Best of Tuts+ in September 2012

Each month, we bring together a selection of the best tutorials and articles from across the whole Tuts+ network. Whether you’d like to read the top posts from your favourite site, or would like to start learning something completely new, this is the best place to start!

Psdtuts+ — Photoshop Tutorials

• Create a Cute and Scary Children’s Illustration in Photoshop

  In this tutorial, we will explain how to create a cute and scary children’s illustration in Photoshop. Let’s get started!

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• Create a 3D, Chrome, Logo Animation With Sound FX Using Photoshop CS6 Extended

  Photoshop has become a multi-purpose tool that can create some complex animations without the need to purchase additional software. In this tutorial, we will show you how to create and composite a 3D animation with sound and lighting effects. We will also cover techniques on how to optimize your rendering time. Let’s get started!

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• The Stunning 3D Character Art of Carlos Ortega Elizalde

  3D artists often use several applications to create their art. These applications often include 3D applications such as Maya or Mudbox, as well as 2D apps such as Photoshop. In this article we will take a look at the work of Carlos Ortega Elizalde, a talented 3D character artist from Guanajuato, Mexico.

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Nettuts+ — Web Development Tutorials

• Perfect Workflow in Sublime Text: Free Course!

  I’m pleased to announce that my newest course on Tuts+ Premium is out…and free to everyone! I have a confession: I’m a code editor addict, and have tried them all! I was an early adopter of Coda, a TextMate advocate, even a Vim convert. But all of that changed when I discovered Sublime Text 2, the best code editor available today.
  

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• The ABCs of Web Development

  Web development can often be an utterly perplexing affair. Today, aimed at beginners, I’d like to introduce you to twenty six concepts or technologies, each mapping to a letter of the alphabet. Sounds wonky? It probably is! Let’s get started after the jump.

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• How to Build Your Own Custom jQuery

  In this quick tip screencast, I’m going to show you a trick that I bet you don’t know about. Did you know that, as of jQuery 1.8, you can now build a custom version of the library?
  

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Vectortuts+ — Illustrator Tutorials

• Session: Infographic Design

  Taking a collection of data and showing it in a way that’s not only informative but looks good, can be a hard thing to do. You need to be mindful of design while at the same making sure that the data you’re presenting is shown clearly and is easy to understand.
  In this Creative Session, take your data to the next level with our collection of tutorials that cover useful techniques and tips for creating infographics, charts and maps that not only look
  great, but communicate effectively with your audience.

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• Cut the Clutter, How to Create a Professional Work Portfolio

  Creating a personal identity seems to be one of the most difficult tasks for a designer. For some reason, it is infinitely easier determining how others should project themselves. Unfortunately, this is no excuse to have an outdated, unorganized, or overall weak portfolio. Find out how to improve your portfolio at the jump.

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• How to Design and Vector a Set of Character Poses for a Video Game

  In this tutorial we will look at how to design a character for a video game, in this case a "beat ‘em up". We will work from the very first sketch to the final artwork. I will share my process and workflow for drawing vector characters with lots of tips, tricks and shortcuts to use in your everyday vector workflow. So lets get started!

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• Create a Fantasy Style Potion Illustration with Gradients and the Bristle Brush

  If you play a lot of fantasy video games, you’ll often come across potions… be it mana, health, strength etc… and it’s with this inspiration I’m going to show you how I created this trio of potion bottles. I’ll be using a mixture of tools including Gradients, Bristle Brush, 3D Revolve and the Blob Brush Tool. So let’s get started!

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Webdesigntuts+ — Web Design Tutorials

• Has Adobe Gotten its Mojo Back?

  For the past several months a creeping sense of ambivalence between myself and my relationship with Adobe had been rattling through my consciousness like a song I couldn’t get out of my head. As a web guy I couldn’t shake the sense that Adobe was spending an inordinate amount of time telling the universe how great things were with DPS and mobile with very little chatter over on the web side of the fence.

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• An Introduction to Structured Data Markup

  The term Structured data refers to information formatted in a universally understandable way. Search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo use structured data (implemented within web pages) to refine search results, filter with greater accuracy and enhance the way results are displayed. This all makes it easier for users to find the information they’re looking for.

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• The What, Why and How of Textures in Web Design

  The use of textures and patterns in webdesign has come a long way in only a short amount of time. From cliche grunge and gaudy vintage textures, today's best websites use texture in a wide variety of ways to create a more immersive experience, define the personality of the site and create a more refined look and feel.

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Phototuts+ — Photography Tutorials

• A 12-Step Beginners Guide to iPhoneography

  Now we all know about the rise of the smart phone in recent years and in particular, Apples iPhone and as it has progressed through the various upgrades. Its significance for photographers has been well documented. The iPhone has become an invaluable tool, not only for photographers, but for the public at large as it begins to take the place of the digital entry level point and shoot cameras that are on the market.

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• How to Shoot Perfect Portraits

  After assembling a huge quantity of knowledge from all corners of the globe, we present to you a complete and in-depth look at photographic portraiture. You can search far and wide and not find a resource this extensive or fun. Learn everything about portraiture you ever wanted to know, right here.

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• How To Take Photos That Require No Post-Production

  In a world where using post-production suites to enhance your photos is almost a necessity, it can be hard for the beginner, computer illiterate or photography purist to feel they have something to offer. How does one create a beautiful picture from the get go which requires no post editing? In this tutorial, I aim to outline some tips which will tackle just that!

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Cgtuts+ — Computer Graphics Tutorials

• Create A TV Ident Using Cinema 4D R14′s New Camera Matching & Morph Tools

  In today’s tutorial, Dimitris Katsafouros of design studio We Are Pitch Black showcases two new tools included in Cinema 4D R14, the Camera Matching Tool and the Camera Morph Tool. Instead of having a dry explanation of what the tools do, a short tv ident will be used to keep things interesting.

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• Modeling a High Poly World War II Willys Jeep in Modo – Part 1

  This tutorial will teach you how to model a Willys Jeep from WWII in Modo 601. The tutorial is created for users new to modelling in Modo. It requires a basic knowledge in Viewport navigation and UI. We’ll first go through the planning stage, and then we’ll setup the blueprints and plan how we should separate the parts of the model.

  (Continue)

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• Create an Animation Walk Cycle in Blender using Rigify

  In our latest Blender tutorial from Karan Shah, you’ll learn how to generate a character rig using Blender’s Rigify add-on, and how to skin the character using weight painting for precise control over mesh deformation. Finally Karan will walk you through the process of creating an animation walk cycle using keyframing and the dopesheet.

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Aetuts+ — After Effects Tutorials

• Create A Realistic Handwritten “Write-on” Using Expressions

  In this tutorial we’ll take a look at using Time Remap to create a procedural animation based on the direction of a path. The goal is to make a Write-on animation look more natural by having the wrist angle change to mimic movements of real writing instead of it being completely static.

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• An Introduction To The RED Scarlet And Epic

  In today’s article we’ll be talking about what you need for a basic RED setup, and how much it will cost.

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• Getting An Edge On Understanding Premultiplication

  In this tutorial we’ll learn what premultiplication is, when we need to premultiply and unpremultiply, and how we can use this knowledge to solve matte processing issues. We’ll start from the very beginning so no prior compositing experience needed! Lets jump in.

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Audiotuts+ — Audio & Production Tutorials

• Masterful Reverb: Everything You Need to Know

  Reverb is an incredibly important effect that can add life to a track. How you use it is totally up to you. Reverb can be subtle or blatant, sound natural or add interesting flavors to the mix. Using it effectively takes skill and experience, and knowing the right techniques.

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• Reducing Mud In Your Electronic Productions

  Electronic music tends to have a very pronounced separation of frequencies: thumping bass, crisp highs and warm mids are what most producers are going for in electronic music. One of the main topics that comes up when I’m chatting about audio production with fellow producers is taming the lower and middle frequencies in a mix.

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• How to Use Convolution for Reverb & Effects

  In this tutorial we’re going to dive into the crazy world of impulse responses and convolution reverbs. You’re going to see how modern software reverbs are no longer just for simulating spaces, they can also be used for anything from speaker simulations and equalizers, to powerful sound design tools.

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Wptuts+ — WordPress Tutorials

• Displaying Posts in a Carousel

  Having a recent posts carousel on your blog is a great way to make it more interactive for your visitors.

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• Writing Extensible Plugins With Actions and Filters

  One of the many things you will find when investigating a good plugin developer’s source code are custom hooks and filters that the developer has placed throughout the plugin. The presence of these action hooks and filters make the plugin “extensible”, meaning that other plugins and themes can manipulate or add onto the behavior of the plugin.

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• WordPress 3.5 Beta 1 Wants You!

  WordPress 3.5 Beta 1 has just been released, and hopefully you're excited for all the new features that are nearly ready for the full release of WordPress 3.5. But first, we need your help!

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Mobiletuts+ — Mobile Development Tutorials

• A Developer Looks at iOS 6 and the iPhone 5

  The release of the iPhone 5 and iOS 6 has generated a lot of excitement, but the many new hardware and SDK changes can leave iOS developers feeling overwhelmed. This article will help you keep your skills up-to-date by providing a quick, high-level overview of the most important changes for iOS developers!
  

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• Android Virtual Device Creation

  A fundamental part of creating Android applications is running and testing them. Testing your code and app implementation on real devices is important, but emulating other scenarios and having the convenience, protection, and cost savings of not owning every Android device ever created keeps development realistic. Learn how to create Android Virtual Devices (AVDs) in this tutorial.
  

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• Build a Photo App with GPUImage

  This tutorial will teach you how to apply Instagram-like filters and special effects to images with the incredibly powerful GPUImage project. Along the way, you’ll learn how to build a simple camera application capable of either taking new photos or accessing existing images from the photo album.
  

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Gamedevtuts+ — Game Development

• Simulate Fabric and Ragdolls With Simple Verlet Integration

  Soft body dynamics is about simulating realistic deformable objects. We’ll use it here to simulate a curtain and a set of ragdolls that you can interact with and fling around the screen. It’ll be fast, stable, and simple enough to do with high school level mathematics.

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• How to Learn Flash and AS3 for Game Development

  Today, Adobe Flash is strongly geared towards game development. Besides browser-based game portals like Kongregate, Newgrounds, and Armor Games, games made with Flash can be found on desktop, mobile, and tablet (like Machinarium, Super Hexagon, and Wonderputt), as native apps. In this article, well share books, tutorials, and suggestions for learning Flash and its AS3 programming language as smoothly as possible.
  

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• Build a Neon Asteroids Shoot-’Em-Up From Scratch

  In this screencast tutorial, I’ll take you through the process of building an entire Asteroids game, from scratch, using the free GameSalad Creator tool. No previous programming or game development experience is required, and you can follow along whether you’re on Windows or OS X!

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Mactuts+ — Mac & OS X

• How to Launch Any App with a Keyboard Shortcut

  Today we’re going to rise up and face a challenge that was posed to me recently: how do I assign a keyboard shortcut to launch an app? There’s no obvious built-in functionality for achieving this, but with a little ingenuity we can pull it off with very little effort. Read on to find out how.

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• How to Clean Your MacBook Safely and Effectively

  My MacBook is probably the thing I use most in a day, and that might just be the case for you too. Through the excessive use of our MacBooks, the need to clean them regularly becomes more and more evident. In this article, we’re going to take a look at some techniques for cleaning your MacBook both safely and properly. id="more-4031">

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• Awesome Reader Submitted Mac Tips and Tricks

  When Mactuts+ first launched, we gave $1,000 to the person who submitted the best Mac Quick Tip screencast. Only one person could win (props to Joseph Darnell for snagging first place), but we received a ton of really good submissions. We’ve tossed them all onto YouTube and rounded them up for your enjoyment and education. Take a look, you’re sure to learn something cool!

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FreelanceSwitch — Freelance Jobs

• How To Make $5000+ a Month Building Websites Part-Time

  I had a problem. Two problems, actually. The first problem was that my wife and I needed to come up with just over $26,000 to meet our goal of getting out of debt in the next 3 1/2 months.
  That was a problem because I was making just enough at my day job to get by. Which leads to my second problem, time, or rather – the lack thereof. Between a full-time job and a family, the time I had left to work towards our goal was limited.

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• 5 Steps to Building Your Freelance Portfolio From Nothing

  We all know it’s tough to get a job without experience, and tough to get experience without a job. But you can break this cycle and start getting some samples. You really only need three or four to get started marketing your freelance services to paying prospects.

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• A Beginner’s Guide to Working Collaboratively with Fellow Freelancers

  As a freelancer yourself, working with other freelancers is a great way to support the freelancing community. Plus, we freelancers better understand each other, the difficulties we face in dealing with clients, and balancing life with work.

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