Step 1: Get GIMP (it's Free)
Step2: Open it up and load make sure you have your toolbox open, which is in the tool tab respectively. It should look like this:
Step 3: Load up your sprite, in this case it's my Mauler Beam (Anti-Bio II). The sprite is finished and shaded, but has no glow effects currently, the old way I was very tedious. This is far faster. Select the color picker tool, the hand pointing to the three colored boxes around it, and click on the the part of your sprite that you want to glow. Every pixel that is that color, (finicky when working with very close shades of the same color) will be selected with a dotted line like this. In this case, it's the orange energy ring or what ever you call those lights on a beam weapon.
Step 4: Go to filters->Light and shadow->Drop Shadow.
PART 5! Booby trap the stalemate but- Oops, wrong line. Now a box called script fu drop shadow will pop up. For what ever reason it appears behind the image I'm working on and you have to fish it out by clicking on it in your task bar.
Step 6: The first thing you want to do it make the offset coordinates 0, other wise your glow will be off center. Secondly, the "Intensity" of the glow is pretty weak, so ramp the opacity to 100. Blur radius is the "brightness: of your glow, the larger it is, the further away it will light up. In this case the energy bars on beam weapons are pretty bright, so set the radius to 6 pixels. 3-4 radius is good for dimmer glows like the charge bars on most other FTL weapons. Now finally you have to select your color, click on the black box, and a second window will open up with the color box. IMPORTANT: Make sure you select the dropper tool in the little window with the color box and NOT the dropper in the in the tool box. Now it should look like this:
Step 7: Hit ok and watch the magic happen.
Step 8: The glow above even at 100 opacity is not very intense, so I repeat the process and add a second layer of orange glow.
Step 9: Now you rinse and repeat for the green charge lights, just remember to turn down the glow radius from six to 3 or 4.
Following these steps, here's the finished product!
