How to Create Attractive Thumbnails for your Mods

Do you remember мeн ιdιoт's tutorial on this stuff? You know, the extermation of those pesky black bars on your thumbnails? Yeah, that one.
Well, I will re-invent the wheel by teaching you how to make one of those not only for your newly created mods, but also for those old mod of yours that you felt like reworking one day.
Or maybe you just want to replace that amateurish thumbnail with the new, lustrous one.

Introduction

Do you hate the fact that the workshop uploader takes your thumbnail and forces them down into 640x360?


Do you or someone you love absolutely abhorred those annoying black bars that destroy the readability of that sweet thumbnail you took so long to make?

Do you hate the fact that the jerkops are trying to kick you out over the fact that your attraction sign isn't, in fact, attractive?
Well, do I have a solution for that problem!

Today, I will teach you how to make that sweet, attractive thumbnail of yours and force the Workshop Uploader to accept them for who they are without having to go through third-party tools like Crowbar!

Tools

How to Make an Actual Attraction Sign for your Mod(s)

Open up whatever image editor you got.
I would recommend Photoshop or GIMP just to make your thumbnail look professional, but any image doctoring software will do the trick.

Drag the image you want first. For you lucky readers, I made a template frame to go with your mods.
It is in 800x800, perfect fit for any Workshop thumbnails.
Use it with care, since it is in PNG!


If you are using this, I asked that you give credit to me, as "Thumbnail Template by Clauen Saxon."


For this guide, I will be using Moses' face (from Joshua and the Promised Land) to use on my template.
(It's for my sound mod, search "Moses Smoker" if you want to look at it.)









If you feel satisfied about how your thumbnail looks, save it as JPG and close your image editing program.
Or, if you can't, save it as PNG, then convert it into JPG. There's a lot of image file converter online, but I recommend image online-convert for this job; it's free, you can submit as much pictures as you want (there's a one image limit per submission, but there is no real limit on how much you can submit per day) and it does the job well.


After saving or converting the image into JPG, you want to make sure that your 800x800 attraction sign has the read only attribute on! This will prevent your work from being replace with the inferior one.
To do this, right-click your JPG, go to "Properties" and check the "Read-only" box. Then click "Apply" at the bottom right and close.
















If you want to convert all of your JPG thumbnails to Read-only JPG, single click your JPG, press the Shift key, single click another one of your JPG, right-click, go to "Properties" and check the "Read-only" box. Then click "Apply" at the bottom right and close.
Doing this will highlight all of your selected JPGs, therefore making all of them Read-only.


If you want to convert specific JPGs, single click your JPG, press CTRL, single click another one of your JPG, right-click, go to "Properties" and check the "Read-only" box. Then click "Apply" at the bottom right and close.
Doing this will highlight only whatever JPG thumbnails you want to made Read-only.

How to Replace the Prototype with the New Thumbnail

You want to open the Left 4 Dead 2 Authoring Tools, go to Workshop Manager, and upload whatever addon you want.
After that, place your prototype thumbnail in the preview image, and press the upload button so it goes to the workshop.



Make sure to set your new mod to private, so no one gets to see your mod's unattractive thumbnail!



After that go the the File Explorer and open, "Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/Left 4 Dead 2/bin/l4d2_workshop_manager."

After you paid your visit to the workshop_manager folder, find the 640x360 (mod's internal name)_thumb and copy and paste its name into your 800x800 JPG. Then drag your new, sexy 800x800 into the l4d2_workshop_manager folder and replace that 640x360 son of a bitcืh.



Make sure you set the image on Read-only mode, or the Workshop will crop your sign into 640x360, ruining your work.

Proping Up That New Thumbnail of Yours

Now go back to your Authoring Tools, go to Workshop Manager, and edit the addon you've been working on.

Go to the preview image, select the new 800x800 (name)_thumb.jpg from the l4d2_workshop_manager folder, and hit that 'Upload' button again. Then go back to your Workshop list and it should appear!


Don't worry if it looks like this in the Manager. Just make sure you put the thumbnail in .JPG format and it's in the workshop_manager folder and it should allow you to update the thumbnail.

If you're trying to replace your old mod's JPG thumbnail...

Open up the Authoring Tools, double click the mod you want to edit, and look for your mod's filename. It can be something silly as "left 4 deafness 2 consume u" or something serious like "hunter ellis."


Type the filename to your new thumbnail, add "_thumb" next to it (like this: pootis_thumb), drag it to l4d2_workshop_manager, and select it to the preview image.
Hit that 'upload' button, then go back to your Workshop list and it should appear like this:

Finally, It is Over!

Congratulations! You'd just legally committed

to the Workshop Manager!

Now the Steam Workshop jerkops will have to acknowledge that beautiful sign for what it is and who they are!

So! What are you waiting for!?
Like, Favorite, and Share this and the other guy's guide to your fellow mod makers in hopes that they too can make their own attraction sign that won't get them kick out of the store.

мeн ιdιoт's guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1782148927

[idiot 3 alt (5)]

https://youtu.be/DdmNYNkcwKE

[Phut]

In case people are wondering why its not working. I figured out that you have to set your thumbnail as Read Only *BEFORE* replacing the image itself, works for me.

[Anby Gaming]

Doesn't work for me, it's still cropping to me despite being the exact same image size.

Tried it with this addon. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3296052204

[idiot 3]

https://youtu.be/DdmNYNkcwKE

[Saxon Hale]

@ZeqMacaw Late response, but this is meant for those who don't want to or doesn't know how to work with Crowbar.

[.]

thankyou very much, nice guide! :D

[.]

lol funciono que descarguen virus del photoshop ya es otra cosa xd

[ZeqMacaw]

You can use Crowbar (Publish tab) to publish and update to L4D2 and Garry's Mod workshops, with no need to use any tricks to upload a 512x512 image or even an animated GIF. See the Publish to Garry's Mod Workshop via Crowbar guide for instructions. (The instructions work for L4D2, Garry's Mod, and other games that Crowbar supports.)

[Saxon Hale]

what is happening!?

[Newman]

ew furry