Great idea Frank.



I disagree here, if the artist can explain ánd show what he does at the same time, then it's really really useful. If you don't get it the first time, just rewind.. it's really not that bad. (What I tend to do is make notes while watching so I can easily remember what steps to make to achieve similar results.)

I've got a couple of The Gnomon Workshop DVDs on PainterIX and Photoshop. By far the best tutorials I've come across so far. They're a bit expensive, but you can watch the pros and they often explain and give away very useful tips & tricks.



If there are any really annoying noises in your recordings, there's a reasonably easy fix for this.

Just add sound and explanations later or redo them while you make sure the noise doesn't get recorded. (A not-that-expensive directional mic will often do the trick just fine.)

Cheers

I am working on some video tutorials and has turned out harder than anticipated for me. Several others have handed stuff in and I'm still going. In my case I am use to being immersed in what I am doing, stopping to think and explain as I go has made me sound like a doddering old man "uh, ahhh, errrr, what's that called" and a few similar challenges. Do a test first, walking through some process you are familiar with and see how it goes. A possible intermediate solution is to use one of those screen capture/playback products like Wink so that people can see a demonstration of a step-by-step process then click to go to the next section. It is also possible to add some sound I believe. Here is a bare bones example http://www.stormvisions.com/showme/how_to_change_brush.htm

With the price of PS GIMP tutorials might be popular. Look forward to seeing yours.

Practice makes perfect.

I've got one of those DVDs from an Asian artist and even though his English at times is not that easy to follow, he's still very much able to explain it all relatively well with not that many words. I'm sure he has redone the audio or added it later because of the way he talks. He often used lines like 'this is where I did x to achieve y and made sure not to do z and run into problems later on'. Very useful, but I'm sure it has taken some extra time to get this 'perfect'.

By the way, because these tutorials are of video format, you don't have to explain everything down to the details. A lot of movies actually are sped up to two or three times the speed, showing you art made in 10 real hours in only 2 hours of video time or so.

When it comes to certain program specific steps you have to go through, you might run into 'version' differences anyways.

One of the DVDs I have uses an older Photoshop version then I have, so it takes some additional research there anyways. If you're planning to explain interfaces and things like that alone I'd make a text tutorial or a powerpoint-style video instead of recordings of how your mouse moved to click somewhere. Efficiency counts in my opinion,

Cheers

yeh, go go go

So ... Did this idea die?

Enjoy your meal
Toast

I guess :P

No, this idea did not die.

Last month was very busy but I am happy about it. I sold good amount of licenses of my business software, had to support them and we launched new packs at Dexsoft Games. Besides that there were the usual christmas events (e.g. visiting the family).

I started to write a book about the complete game producing process. The chapter about programming in C++ is already done (more than 100 pages). So I will support a lot of tools like Ogre, Irrlicht, C4, Torque. I started with some Irrlicht examples because this is the most intuitive C++ engine out there. But I want to support more powerful tools as well (C4 as an example).
I started with 3d maths and AI. 3d and 2d graphics will be part of this book as well as project management and methods of creativity.

Some parts will be launched separated (just like this 2d GIMP tutorial). But I need some more time to finish it. Unfortunatelly I am the only author and I do it in my spare time. And I need help from English speakers to translate it from German to a fine English at the end.

All my client jobs have first priority. This project follows after this.

I didn't want to put the screws on you or something - I was just curious if this idea had become a project which died due to lack of time / interest or not. Good to hear that it actually made its leap on your to-do-list...

I'll sure keep an eye on this!

Enjoy your meal
Toast