run the action "From Shield to Flag" (F4) to convert the shield that you made previously to an image that the flag maker will have no problem accepting. It should look like this:

Running the Flag-Maker...
Now run the action "Flag-Maker (MKJ)" and follow the instructions. When it says "Select the Flag_master and press play again", do what it says but don't press play just yet. A suggestion that I put forth is to click all of the visibility icons to the left of the NON-COLOURED layers (on the Layer Window; if you can't see them, click Window > Layers on the menubar) except the Background layer. They will then all go invisible. This will allow you to spot your flag right away. Now press play and watch the flag-maker do its wonders.

It will then ask you to fill in some values for the Displace filter, which you will do, then press OK. Now when you see the File dialog box open up, double click displaceVictoria.psd.

Ridding Yourself of Fringe Artifacts...
You are now done! But if you are a stickler, and you zoom in, you will see that the outside fringes of your flag are a different colour. This is bad and unprofessional!! This is related to the marginal transparency bug that was mentioned in the shield-making section. What we are going to do is to change the Background layer to match the colour of the outside fringe of the flag so we don't get that ugly fringe colour.

Now, we need to eyedrop a colour from the edge of our flag, but we SHOULD NOT use the little waving flag because:

1. it's too small
2. it's already been shaded (and we don't like eyedropping things that are shaded)

OK, you are sure that you are on the BACKGROUND layer? Alright, now flood-fill the background layer with your primary colour (ALT + BACKSPACE). If you are not using the Walter Hawkwood Russian flag, and you are using a flag which much more complicated edges like the Romanian Flag, then you are going to have to use your brush to match up the colours. This takes hard work and is tedious! I have included some neat little things in the flag template to make your lives a lot easier, but it requires a bit more advanced knowledge of Photoshop. For you photoshop experts, go to the Channels windows and use those custom channels as selection masks (CTRL + LEFT-CLICK). It should make things go much more smoothly.

Saving Your Flags...
OK, now we need to save our flags in two formats: 8-bit bitmaps, and 24-bit bitmaps. The former is for flags that will be able to shade in the fog-of-war. Unfortunately, it looks really ugly for many flags. The latter is for flags that won't shade in the fog-of-war, but look much nicer.

The 24-bit Way...
OK, let's do this the easy way first. Save As (SHIFT + CTRL + S) a bitmap, and make it 24-bit. These are the settings you should be looking at:

The 8-bit Way...
Now this is a bit more difficult. In the menubar, select Image > Mode > Indexed Color..., as seen in the following picture:

REMEMBER TO MAKE BACKUPS OF THE GRAPHICS YOU ARE GOING TO REPLACE FIRST!

Then put the shield graphic in the gfx/map/shields/ directory.

For the flags, you have a choice. One is the 8-bit standard that paradox uses. Although it looks uglier, it should shade when the flag goes under the fog of war. The 24-bit one is if you prefer the quality of the image over its ability to go under the fog of war. Whichever one you choose, rename it to the three letter tag of the country you want to replace, and put it in the gfx/map/flags/ directory.

If You Want to Make an Event to Get Your Country to Change Flags Mid-Game...
(thanks to vodkafire)
make an event with the following command:

command = { type = flagname which = "1908" }

w/o the country tag. Thus, if the country whose flag that you want to change has the tag AST, then this command will make it refer to the flag (which should be in the gfx/map/shields and gfx/map/flags directories)

"ast1908.bmp"

So you can only set flags to bmp names that start w/ the tag of the country the event's supposed to be for.

My Reference Flags and Shields...
I followed this tutorial with you guys, and here's what I came up with:
Walter Hawkwood's Russia Request

I also added some zip compression and a GIF preview, which I don't feel like going into right now, but perhaps I will get into later. Feel free to use this as a reference or however else you see fit.