How to have animated thumbnails for your mods

Short guide on how to have animated thumbnails for your RimWorld mods in Steam Workshop

The Guide

Credits:

First off, I'd like to thank YAYO for inspiring this guide. I spent hours trying to figure out what he did since I didn't think he was gonna share his secret, turns out it was simple to do. YAYO is the first I know to have created an animated RimWorld mod thumbnail.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2038409475

Special thanks also to Arthesian.

This mod was written at the time of the Covid-19 lockdown across the world. Hope you get better soon!

NOTE: This is not a how-to-animate guide, this is a guide on how to use .gif files for your previews.

Reference guides in case you get lost: (not-mandatory)

• How to edit file extensions (Windows):
  https://helpdesk.flexradio.com/hc/en-us/articles/204676189-How-to-change-a-File-Extension-in-Windows
  
  
• How to make animated .gif in Photoshop:
  https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/photoshop/how-to/make-animated-gif.html

Off to the guide!

The Guide:

• Step 1: Make a .gif preview file using a software like photoshop.
  It has to be under 1 MB file size for this to work.
  
  
• Step 2: Put the preview.gif you exported in the About folder of your mod
  
  
• Step 3: Change/Rename the file extension of your preview.gif to preview.png
  
  
  
• Step 4: When you boot up RimWorld to see your mod, you will see a small white box with a red question mark. This is normal. It is a side effect of having an animated thumbnail for Steam Workshop, therefore I do not recommend having the same preview for non-DRM users since they won't see your lovely artwork at all.
  
  
• Step 5: Upload or update your mod, and in Steam Workshop you will see your animated thumbnail.

That's it. You're finished. You're done.

YOU ARE DONE.

[Dragonsrage56]

When I scrolled past this I initially thought this was for a mod to give pawns animated thumbs

[vlonelederhosen]

im still clueless when it comes to making rimworld animations so how do you do that???

[Kyleshun]

The Best :)

[Hjack9090]

poogers

[Mario]

Not only do you make fantastic mods and put great effort into them, you make guides like this to help others. Absolutely great person.

[Chicken Plucker]

@Vasilas - No problem, take care my friend

[Apohavnosis]

Very useful information, thank you master Chicken Plucker.