This guide is intended to lay out the steps necessary to set up a custom avatar to display on each of your posts. It is suggested you read over the Avatar & Signature Rules before you get started so that you don't run into any problems later.
The guide assumes you already have an appropriate avatar image and have uploaded it to appropriate webspace. You must have the rights to use this image as an avatar, and it must be hosted on a website that allows you to hotlink the image as an avatar. General information about these steps is provided in Appendix B.
Part 1: Get the URL
- Make sure you have the image's URL address. Have it open in a separate window or copy/pasted into a document so you can grab it easily.
- The image URL needs to be complete - this means you must include the "https://" prefix, and have the full address to the exact file (ending with the ".jpg", ".gif", or ".png" file extension).
- Make sure there are no spaces (" " or "%20") or special characters in the address after "https://", other than dashes ("-"), underscores ("_"), and the directory separator ("/").
- There must be nothing after the final ".jpg", ".gif", or ".png" file extension.
- URLs may be no longer than 128 characters.
Part 2: Get to the Correct Settings Page
- From any page on the GiantITP forums, click on the Settings option in the upper right toolbar.
- In the My Settings panel on the left, under the second section My Account, click on General Settings.
- Scroll down to the very bottom of the page.
- In the third setting from the bottom, Avatar, select the Custom radio button.
Part 3: Change the Avatar
- In the Custom Avatar URL field, paste or type the URL of the image you wish to use.
Please note: The prefix must be "https://". If the prefix is "http://", without the "s", you will receive an error for incorrect format. The URL will often be case sensitive as well.- Click on Save Changes. The page will refresh.
- To make sure the avatar is displaying correctly, click on your username in the upper right toolbar. The image should appear under your name and forum title.
- Congratulations on your new custom avatar!
Please note: The mobile version of the site, Playground Sand, will not display custom avatars. Whatever is selected in the Order of the Stick Avatar dropdown menu will display instead. Changing the Order of the Stick Avatar will only affect your avatar in Playground Sand; so long as Custom is selected in the Avatar field, the desktop version will always display the custom image.
Spoiler: Appendix A: TroubleshootingIf your image is not showing up, first make sure the site has fully reloaded and is not simply pulling from your browser cache (press Ctrl+F5 to force a complete reload of the page or, if on a Mac, try Control-Command-R or Shift-Command-R depending on your browser).
If the image still does not show up, make sure the URL is correct, and that the hosting site permits the hotlinking of images for avatars. Many previously used image hosting sites do not allow hotlinking for avatars. Some hosting sites that have disabled hotlinking/embedded images have been disallowed - for example, any URLs from imgur will return an error for incorrect format.
The image URL is usually case sensitive - if there are any capitalizations, make sure to have these match.
The board software does not support spaces or most special characters. These will show up as "%##" in the URL; spaces are "%20" and are the most common problem in a URL that prevents an avatar from showing up. Dashes and underscores ("-" and "_") are allowed; remove any spaces or replace them with these characters.
Make sure the image actually is a .gif, a .jpg, or a .png. If it is not, you will need to convert it into one of these formats or find another image.
Finally, try opening the image in a separate window to make sure it shows up at all. Your hosting site may be down, the image may not have uploaded correctly or have been deleted, or something else may be preventing the image from loading at all.
If none of this corrects the problem, please feel free to ask for help.Spoiler: Appendix B: Acquiring an AvatarAcquiring a custom avatar is actually relatively easy. You can check out the custom avatar request and avatar adoption threads for OotS style avatars, or you can always make your own.
On the GiantITP forums, you may use a .gif, .jpg, or .png image. The image can have a width of 20-120 pixels, and a height of 20-120 pixels.
To double check these variables to make sure an image would fit within the rules, on most browsers you can right click (or optionally Control + click on Mac) on the image and select "Properties". This will display the image height and width in pixels, its URL, and its size. Right clicking generally also allows you to save the image. Some websites disable right clicking on images, however.
.gif and .png images both support transparency, while .jpg does not. Also please keep in mind that animated .gif images are not allowed as avatars.
