Software: Page 55

This Houdini 10 user's guide offers a look at how CHOPs can be used to replicate animation from one object to many, or more precisely to vary that animation. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look.

Barack Obama is one of the most powerful, divisive, and above all important men in the world. His logo, largely unseen since his election in 2008, was a monument to simple, effective graphic design. Now you can recreate the iconic logo in Inkscape (the popular free vector graphics drawing program) after watching this video. Not only will you have your own replica of the logo to use however you like, you'll also learn the basics of Inkscape, allowing you to draw all sorts of things.

This clip demonstrates how to create a caustic lighting effect using Houdini's Mantra PBR rendering engine. The first part starts with a refresher on refraction. More generally, guide looks at setting up normals correctly, then at the glass shader in Houdini, faux caustics and shadows, and using an environment light in PBR to generate 'background' reflections. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better...

This tripartite tutorial series presents an in-depth look at how to use volumes in Houdini 10 — creating them using the volume and IsoOffset SOPs, and adjusting their values. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look.

This three-part tutorial offers an overview of the the basics of Houdini CHOPS, providing two examples of music driven animation. The first part looks at how to bring data into a CHOPS network, and export it using lag as an example.

The iMac may not the sexy new little darling of the Apple lineup that it was when it came out in the 90's, but it is still a very effective computing option for those that want Apple features without spending Apple money. This video will teach you how to draw the iconic iMac desktop icon using Flash CS3.

If you use Photoshop for work or regularly for fun, there are repetitive tasks that have probably made you want to throw your fancy monitor out the window to vent your boredom. Fortunately, there's help. This video will teach you how to create actions for batch processing in Photoshop CS4, allowing you to automate processes that you repeat regularly and saving you time and the money you would have spent on a new monitor.

This clip offers an introduction to using attributes and local variables in Houdini. It covers vertices (vertexes), points, primitives and details. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look.

Glossy buttons are the preferred type of button to use on websites for links. If you're here, chances are you're wondering how to make them yourself. You've come to the right place. This video will teach you how to quickly and easily create glossy buttons for your website using Photoshop CS4. Give your links some flair!

This clip covers how to enable motion blur in Houdini, the difference between standard and deformation blur, motion blurring dynamics simulations, motion blur quality settings. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look.

Importing custom brushes and patterns into Photoshop is not too complicated, you can probably handle that already. But what if you want to create your own? This video will teach you how to create your own custom brushes and patterns within Photoshop, which you can then use yourself or make available to others on the web. The former will save you lots of time when you find yourself making the same pattern over and over again because you can make a brush that will draw it automatically. How handy!

This four-part guide presents an introduction to physically-based rendering in Houdini 10, covering what PBR will and won't do for you, sampling settings, environment lighting, objects as lights, shaders, issues with specular highlights. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information,...

This clip presents a look at one of the basics of Houdini: Polygons - point, vertex and primitive data, smoothing and faceting, subdivision, removing inline points, orienting polygons and making polygons planar. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions,...

A tutorial covering a classic rigid body simulation of ball crashing through a wall of bricks. The first two parts cover building a (procedural) brick wall, and the final two parts cover converting it into a RBD simulation. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed...

Depending on what your website is for, you may or may not care about allowing your users to download files from you. If hosting downloadable content sounds like something you want to do, watch this video! It will teach you how to allow your users to download files from your website using Dreamweaver. It's not very hard, and your users will probably be thankful that they don't have to go on the web every time they want to access your content.

This quick tutorial demonstrates how to create object trails in Houdini, and then add a turbulence effect to them. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look.

This clip presents a quick lesson on how to render a scene using depth of field (DoF) in Houdini 10. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look.

This clip presents a quick tutorial on using global illumination in Houdini's Mantra renderer. It covers ambient occlusion, full irradiance, path tracing and photon mapping. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look.

This clip discusses the use of bundles in Houdini. Bundles serve similar purposes to groups of objects and layers in other applications. Whether you're new to Side Effects Software's popular 3D production program or a seasoned graphic artist just interested in better acquainting yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this free video tutorial. For more information, including detailed instructions, take a look.

The Twitter bird, along with the Tux the Linux Penguin, is among the most popular of online animal logos. Not happy with the version that Twitter uses? Create your own twitty bird! This two-part video will show you how to draw the Twitter bird in Adobe Photoshop CS4. Now you can have a Twitter logo as large as you like, or make modifications to it like giving him a worm in his mouth or something. Whatever you want!

This clip presents detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to create an organic surface with a Metaball Object in Cinema 4D. Whether you're new to MAXON's popular 3D modeling application or are just looking to get better acquainted with Cinema 4D and its various features and functions, you're sure to enjoy this free video software tutorial. For more information, and to get started using this effect in your own bio surfaces, watch this 3D modeler's guide.

U.K. department store Debenhams has pulled back the curtain on the reality behind swimsuit modeling. As expected, the standard model goes through quite a bit of "Photoshop magic".

This clip provides detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to texture a head with projection painting when working in Blender. Whether you're new to the Blender Foundation's popular open-source 3D computer graphics application or are a seasoned digital artist merely on the lookout for new tips and tricks, you're sure to be well served by this free video software tutorial. For more information, and to get started texturing modeled heads yourself, take a look!

This clip provides detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to link libraries in Blender. Whether you're new to the Blender Foundation's popular open-source 3D computer graphics application or are a seasoned digital artist merely on the lookout for new tips and tricks, you're sure to be well served by this free video software tutorial. For more information, and to get started linking libraries yourself, take a look!

This clip provides detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to model and render daylight volumetric clouds when working in Blender. Whether you're new to the Blender Foundation's popular open-source 3D computer graphics application or are a seasoned digital artist merely on the lookout for new tips and tricks, you're sure to be well served by this free video software tutorial. For more information, and to get started rendering volumetric clouds yourself, take a look!

New to Microsoft Excel? Looking for a tip? How about a tip so mind-blowingly useful as to qualify as a magic trick? You're in luck. In this MS Excel tutorial from ExcelIsFun, the 629th installment in their series of digital spreadsheet magic tricks, you'll learn how to use the VLOOKUP, MATCH, DATEDIF, SUMIF, SUMPRODUCT and INT functions to look up salary based the number of relevant years worked.

New to Microsoft Excel? Looking for a tip? How about a tip so mind-blowingly useful as to qualify as a magic trick? You're in luck. In this MS Excel tutorial from ExcelIsFun, the 631st installment in their series of digital spreadsheet magic tricks, you'll learn how to add conditional formatting to a transactional record when the date is 90 days past due using the TODAY function and mixed cell references in a logical TRUE-FALSE formula.

New to Microsoft Excel? Looking for a tip? How about a tip so mind-blowingly useful as to qualify as a magic trick? You're in luck. In this MS Excel tutorial from ExcelIsFun, the 632nd installment in their series of digital spreadsheet magic tricks, you'll learn how to create a formula using the SUMPRODUCT and YEAR function to count instances of the year 2009 or 2010 from a list of dates with different years.

Photoshop is the photo-editing software of choice for just about everyone these days. It is very complex; but you're in luck! We have many videos here on site dealing with how to use Photoshop's many functions. This video will teach you how to display a picture inside of text by using masking. The effect is very cool, and sure to zest up your website or film.

Flash CS4 is an incredibly powerful tool for creating all sorts of animated content like games, movies, and websites. This series of videos is meant as a introduction to some of the many tools available to the Flash CS4 user. It moves slowly, is very easy-to-follow, and after watching you should be much better prepared to use this powerful software.

New to Microsoft Excel? Looking for a tip? How about a tip so mind-blowingly useful as to qualify as a magic trick? You're in luck. In this MS Excel tutorial from ExcelIsFun, the 634th installment in their series of digital spreadsheet magic tricks, you'll learn how to build logical formulas for counting with criteria or conditional formatting so that the comparison is between text and text or numbers and numbers. Text-to-number comparisons (e.g., 2003 to "2003") do not yield matches. Learn how...

Creating a website from scratch is one of the most productive and most challenging things that you can do on a computer, whether the site promotes your own services and interests or you're being paid to make it for someone else. This nine-part video will walk you through the entire process of making a website using Flash CS4. It is very complete, and if you have the patience to watch all nine parts you should be well on your way to creating a really cool, high-traffic site.

This clip presents detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to create level templates within Blender. Whether you're new to the Blender Foundation's popular open-source 3D computer graphics application or are a seasoned digital artist merely on the lookout for new tips and tricks, you're sure to be well served by this free video software tutorial. For more information, and to get started making your wn custom level templates, take a look!

Creating animation in Flash CS4 is the most fundamental thing that you can do using this powerful software. It is also quite confusing to the uninitiated. This video will introduce you to the basics of creating animations in Flash by demonstrating the construction of a small flying line. Very basic, but if you just got Flash CS4 and are a little mystified by what to do next, watch this video!

Creating cool animations is the bread and butter of Flash. This video will help you get started making them yourself for your website, video game, or movie. It explains how to animate objects, making them move around however you wish and form the basis of your animation. No source files needed, just make some circles and get started!

This timelapse video shows how to start a simple model in Blender 3D and set up a render in LuxRender. The video also demonstrates how to create a daylight simulation and set up UV Maps in LuxRender. Whether you're new to the Blender Foundation's popular open-source 3D computer graphics application or are a seasoned digital artist merely on the lookout for new tips and tricks, you're sure to be well served by this free video software tutorial. For more information, including step-by-step...

Virtual cameras enable you to add all sorts of cool effects to your animations by making it seem like they were filmed with a camera that could move and focus. This video will show you where to acquire and how to use the vcam software plugin for Flash CS4 to create all of the aforementioned effects and more! This can also be useful for video games.

Learn how to create animation rigs for creating 3D animations in Blender 2.5. Whether you're new to the Blender Foundation's popular open-source 3D computer graphics application or are a seasoned digital artist merely on the lookout for new tips and tricks, you're sure to be well served by this free video software tutorial. For more information, including step-by-step instructions, take a look!

This clip presents a simple trick on how to do masks in the compositing editor, good for color grading and vignetting, not so much for the rest. Whether you're new to the Blender Foundation's popular open-source 3D computer graphics application or are a seasoned digital artist merely on the lookout for new tips and tricks, you're sure to be well served by this free video software tutorial. For more information, including step-by-step instructions, take a look!

This clip presents detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to texture 3D objects with projection painting in Blender 2.5. Whether you're new to the Blender Foundation's popular open-source 3D computer graphics application or are a seasoned digital artist merely on the lookout for new tips and tricks, you're sure to be well served by this free video software tutorial. For more information, including step-by-step instructions, take a look!