Why not a new Forum called Tutorials?

To this Forum you can send your tutorials and/or links to tutorials on the web.
And it will be easy to find tutorials on different subjects knowing where to search for tutorials.

A:M is an easy program mostly - but sometimes there are a lot to explain.

Text and Images are good - but being able to show some more action - it will be easier to explan and understand. There is a free program called WINK you can use to make a little more Action Tutorials with Screen Capturing. Download it from here to test it:
http://www.debugmode.com/wink/

Thanks to Emilio Le Roux I discovered the program.
He has done a great tutorial with WINK:
http://www.moscafilms.com.br/emilioleroux/...spherizecat.htm

With WINK you can make FLASH-tutorials, HTM-tutorials and PDF-tutorials. And the program is FREE!

And it is EASY to use. Download it, install it, start it and go to Help on the menu to choose:
View Tutorial Project 1
A HTM-file and a SWF(Flash)-file is created and you can learn the program in a quarter of an hour. And creating something it is just to click the Pause-Key to take Screen Shoots of what you are doing in A:M. Then ready you have to insert some text to explain what you have done. That is all!

Perhaps using this program - we can begin to explain - how to do it yourself - to each other a little better. I have made a try. Not perfect. But a try.

It is about Smart Skinning in A:M. Because you cannot upload files to this Forum you have to fetch the ZIP-file from this topic discussing WINK:
http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...t=0&#entry98840

the current official place for tutes is http://www.lowrestv.com/arm/

the forum would be a good place to let the community know about a tute, but it's not really a good place to keep zip files.

wink sounds an awful like techstudio's camtasia. if i'm not mistaken, thats how hash makes their video tutes.

but as long as it creates an easily viewable movie, then it sounds like a great option!

-jon

I've got ULEAD video studio(it came with my video capture device) and it does desktop capture too.

Desktop video capture is perfect for tutorials, it takes so much less time to prepare one than to prepare a text-based one..... I'm also thinking of learning powerpoint, also, since it got magically installed the last time I brought my computer to the shop for repair...

Now I just need to be proficient enough with A:M to write some tutorials!

Brainmuffin: do you know if Ulead MediaStudio Pro can screen capture also?

How does video studio do this?

The tutorial forum sounds like a good idea. I would say that the ARM site is pretty good for actually containing and sorting tutorials while the Hash Inc. Forum is good for discussing those tutorials. Reduces redundancy while getting things accomplished in an orderly fashion.

What I would like to see is an online video that introduces the Hash Inc. online community, in depth. This means having a big bold link on the main page of www.hash.com to a video gives a tour of that website, this forum, A:M films, A:M stills, the contests sponsored by Hash Inc. and the ARM. Perhaps the video tour could also point out that there are tens of thousands of Hash A:M users, some of who have websites with more cool video's and useful info to look at.

I do wonder if that might serve to side-step what seems to happen to a lot of newbies, myself included when I first started out, which is the feeling of being overwhelmed by the scope of what's available to them. Hopefully this would help them to avoid asking questions that have obvious answers but are not obvious to a newbie because all of this is... well... new, to them.

This might serve to alleviate some of the stress induced by someone settling into the online community.

I know, a flyer could be sent with each new purchase of Hash A:M. This flyer would be on orange florescent paper and marked with the title, "Please Read Me First"..... or something. The info on the flyer could, among other things, direct the new user to the Tour Video. Perhaps the video could even be included on the installation CD. Then, the first time Hash A:M is started, the user could be invited to watch the tour video.

I am aware that there's a demo video of the software. That one is good. It's simply that it might help to also have one that introduces the newbie in a friendly manner to what is available to them besides just the program itself.

There is a tutorial section in AM Films that isn't populated yet...actually, I think there is one tutorial in it at the moment. I'm hoping that when I get a video tutorial done that Hash will let me post it there, I haven't asked yet though. As soon as I finish the one I'm working on I'll e-mail Hash.

Seven (is that because you have seven logins?),

The easiest way to promote Wink tutorials would be to *make* Wink tutorials.

Get to it! Then others are sure to follow.
The tutorials you create need not be complicated.
They could be basic... model this... lathe that... learn.

FWIW: One of the reasons I'm not a big fan of Wink and SWF tutorials is that I can't cut them to pieces on my end and add them into my personal library as I'd like... but that is a minor quibble. Any tutorial that illustrates proper usage of animation tools is fine by me.

Spending as much time in the New Users Forum as I do I have a soft spot for the basics; things that many A:M Users would think were just too darn simple.

- Basic Spline Modeling*
- Applying a Rig*
- Lathing*
- Font Wizard **
- Duplicator Plugin **
- Basic Expressions **
- Basic Materials ***
- Basic Constraints (i.e. Path, Orient Like, Translate, etc)*
etc.

* The Art of Animation:Master Video Tutorials cover these
** Tech Talk video exists
*** Forum area exists

Mr. 7,
I finished looking at both your tutorials and have to say... well done.
It looks like I owe you 2 tutorials now.

Decisions... Decisions... all the things I like to do most are so obscure...

Sorry Mr. 7... must have mistaken you for someone else.

My first test... very ugly and basic... is finished.

Lets see how it links:

Custom Tools Menu Tutorial

That was really nice!
And I believe it was really, really instructive! And so much better than just telling it with words and just one or two images.
How long did it take you? Half an hour?

I like the yellow signs best. The grey backgrounds are so grey...

One thing I do not understand - why are the text on the menus in A:M so small?
It is hard to read the text...
Have you scaled it down by writing some new values in the .htm-file?
That is not good.

Before starting WINK you have to resize A:M!!!
You are just a newbie on WINK I believe...

Next tutorial - do not make the same misssstaaake!
Just remembering to scale A:M down before you begin,
because scaling it down by writing new values in the .htm-file
will make it hard to read and a lot of unnessary bytes to download.
But I believe in you and everyone else... we are all new beginners sometime.
The next time we are masters all of us... and in a Tutorial Forum it is easy to tell everyone what to think of...

Show Martin this and he will be glad! I believe... and you too I believe...
And the Tutorials Forum can be up next week!

And hopefully so many small and big tutorial contributions can be made.... fast and easy with WINK. And so many more will understand the possibilities in A:M!

Well... I did say it was ugly.

Obviously if I plan on continuing with mini-tutorials I'll have to make them a little bit prettier and standardize some fonts and add a little style.

I redid the tutorial about 3 times from scratch in about 45 minutes... each time finding it easier to start from scratch rather than edit what I had... I learned a lot.

You guessed right on the scaling... I scaled the image down 80%.
For an update on this tutorial I will show only the menus as the whole A:M screen is unnecessary. That will make it easier to read.

As far as scaling in the HTML... WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU TALKIN' BOUT! I didn't do that... Wink has a setting to scale the whole thing down.

...and as far as Martin liking these little tutorials... Lord I hope not! Like I have free time as it is...

I have contacted Martin - and I think he is positive to a new Tutorials Forum.
We will wait and see...

I have made a tutorial on WINK
just a .jpg-image with the eleven steps needed to do a WINK tutorial.

The tutorial image is here:
http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...t=0&#entry99372

And here is the two WINK tutorials I have made so far:

Smart Skinning in A:M
http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?act=A...e=post&id=99374

Fan Bones in A:M
http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?act=A...e=post&id=99375

Since we are on the subject of Wink it might be good to point out that the creators of Wink also put out some other graphics programs of interest.

WAX (a movie editor)
WINMORPH (morph images from one to another)
and more...

I've used both WINMORPH (Long time ago) and WAX (More recently) and thought they were quite useful.

http://www.debugmode.com

Hard to beat the price (free) and usage is free for personal and commerical use.
Distribution of the programs require consent of the creator.

I have seen tuts done with this wink program and I find it very easy to follow and understand; it has a nice clean professional style... Def something I would use for a few tuts am working on....

thanks for the links and surggestions seven.....

I have to say this is a good idea after seeing a couple of them. It lends itself well to tutorials. I'd like to see more of them made. This would be good for some of those tougher topics like rigging too where you could actually see what is happening.

Rodney now you have got three WINK tutorials on yours USEFUL LINKS:
http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...indpost&p=99372
The third about modeling, rigging and animating a wheel in a simple manner.
Perhaps someone will make a tutorial on rotating it wiht Euler instead. There is already one on it - but is over 1 MB...

Still I am hoping on a new Tutorials Forum. I hope Martin likes the idea and it can be up in next week. The moderator of the forum, who?

Now there are four WINK tutorials. The new one about seamless patterns.
http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...t=0&#entry99372

One more WINK tutorial on images with alpha channel to use as Decals and Layers.
The tutorial is in two parts. You will find them here:
http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...indpost&p=99972

Mr 7, If you get a vote on what tutorials people would want, I'd help with making some of them. As soon as I learn how to use Wink. I seem to remember a while ago someone setting up a site to make tutorials on. He didn't seem to get many entrys. Maybe he might contribute on this.

Ah...thanks for the link. I think I have it now. I'm sure there must be WINK tutorials on how to use WINK somewhere.

KenH, I saw your new Flash tutorial - not many bytes do download - just 150 kB to learn something - many has had questions about - me too - stopping a character following the path for some frames. Here it is:
http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...indpost&p=99606

KenH - one more WINK tutorial and this is really a good one!
explaining things I never had figured out where to find some help on...
Action Transitions!


http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...ndpost&p=100107

Thanks Rodney and Martin for the new Software Tutorial Forum!