This will help you understand and setup user ranks, and images, etc. I see this asked a lot so I hope it helps.
This is what we are talking about here
First things First. before we even get onto your forum, or the admin control panel, we need to add the images for ranks or post milestone or whatever into your server.
By default the vB rank manager wants the ranks in your root/images folder, I find it best to add a ranks folder inside the images folder so the path to all rank images will be root/images/ranks as shown in my server below
all the images listed there are are my rank or post milestone images we will be adding, some examples
Once you uploaded the desired images you are done with your FTP and server. Login to your admin control panel now on your forum.
Scroll down to "User Ranks" on the left menu and expand it and click "User Rank Manager"
If you haven't added any it will look blank, here is what mine looks like.
Now we can start adding your ranks. The most popular or sought after feature on forums is having badges for staff and/or premium members, etc. We will add your admin Badge for example.
Click "Add New User Rank" on the left menu and you will see this
Number of Time to repeat I always set to 1
Usergroup dropdown pick Admin usergroup
Number of posts set to 0 or 1 since you always want it shown if they are staff
I set Stack Rank to "yes", as seen above the multiple rank images are stacked, it looks better IMO
display type i always use "always"
in the file path if you added tha rank folder as mentioned above should be /images/ranks/administrator.gif
SAVE.
Now if you go back to the "user rank manager" you will see a button on top to "Rebuild User Titles and Ranks" click that and rebuild your ranks and look on your posts in the forum to make sure it shows up.
Adding post milestones.
Post milestones are the cones you see in the example image at top. The image can be whatever you like, such as tacos or flowers or dog paws, whatever matches your forums motif. These images can be set to change within any post range. for example
you make 150 posts you get this =
you make 500 posts you get this =
you make 1000 posts you get this =
you make 2000 posts you get this =
you make 3000 posts you get this =
We will setup my first milestone up there 150 posts = 1 cone....
To add them go back to "Add New User Rank" and use these settings
Number of Time to repeat I always set to 1
Usergroup dropdown pick "All Usergroups" as everyone will have post milestones
Number of posts set to 150 this tells your site that after 150 posts they get 1 cone
I set Stack Rank to "yes", as seen above the multiple rank images are stacked, it looks better IMO
display type i always use "always"
in the file path if you added tha rank folder as mentioned above should be /images/ranks/cone1.gif
SAVE
Now repeat and change the 150 posts to 500 posts and make the image cone2.gif, when 500 posts are reached the image will be replaced by the 2 cones.
Now if you go back to the "user rank manager" you will see a button on top to "Rebuild User Titles and Ranks" click that and rebuild your ranks and check to see if a person has x number of posts that the right milestone image is showing
This all may seem confusing, once you do it a few times you will get the hang of it, if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask here. 
Re: Using user Ranks 
Linear Mode
