Tutorials, Tips and Tricks!

[n[u]ll]

Pretty straight and to the point. I can't believe I didn't think of making a tutorial on this, I'm sort of jealous of your idea

But like I said, seems pretty straight forward and easy to follow.. Maybe you could add a little bit more detail about how the frames/layers are intertwined. It was a bit confusing for me when I first learned the animation pallet. None-the-less, a superb tutorial :thup:

P.s. Maybe you could also add a section on the tween feature, it's very useful and efficient.

 

[Prometheus]

You can make one of "tween", no idea what it is.

I'll see about the frame/layer thing.

 

[Jedimindtrixxx]

im pretty sure tween makes the transition more smooth, i havnt animated in photoshop for awhile but im pretty sure tween created a bunch of frames between your 2 frames that slowly go into your other frame equaling smoother transition unlike the one you had

 

[Prometheus]

I'm waiting for his tutorial.

 

[w/e]

Someone please move this to the tutorials thread.

 

[Miz]

Someone please move this to the tutorials thread.

Done...

 

[n[u]ll]

Tweening in Photoshop
A continuation from kc102's tutorial​

In this tutorial we will be making this simple image:

So after reading kc102's tutorial, you may want to go do some cool animations with some neat blending backgrounds or moving text. Well if so, then you may want to take the time to go through this basic tutorial on how to go about doing so in an efficient fashion.


So let's start simple, let's say we want a image to fade from a black to white background. We'll start by opening up Photoshop and the animation pallet (I won't go over this, as it is covered in the above mentioned tutorial).

First off we will create two layers. The first we will title "Black" and fill it with black. The next layer will be entitled "White" and, as you may have guessed, we will fill it with white. You should see something pretty close to this:

Spoiler

Now create a new layer on the animation pallet. After doing so, go ahead and click back to the first layer on the animation pallet and make the white layer invisible:

Spoiler

Go back to the second layer of the animation pallet and make the white visible again:

Spoiler

Now here is where you might want to start paying attention. Control-Click (Command-Click for Mac users) on both layers in the animation pallet, they should both be highlighted:

Spoiler

Click the tween button (it looks like 4 balls fading from the top left corner to the bottom right). A dialog will pop up, with 4 input fields:

Spoiler

The first field asks what layers on the animation pallet you would like to modify, or tween. For this we want to choose the only option available, Selection.

Next it inquires how many frames we will be using to make the tween. The more frames, the smoother the transition will be. Make sure not to put too absurd of a number, you might have to sit there for a while.

The Layers field is asking if it should take all of the layers on the layer pallet into account, or only the selected ones. In our case we want to use them both.

The Parameters field are pretty self-explanatory, and unimportant for this instance. Just leave them all checked..

Upon clicking OK, it will create an amount of frames depending on the number you entered in. It may take a while if you have any number with 3 digits or more.

Spoiler

Now you've got a nice fading icon...

Thanks for reading!
Ps, I may come back later to add more advanced techniques. I'm just kind of tired at the moment.

 

[iPeez]

Reaper I read you tutorial, very useful + rep , but what file format do I save the animated picture in? If I try P) JPEG layers are flatten "/

 

[Prometheus]

A gif.

@nll
Please modify my name there to kc102.

 

[UndeadDragon]

To save as gif go to File --> Save for Web & Devices... Just making sure you know

 

[iPeez]

Thanks alot +rep.

 

[thewrongvine]

Really nice tutorials. :thup:

Off-Topic:
Null has basically the same icon as Knight except Knight's is with Luke Skywalker and instead of NOPE he has HOPE.

 

[Sil3nt]

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=67YA9P3I
Joyful Disaster Tut + Links Full

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=UYVSX0M0
Joyful Disaster Tut + Links Split (For those who dislike, or lag badly when scrolling huge images)

The links contain a full tutorial designed for those who are completely new to photoshop, or those who want to learn my technique on creating a sprite signature. The .rar contains links to ALL resources used. I had a fair amount of success selling the tutorial at GR, just thought I'd share it here (was meaning to way back, but forgot). CS2+ required for scattered smudging, but you'll do fine without it.

Tutorial Outcome

My Other Outcomes

Other User Outcomes
bry5012

FinestShadow

Anything-Pink

ITSrichard

KJF

Sheik

Grombo

Jierda

 

[iPeez]

Awesome signs! ^^

 

[WindexIsBack]

Making a texture tileable

Making A Texture Tile-able​

For some, making a texture may seem like a hard task. However, it's relatively simple.
You'll need several very important things.

• Advance Image Editor (Photoshop, Gimp, Pandora, ect) [I am using cs3 for this tutorial]
• A stock image. Preferably something that is both evenly shaded, and does not have many blemishes
• Medium knowledge of photoshop

Now, let's get started. For this small tutorial, great places to find stock images besides from Google are CG Textures, which provides great high-res textures and Stock.chng.

For this tutorial, I'm using a very low-res rock texture.

First, let's load it up in Photoshop.
After it's finished loading, click on the toolbar Image>Image Size and set it to a nice resolution.
For me, I prefer the nearest ^2 number, such as 256 or 512. Remember, warcraft3 only uses power^2 resolution, else it will crash wc3!
Tip: Since we're reducing, I recommend Bicubic Sharpener. This makes the texture better looking at lower resolutions.

After it's resized, we're going to apply a fun effect called Offset.

Remember, to make sure Wrap Around is chosen!
If done correctly, your preview should look exactly the same as mine.

Now, the fun part!
We're going to be using the clone tool for this step.
To use, hold down Alt and than click. Now, click somewhere else on the map, and you'll notice a new texture appears there.

Use this tool to remove the icky lines on the texture. On most textures, I'll use the general strategy. It works quite well!

Next, use Offset twice more. Make sure no more crosses are seen, no major blemishes, ect.

Finally, we can choose to either Save it as it is, or reduce it.
For me, all of my tile-able textures in WarcraftIII are 64x64 which tends to be 11kb in TGA format.

Small Addition​

Because I tile textures often, I often improve my ways. The other night I found a slightly better, but a bit more advance way to do it.
The method is very similar - however, instead of cloning the tiling image, you clone the original image.
1: Import image
2: Duplicate image
3: Offset one of the images
4: Select the original (not offset) image, and click somewhere on it with clone
5: Select the offset image and begin using clone
6: if done correctly, the cloned texture will be from the stock and not from the tiled. This is a huge advantage, as it allows you much smoother tiled images.

TIPS​

• Don't use a soft radius when using Clone on a lose res image. This can cause 'muddy' looking textures. However, sometimes soft radius is more effective. This becomes very apparent on higher res images, as there are more pixels to clone.
• Don't over-use clone. Remember, this isn't creating texture, it's only copying it from another part of the texture. Over time, the texture will look very bad.
• Remember to offset at least 1 or two times after finishing. This may make glitches noticeable
• If you're getting into modeling, I highly recommend making your own library of textures, not just for Warcraft III
• Make sure you know the copyright stance on the website. Stealing work is not cool.

 

[Nerfpl]

not bad. but it yet have to be sliced to use it as tile right?

 

[WindexIsBack]

No, if you used offset and cleaned the lines than it should tile perfectly at the edges.

You'll need some experiance to do well enough where it's hard to notice where the texture repeats, though.

 

[Sooda]

Everything is great, but why Photoshop which costs? The Gimp is free and I guess is capable of doing it. As a bonus kids don't need to warez stuff. Cheap rat like me uses Blender (is good) and the Gimp (is good).

 

[WindexIsBack]

Updated first bullition to reflect that. However complaining that this is not for your ideal program is a rather bad complaint.

 

[Viikuna]

This is usefull. It makes me feel like making some tiles.