Avatar Design

[nilku]

Hi guys,

I've always wanted this feature which allows users to customize an avatar with different features, kind of like here:
http://www.gaiaonline.com/register/flash/?v=b&_gaia_t_=1194

I was wondering what types of technologies and techniques should be used for this.

The only way I can think of is to use flash, but are there any other alternatives?

Thanks a lot guys.

[Wickham]

An avatar when used as a favicon for the browser address bar and favorits list must have the filename extension .ico.

When you mentioned Flash I assumed that you wanted it to flash. An animated gif can flash but they have an extension .gif and I'm not sure it would work as an avatar, but you could try.

This is a very small program which can create an animated gif from two or more images the same size and you set the time delay between them; time delay ... cs means centiseconds where 50 is half a second, 100 is one second so set the delay you want.
http://www.whitsoftdev.com/unfreez/

It's much simpler than Flash.

For a static avatar you need an image program like Photoshop (which is not free) or Irfanview (free) or just Paint which is available on Windows computers. With Irfanview which I use you can place an image over another and build up a composite image, doing it as many times as you want. You then save it as .jpg or .gif or many other extensions.