Tutorial Fest

[Gord.T]

Tutorial Fest



Create a tutorial covering a CGI concept or technique.




CGI in this case may be anything involved in producing a computer generated graphic.




Examples include but are not limited to:


2D and 3D project examples and techniques.

Photoshop techniques such as matte painting.

Programming language based graphic creation or any other software and techniques.

If your not sure if your tutorial idea will qualify just ask.


Due Dates:


The entry must be completed between March 24 2010 and 9pm Pacific Time April 19 2010. A little over 4 weeks.


Format:


The entry must be either a video or a pdf file, both no larger than 50mb.
Videos may or may not contain audio.
You may compress your video using h.264 if you like however the resolution probably won't be suitable for a tutorial.
I'd recommend converting videos to .swf files playable in an html format. I'll provide some tips in the next post.


Content:



All content must be licensed or royalty free.


Uploading:



Upload each entry in a .zip or .rar file ***

[Gord.T]

PDF files:

While there are specific pdf creation tools out there, photoshop can save in the pdf format as well.
And there are programs that can convert Word documents to pdf format although one I tried awhile back did not yield good results.
30 day trial versions may be something to look at also.


Video Files:
Any video capturing device is allowed but I would recommend using a screen capturing program.

Here's 2 I've tried...
Camstudio (http://camstudio.org/) is a free screen capturing program licensed under the GPU General Public License.

I downloaded it and tried it out today. Very easy to use. It creates an avi which can be converted to a .swf file
with it's accompaning .html file using the built in SWF Producer available from the 'Tools' menu.
I had to manually edit the html file afterwards as described in the link above which only took a few seconds.

I found after checking the file sizes that I could produce a 2 minute video,70% resolution, no sound,20fps,1271x715 at 5mb file size.
So a 10 minute video is possible. More if the frame rate or capture area is reduced, and less if audio is included.
I generally use a frame rate of 10fps but 20 is a bit smoother.

Another screen capturing program is Camtasia (http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp).
This is not a free program but they do provide a 30 day free trial version.

And google will provide more links.


post note:
I noticed when viewing the free Camstudio .swf produced 2 min test capture I did that the memory was progressively accumulating and leveled off at around 600MB of usage.
That isn't very good at all.

So I took the avi I created using Camstudio and imported it into Camtasia then rendered out another .swf with the frame rate set to automatic.
On playback the memory consumption was steady and used maybe 20mb or so. In other words it was very very smooth.
So if possible I'd highly recommend using Camtasia or other software to produce the final swf file.
Unless I did something drastically wrong with Camstudio while rendering the swf file.

[Gord.T]

For those that may not be submitting but would like a tutorial examining a specific subject, now is a good time to ask.
Maybe someone will make one up for you.