A thumbnail on Scratch project is the display icon that represents a project on the Scratch website. In simple words, a thumbnail is the image of a project in Scratch. A thumbnail can provide an attractive look for your project. A thumbnail can provide an idea behind the Scratch project. A thumbnail sometimes is an image and sometimes just words. You can design your own thumbnail for your Scratch projects and make it look attractive to other users.
A thumbnail becomes more significant if you are sharing your project in the Scratch online community as it makes your project attractive and gives other users an idea about your project.
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This is Chapter 2.4 in the
Advanced Scratch Tutorial
How to Make a Thumbnail on Scratch Project?
When you finish a project, the last image on the project, which is usually a blank screen, becomes the project’s thumbnail, unless you design something new that represents the idea behind your project. Thus the steps to add a thumbnail to the Scratch project is as follows:
- Step 1: To add a thumbnail, you have to first add a sprite.
- Step 2: Rename the newly added sprite, so that you can add code to it later to act as the thumbnail. You can design the thumbnail in the costumes tab as shown in the image below:
- Step 4: Now the next step is to code this thumbnail sprite to show the sprite as the thumbnail of the project. To get this done, double-click on the sprite.
- Step 5: Drag and drop the “go to x” block from the motion category.
- Step 6: Set the coordinates to 0 and 0, then place the “show” block from the looks category below it.
- Step 7: Then in the “go to layer”, set the option to front. This code will show the thumbnail sprite and avoid overriding it with the Scratch sprite. You don’t have to put it with anything else. When you simply click on it will put the thumbnail sprite in front of everything.
- Step 8: Now, when you want to add a thumbnail, you have to make sure that it is hidden when the green flag is clicked, which means when the script is running. For this, just simply drag and drop the “when green flag clicked” block from the event category and the “hide” block from the looks category.
- Step 9: Now, it’s time to save your project. Before doing that click on the first set of code, i.e., to make our thumbnail visible.
- Step 10: Click on the save now option. This will put the designed thumbnail as the project thumbnail.
Now when you click on your project page you will see your designed thumbnail as the project thumbnail. There you have it, your project thumbnail!
How to Make An Animated Scratch Thumbnail?
- Step 1: Download the Scratch addons from the Chrome extension.
- Step 2: Once the addon is installed, click on it and go to “addons”. In the addons, search for “thumbnail setter”, and enable it.
- Step 3: Once you enable the “thumbnail setter” option, now go to “my stuff” on the Scratch website.
- Step 4: Here, you have to select the project you want to set the animated thumbnail. Click on the project you want to select and the project will open up.
- Step 5: Now that you have the Scratch addon you can see the option “set thumbnail“, as shown in the image below;
- Step 4: Click on the option “set thumbnail”. Now you will see a pop-up window asking you to either select a file from the computer or select the stage which means the final image in your Scratch stage of the project will be set as the thumbnail.
- Step 5: Click on “select file” if you have a downloaded gif or image on your computer that you want to upload. here if you select an animated image or gif, you might get a notification that your selected file might not appear, go ahead and click on okay anyway this is just to warn users that their file might not show for some reason.
- Step 6: Once you click on okay, the animated image will be uploaded. To see the result go to “my stuff” and you can see the animated image as the thumbnail of your project, as shown in the video below;
How to Make Aesthetic Thumbnails on Scratch
If you are a fan of everything aesthetic and want to make an aesthetic thumbnail for your Scratch projects, you can do so n a few simple steps. Read the steps below to create aesthetic thumbnails on Scratch:
- Step 1: Open your Scratch editor.
- Step 2: Upload the aesthetic image or collage that you want to make your project thumbnail, as a new sprite. You can also upload multiple images and group them together to create your aesthetic thumbnail. Rename this new sprite as “thumbnail”.
- Step 3: If you want to upload some music too you can do so by uploading sound into the Scratch project.
- Step 4: Now, that your image and music are uploaded, you will need to code it.
- Step 5: Select the “thumbnail” sprite. Drag and drop the “when green flag clicked”.
- Step 6: Now, drag and drop the “show”, “change () effect by ()”, and “go to () layer”. In the “change () effect by ()” block select the “ghost” effect and change the effect to 100. In the “go to () layer”, change the layer to “front” so that your thumbnail will appear in the front.
- Step 7: Put all the blocks in a forever loop.
- Step 8: Putting a thumbnail is the last part of the project so you need to make sure that click on the “red” button to stop your project so that your thumbnail will appear on the front. We will use a different code than the one given above.
- Step 9: Click “save now”. Your selected aesthetic thumbnail will now reflect your “my stuff” page.
Scratch Thumbnail Maker
There is no online tool available to make thumbnails for your project. You can make your own thumbnails, it can be both static images or animated ones. As we have discussed above it is quite an easy and straightforward process. You can also ask for other Scratchers’ help in creating exciting thumbnails. Just post a question or request for help in the discussion forum and someone will definitely help you as the community is a pretty active one.
What Is the Thumbnail Size for Scratch Project?
The size of the thumbnail in Scratch projects differs for different categories like Scratch studio thumbnail, backdrop, etc. There isn’t any particular size that needs to be followed but there are size limitations that Scratchers should keep in mind.
For the Scratch Studio thumbnail, it is 200×130, and for the Scratch backdrop it is 480×360 or 236×193, the size of the backdrop is still debatable.
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FAQs on Thumbnail On Scratch a Project
How to add a thumbnail in Scratch?
You can design a thumbnail in the costume tab. All you have to do is select a different sprite and customize it in the costume tab, like making a backdrop, adding text, etc. You can also add an animated gif as a thumbnail. Read the above article for detailed information.
How to change the thumbnail in Scratch?
To change your current thumbnail, simply design a new thumbnail in the costume tab. All you have to do is select a different sprite and customize it in the costume tab, like making a backdrop, adding text, etc. You can also add an animated gif as a thumbnail. Read the above article for detailed information.
How to change the thumbnail of your Scratch game?
To change your current thumbnail, simply design a new thumbnail in the costume tab. All you have to do is select a different sprite and customize it in the costume tab, like making a backdrop, adding text, etc. You can also add an animated gif as a thumbnail. Read the above article for detailed information.
What should be the thumbnail size for the Scratch project?
There isn’t any size mentioned for a thumbnail for a Scratch project. There is a size limitation for the Scratch Studio thumbnail, i.e.., 200×130, and Scratch backdrop i.e., 480×360 or 236×193, the size for the backdrop is still debatable.
Adding thumbnails to your projects showcases other users the idea behind a project. If you design it better and more accurately, the user can understand the goal of the project even before getting started with it.
