In this Best of Tuts+ roundup you'll learn how to simulate a sniper scope, design and code a flexible website, create an intense movie poster, create a golden vector compass, build a minigolf game with ActionScript 3.0, take sports photos like a pro, create a rocky video game terrain in Blender and get a useful introduction to home recording--among many other things! Let's take a look.
Aetuts+ - After Effects Tutorials
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Simulate a Realistic Sniper Scope Perspective - AE Plus
My tutorial deals with a VFX shot that's easy to attempt but hard to master: A convincing looking sniper scope view.
I will outline the assets that I provide in Photoshop and the principles of accomplishing the intended outcome. In After Effects I'll make use of pre-compositions, motion tracking and some easy expressions. For clarity's purpose I'll get into details about optical phenomena when necessary. -
Form a Unique Transition
In this tutorial we are going to reveal how to create a cool particle transition between 2 videos using Trapcode Form. We will cover the importance of layer maps while using this plugin as well as how to create a stylish displacement of the particles.
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Making Your Color Scheme a Whole Lot Kuler!
Adobe Kuler is a great resource for color themes that is perfectly integrated in all Adobe CS4 software - except for After Effects. But this has changed now.
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The Best Sound You'll Ever See!
Satya is back with a new tutorial that will help you look as good as you sound. This technique has many options so sit back and learn how to create an attractive visual generated from your audio spectrum.
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Terminate Your Footage With Expressions
Sep 21st in VFX by Ben McEwan If you're wanting to help to save Sarah Connor then maybe this tutorial will give you an insider's perspective on what to do. Ben McEwan has created a 3 Day Series crammed full of useful expressions to create the UI found in the Terminator.
Nettuts+ - Web Development Tutorials
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11 Classic CSS Techniques Made Simple with CSS
We’ve all had to achieve some effect that required an extra handful of divs or PNGs. We shouldn’t be limited to these old techniques when there’s a new age coming. This new age includes the use of CSS3. In today’s tutorial, I’ll show you eleven different time-consuming effects that can be achieved quite easily with CSS3.
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20 HTML Forms Best Practices for Beginners
Working with XHTML forms can be somewhat daunting; they not only use some niche HTML elements, but also blur the line between static content and user interaction. Let’s review some things to remember when creating your next form.
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Search Engine Optimization 101
Your website may be top notch but what’s the use of an online presence if no one can find it? In this quick start guide to search engine optimization we’ll review an assortment of tactics to increase your page ranking.
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How to Design and Code a Flexible Website
In this tutorial, we’re going to be designing and coding a simple blog-style web-page. We’ll pay special attention to making our design flexible and accessible by using clean and simple XHTML and CSS. This tutorial is aimed at beginners, and anyone looking to improve the accessibility of their web designs.
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Getting Clean with PHP
Data security is important and often undervalued by designers, developers, and clients alike. Since PHP 5.2.0, data sanitization and validation has been made significantly easier with the introduction of data filtering. Today, we’re going to take a closer look at these filters, how to use them, and build a few custom functions.
Psdtuts+ - Photoshop
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Render a Cereal Box Cover from Scratch Using Photoshop's 3D Tools
Hi everyone! This time I’ve got for you a fun tutorial, we’ll create a cereal box design from scratch, using only Photoshop. We will render several fruit flavored cereal loops using the Photoshop’s CS4 Extended 3D tools, apply textures to the loops, bump the surfaces and mock-up them into a real 2D image. Are you ready?
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Create a Big Air Event Poster with Photoshop and Illustrator – Psd Plus Tutorial
We have another Psd Plus tutorial exclusively available to Plus members today. If you want to take your Photoshop and Illustrator integration skills to the next level, then we have an exciting poster design tutorial for you. Learn more at the jump!
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Create an Intense Movie Poster in Photoshop
Designers love to be critical about movie posters, and while you may think you have better ideas about how to sell a movie to an audience, how many times have you actually tried doing it? In this tutorial, we're going to create a poster for a fictional movie called "Fugitive." The movie is meant to be a suspenseful thriller that features one's escape under the cover of darkness, despite man's attempt to capture the lone hero. Thin and cheesy plot? Check. Awesome opportunity to better your PSD skills? You got it!
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How to Create Eroded Metal Text with Photoshop
In this tutorial I'll show you how to create an eroded metal text effect. Throughout this tutorial we'll make use of various drawing techniques, channels, and patterns.
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Add Fantastic Color to 3D Text – Part I
This is the first part of a two part series. Part two will be released tomorrow. In this piece you will learn how to bring a simple text to life and place everything in fantastic, colored and glowing 3D space. Some neat techniques covered here will allow you to bring your art to the next level. Don't miss it! There are two parts to this tutorial: Part I and Part II.
Vectortuts+ - Vector & Illustrator
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How to Create a Golden, Vector Compass in Illustrator
In this tutorial I will take you through the steps and techniques of creating a golden compass. For this tutorial I’ve used just Adobe Illustrator and a heavy dose of ingenuity.
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How to Create a Yellow Submarine Icon with Gradient Meshes – Vector Plus Tutorial
We have another great Vector Plus tutorial available exclusively for Plus members today. If you want to learn how to use gradient mesh, pattern brushes and other advanced Illustrator tools to create a shiny submarine, then we have an awesome tutorial for you. Learn more about this tutorial at the jump!
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Build a Promotional iPhone App Website Wireframe in Fireworks
Fireworks is a great tool for creating a wireframe and while it doesn't work perfect with Photoshop, you can export over there and then build off your wireframe. We'll cover the design process of creating a wireframe for an iPhone application website in Fireworks. For those of you not familiar with this program, it will be a good jumping off point for using it to wireframe your web design projects. This is a multi-part series and will be fun! Here is Part I of and Part II.
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How to Create a Caramel Ripple Effect
In this tutorial, we will create a hot chocolate caramel effect using some distort tools and the 3D revolve tool. This is a simple and effective technique to obtain a quality vector ripple effect quickly. Here we go!
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How to Create an Energy Saving Bulb in Illustrator
Here we're showing how to create an energy saving bulb with the help of the Illustrator's Mesh Tool. At the beginning it could be quiet hard to work with, but if you get used to it, it's fairly simple.
Activetuts+ - Flash, Flex & ActionScript Tutorials
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Create a Unit Converter Application for Flash Lite Enabled Devices
Flash Lite is an implementation of the Flash runtime for mobile phones, consumer electronic devices, and Internet-connected digital home devices. According to Adobe, the number of Flash Lite shipped devices will reach 1 billion in 2009 and more than 2.5 billion by the end of 2010, so if you are a Flash Developer it is important to know how this technology works and how it differs from Flash Player for the desktop.
In this tutorial I’ll guide you through the basics of Flash Lite using the 1.1 version; sacrificing features, but ensuring compatibility.
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Build a Mini Golf Game with ActionScript 3.0
In this tutorial I´ll show you how to create nice Mini Golf Game with ActionScript 3.0. We´ll work with Event Handlers, Functions and also the Timer Object which is a really cool feature in AS3.
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AS3 101: Loops
Welcome back to AS3 101, the fifth edition! At this point, you should be comfortable with the concepts of variables, functions, conditionals (branching), and Arrays. Not only should you be comfortable with the concepts, but you should also be fluent in how ActionScript 3 implements these concepts.
For this fifth episode, we’ll be adding to that catalog of skills the various looping structures found in AS3. You’ll find some dependencies on the information learned in AS3 101 Part 4, on Arrays, so if you’ve skipped that one or need a refresher, please review that tutorial before continuing with this one.
For our final project, we’ll combine loops and arrays, to make a simple shoot-em-up game.
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Improve Your Memory With an Away3D Game
In this tutorial we’ll build a 3D memory game. Along the way we’ll look at adding variables and mouseEvents to Away3D objects. Let’s get started..
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Build a Photo Viewer Using Flex and the Flickr API
In this tutorial you will learn how to use the as3flickrlib library to create a Flash Flickr photo viewer.
Phototuts+ - Photography & Post-Processing Tutorials
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Photography Kick-start Guide: Adjusting Your Camera’s Settings for the Photo You Want
Cameras vary in terms of functions offered. There are differences from one brand to the next and even from one model to another of the same brand. By necessity, this tutorial will have to generalize but let's try to de-mystify some of the more common settings found on cameras today, what they mean (to the camera) and how to use them.
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Mastering the Art of Black and White Photography
In the early days of photography, photographers had no choice but to shoot in black and white, as it was the only available medium. Then, in 1936, the invention of kodachrome gave colour photography to the world. But black and white photography didn't die off, instead it flourished. Modern black and white photography at it's best is art, and many photographers regard it as the purest form of photography.
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Freezing Time: 80 Inspiring Examples of High Speed Photography
In our last roundup, we covered a selection of amazing HDR images. This time we move onto something completly different, with stunning high speed photography. These images freeze time, and allow us to observe scenes that the naked eye would struggle to capture. It's definitely worth a look for some great inspiration!
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8 Tips for Taking Sports Photos Like a Pro
Are you looking to shoot better sports photos, and make an impact? Sports photography presents you with many opportunities to capture dramatic and vivid imagery that will last a lifetime. No other medium presents you with heart-pounding action, vivid color patterns and unique shooting opportunities.
The steps and guidance featured in this tutorial cover a broad range of areas - from perfecting shutter speed, to making sure you don't miss the action. -
How to Photograph Waterfalls
Waterfalls are some of the most beautiful natural features you will ever get the opportunity to photograph. But though they can look simply stunning, photographing waterfalls is not easy to do well. How do you avoid your photos being too dark? How do you deal with clipping in the water? How do you compose your photos to capture the authentic beauty of the scene?
In this tutorial, nature photography expert Steve Berardi shares his best tips for photographing waterfalls.
Cgtuts+ - CG Tutorials
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Model and Texture a Posh Living Room Scene in Maya
In this tutorial you will go through the process of modeling and rendering a Living Room in Autodesk Maya. You will also learn to use Mental Ray (along with the new architectural materials), create realistic fur, and implement studio lighting to create nice and soft shadows and highlights.
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Using Splines to Add Detail to Your High-Poly Model in 3ds Max
Splines are an often-overlooked aspect of 3ds max when it comes to game art. Most people know that you can use a spline for a wire - but you can also use it for things like grooves, whole objects like handles, and even text! In this tutorial, we'll take a look at some of these advanced ways that splines can be used to save a lot of time on tasks that would otherwise have to be done by hand.
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Create a Rocky Video Game Terrain in Blender
In this series of tutorials you will learn how to create a finished environment for Blender's Game Engine. The main focus of the series will be texturing and lighting, with the use of some custom 2d filters to enhance the result.
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Model a Photorealistic Swiss Army Knife in Modo
Subdivision modeling is an extremely powerful tool that can allow you to add high levels of detail to your models in a relatively short amount of time. In order to use it effectively, however, one must know when, and more importantly, when not to use it. In this three part, beginner to intermediate tutorial series, professional Modo artist, Matt Braeley, will demonstrate how to model a photorealistic Swiss Army knife, using polygonal and subdivision modeling in Luxology's Modo 302.
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Build an Advanced Drifting Car Rig in 3ds Max
In this advanced level tutorial, you will learn all of the steps necessary to build a fully functioning car rig in 3D Studio Max. This rig features working suspension, steering and body roll, as well as some functionality for drifting and powerslides. You will learn how to set up internal functionality through links, constraints, expressions, and parameter wiring. The final result will be a robust rig with easy, and accessible controls.
Audiotuts+ - Audio and Music
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Introduction to Polyrhythms
The usage of simple, common time (4/4 time signature, where there are four beats to a measure, and each quarter note gets one beat) is pervasive in Western popular music, including rock, blues, country, folk, pop, and various forms of electronic music including many sub-genres of house and trance music. The four-on-the-floor mindset can be difficult to escape, but every musician and composer can benefit from a study of rhythm that includes a wider variety of time signatures and rhythms.
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How to Design Reeses and Hoovers
Have you ever wondered how your favourite dance music producers create those amazing sounds that make you jump on the dance floor? Well, it usually takes a lot of experience and a huge amount of time spent on experimenting and processing sounds a ridiculously high number of times.
But it's quite hard to reach the stage of experimentation if you don't even know the basics behind some kind of sounds often heard in dance tracks. This tutorial will teach you how to design from scratch a DnB trademark, the reese bass, and how to reproduce the infamous hoover sound, introducing you to the technique of resampling.
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A Beginner's Introduction to Home Recording
Home recording technology seems to get better and cost less every year. It puts power in the hands of ordinary people. You’ve probably found this article because you want to get into home recording.
Most of our tutorials here at Audiotuts are at the intermediate or advanced level. And that’s OK, because you won’t be a beginner forever. But we do have some more basic tutorials and articles aimed at the beginner. This article will refer to many of them, and hopefully give you an overview of what’s involved in getting into home recording.
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A Basic Guide to Subtractive Synthesis (Part 1)
This screencast is the first tutorial in a series on synthesis. This first installment shows a basic guided tour of Subtractor in Reason and covers oscillators, filters and envelopes.
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Is the Public Capable of Recognizing Quality Music?
Can the average music listener recognize quality? Can they distinguish a virtuoso from a mediocre musician? Can they recognize a “hit” that will still be esteemed a masterpiece in a hundred years? Does “popular” mean the same as “quality”?
