Using custom face bitmaps

Four Winds lets you use custom pictures for representing the players. You can also send your custom picture to other players when playing a multiplayer game.

To use custom face bitmaps:

Choose Preferences on the File menu.
Choose Players from the category tree of the Preferences dialog box.
Click any of the player bitmaps.
Locate a Windows bitmap file (.bmp file) you wish to use as the picture for the selected player.

Note: You can pick any .bmp file with the correct pixel dimension (36x46 or 29x37). Notice that Four Winds stretches the picture to fit it for different size game boards. If you play most often using the Medium or Extra Large game board, it is suggested that you use 36x46 size bitmaps. On the other hand, if you use most often the Small or Large game board, using 29x37 bitmaps is recommendable.

As for color space, note that if you run the game in 256 color mode, you should use 16-color pictures (any 16 colors can be used) and use the same 16 colors in all player bitmaps – this guarantees that the bitmaps are shown correctly for all themes (or alternatively, use the color palette of the current theme for all player bitmaps and stick to that theme). Using more than 256 different colors in a color space with 256 colors or less results in distorted colors or flashing of the screen. If you run the game in 16-bit or 24-bit color mode, there are no color restrictions for the face bitmaps. For multiplayer games, it is highly recommendable to run the game in higher than 256-color mode, since you cannot control the colors other players have used for their pictures (running a multiplayer game in 256-color mode almost certainly results in distorted screen colors).

Hint: If you do not wish to use face bitmaps, check the Hide faces box on the Players option page.

Related topics:
Player types
Using random seat order