New Tutorial Requests

[AWBenson]

I will be creating some new tutorials for my website soon. I've decided to create flash based tutorials using Wink, but otherwise haven't decided on the specific nature of these tutorials.

Would the majority of people like to see a series of related tutorials, for example: 1. Modeling a sword, 2. unwrapping the sword and then 3. texturing the sword? Or would the majority like to see small tutorials like building a wood texture followed by one about adding grunge to the floors/walls (ie, unrelated to each other)?

I'm also going to create tutorials for a variety of programs soon. Some would be photoshop, illustrator, gimp, inkscape, (possibly blender), scribus, etc. So, what programs other than Carrara would people like to see?

Any simple subject matters you want covered? Most tutorials should be no more be 20 minutes in total to make. After all, this is a live flash video.

PS: My goal is to create at least one tutorial a month.

[Thomas]

This is a very good initiative Andrew!
If you need some hosting, ask me

[-ash-]

Well thanks for this offer.

Personally I would like the small tuts like building a wood texture, adding grunge, etc. Then I can apply these to my own projects.

On a slightly different note, why Flash? If I have the choice I always go for the PDF files if people make them. Easy to see, zoom in on the graphics, search, navigate around. For me recordings of someone working are not as good as a piece of well written text backed up with good illustrations (as your current tutorials are )

With a PDF open on one screen I can work through the steps in the app on the other screen and go at my own pace.

[AWBenson]

Thomas: I'm only using about 20mb of my 2gb of space for my website... I don't have any shortage yet.

Ash: I've choosen Flash/Wink for several reasons. Development time is substanially reduced with it. Even with me adding pauses, text bits and written guidelines (including if I may or may not -and probablly not- add verbal instructions), I can make a tutorial at about 1/5 the time as the current ones on the website.

Making tutorials take alot of time. When I normally work, I make mistakes and either undo or go back to a prior file and continue working. On a tutorial, I should have everything down smooth for people to follow. That means I do my own techniques, over and over again, until I can document it clearly without problems. Most of those tutorials on my site were screen captures and then pasted into PhotoShop. And I also had to edit my own writtings many times before going live... and again later after people complain about this typo, unclear procedure or something else.

Wink simplifies this by autocapturing for me. I can pull out individual pictures/frames from Wink for the tutorial, which makes it easier on me, if I didn't get a screenshot of a scene that I needed. If I make a mistake, I can undo and delete the extra stuff between those frames. Also, video can be easier for many people to follow because the location of buttons, menus, etc. are clearly seen.

Ironically, I used the video capture of wink to record my actions for the last tutorial, which I then watch and rewrote what I did for the text version...

I do know what you mean through. I like to print out tutorials and follow them myself, however, my choice in Wink was done primarily for the time-saving abilities it offers. ;)

[-ash-]

Andrew, thanks for explaining your reasoning. Anything that saves time for this kind of stuff is a good thing. More time saved means more tutorials

Anyway, I know what you mean about the amount of time. In my other life, during the daylight hours, I'm what my company calls an Information Engineer. Me, I call it a cross between a technical author and an illustrator

Anyway, people are always underestimating the amount of work it takes to document something. Everyone seems to think it is easy to write and illustrate clear simple instructions, when it is not. To quote Shinsei, ""Complexity is simple, Simplicity is difficult."

So, I for one appreciate your contribution to the community and what it takes to create these tutorials. Many thanks.

[PurpleMango]

Yes please..I'd love to know how to texture properly, including unwrapping uvs. I want to learn how to export a completed model from hex. into Carrara or BodyPaint and texture from there.

[AWBenson]

I don't have Bodypaint, so I cann't help you with it. Texturing from Carrara is procedural based as that it doesn't have a paint module, although you can UVWrap with it. Hexagon 2 supports painting and unwrapping, so it is more appropriate to do that there with this example chain of work. Afterwards, importing into Carrara can be a simple matter of having the right format and a little shader tweeking.

Eventually, I'm make a tutorial on painting within Hexagon, although I'll start with more basic tutorials first for Hex 2.

[Couerl]

Hi Andrew, it's very good to see you on the list again. Last I saw you post in yahoo there was some stuff going on. I hope you are doing okay now.

I don't care what you do, but I always liked to read your posts because you bring alot of theory to the table and you have formal training and I always like listening to people with that and more than just the mechanical "how to" approach. So whatever it is that you decide to do, keep in mind that there's guys like me who know how to do stuff, but maybe not why or what ideas are behind it. I have a pretty good grip on modeling now I think and want to focus on lighting more and texturing and more UV stuff too. I know how most of it works, I'm just not as good as I want to be with it yet and I think its because I don't have a solid formal background or anything.

Good to see you!
Steven

[Rowan]

I for one would like a step by step model on how to unwrap an object and texture it. I've been searching loads of places and found nothing. The UV tutorial already here seems to have some oddities in it, but I don't have the knowledge to improve it, despite my attempts (I managed to texture a cube. Anything more complex and it failed).

[AWBenson]

Rowan:

Originally Posted by Rowan

IThe UV tutorial already here seems to have some oddities in it, but I don't have the knowledge to improve it, despite my attempts (I managed to texture a cube. Anything more complex and it failed).

Can you tell me which ones you are having problems with? I have created 4 UV unwrapping and texturing tutorials for Carrara already. They are listed here in the tutorials section. So, if you need help with one of my tutorials just let me know.

Couerl:
Thanks . I'll try to be as informative as I was. I doubt that I'll be as much into the forums as I was prior to those events in my life. I tend to keep myself just a bit more busy than I can handle nowdays, with tasks, errands, to-dos with friends, dating and other obligations.

This is just one reason, why the swtich to Wink/Flash tutorials. It'll be more step-by-step but you are welcome to email me or PM me specific help.

[Couerl]

Good to see you back in the game then, lots of guys give up when stuff happens and that's not good.
Anyway, I have wink 2 I think and I'm curious what settings you use or Thomas or anybody. If I start it up using default and use Hex to model in, I can go about 5 minutes before my machine starts complaining and bogging down and then I can get good compression in QTP-7, but it takes a long time to compress and then when it's all done its fast and about 1 minute long.

I guess I could play around with it more, but if you already know some good settings I'd like to know them.
Thanks
Steven

[PurpleMango]

Thanks for taking the time to make us tutorials AWBenson I for one appreciate anything I can get my hands on. I'll check your Carrara unwrapping the texturing tutes.

[AWBenson]

Originally Posted by Couerl

Anyway, I have wink 2 I think and I'm curious what settings you use or Thomas or anybody.

I used the event capture model of Wink 2. I do not include the audio track, but I might experiment with that at some time. Ideally, I make notes as I model, particularly with the use of hotkeys. The effects are then captured. The mouse's click and drag movements do not get recorded but personally do not think that is as important for the various steps.

After recording the animation. Go back through the tutorial step by step and remove any undo and menu searching ( mouseovers that makes more than the correct menu to appear). During this process, you'll want to document the use of hotkeys with "thought" bubbles. For work-ability flow, you can place next keys to await for user response for the next step. In this way, you can break up a video tutorial into steps.

Afterwards, I use the process to build a 256 color scheme for it. On my machine, a simple 20 second long, no next button animation took 15 minutes to compute the colors needed based upon all frames. Since it's time that I don't have to spend in front of the computer, it's worth doing because it lowers the file size greatly.

My home machine has 2gb of RAM so it takes quite a bit to fill that up. Also, my tutorials use simple objects and so on because complexity takes too much to document this reduces the time spent on modelling details that aren't neccessarily important to the tutorial itself. People can add further details with modeling on tutorials, especially if they do it twice and get a higher quality model with the same basic techniques as the model.

[Thomas]

Originally Posted by Couerl

Anyway, I have wink 2 I think and I'm curious what settings you use or Thomas or anybody.

I don't use Wink, only Camtasia Studio.
you wil lsee soon one of my last tutorial on the e-frontier website, and I hope some of them here too. As you know, I'm not a native english, then, to avoid some missunderstandings in my comments, I used a system of callouts. It works greate and it's very easy to use (except a camtasia bug... )

[Analog-X]

I like tutorials in the following Formats/Order.

HTML
PDF
.MOV

I like watching the tutorials done in Camtasia where the narator talks and goes through the process, sometimes you get subtle information by seeing/hearing the tutorial creator.

But ofcourse that would bring Bandwidth issues.

As for the Tutorial contents. I'd like to see an example of like how the Rat in the Rat Challenge was done, taking the 2D Photo and turning it into a 3D Model.
http://forums.polyloop.net/showthread.php?t=8134

[Couerl]

Originally Posted by Thomas

I'm not a native english, then, to avoid some missunderstandings in my comments, I used a system of callouts. It works greate and it's very easy to use (except a camtasia bug... )

You're English is better than you think and pretty easy to understand. They say when you dream in a foreign language that means you are fluent. Sometimes I dream in part English and Spanish, the only two I know. Maybe I will take up French someday too. When I go to the French side of the forums, I can pick out words, but not sentances yet. I really wish I could though.

Is the Georgette movie around someplace still? I wanted to see the face part again, but I can't find her. :\

Steven

[Thomas]

I'm not dreaming in english, but I think in english. I think it's a good beginning.
I just need to find some time to take some english learning courses and enhance my vocabulary and improve my grammar..
you can find the movie here: http://forums.polyloop.net/showthrea...7615#post47615

[Couerl]

That's the one, thanks a lot Thomas. It's time to practice more faces, heads and bodies now.

[dalboris]

ah !

I don't agree with you couerl : it's not because we can dream in english than we are fluent.

I've already done some dreams in english, but I'm not fluent at all ! (the results of my exams show me perfectly that I'm very very not fluent)

[Nichod]

Andrew if you want to do a focus on UV mapping type tutorials and the like I'm more than happy to demonstrate procedural shading techniques.