Holiday Event 2013: Tutorial Week & 12 Days of Christmas

[Samantha]

Happy holidays, everyone! We're going to celebrate this year by sharing our knowledge with each other!

This is an event that I've long talked about hosting around here, in order to encourage more people to try their hands at CC-creating. We going to have a "Tutorial Week" (December 14 – December 24) followed by a "12 Days of Christmas Gift Exchange" (December 25 – January 5), during which participants volunteer to create tutorials for the CC that they know how to make so that other members can create and share gifts.

Tutorial Week

There are many creation tutorials out there. The point of this event is to make it accessible to anyone and everybody, so if you're creating a tutorial, it's better to assume that the reader is a beginner—completely clueless—and to be as thorough as possible. As a reader, if you're unsure about something, ask! The end goal is that every person walks away with a new and applicable skill that they didn't know before, and to use that skill to create a gift to share with the forum.

To volunteer to create a tutorial:

Please provide a list of your skills as a creator (e.g. "I can retexture hair, recolor objects...") so that others can request a tutorial, if they so wish. But if you know specifically that there is a type of CC that you'd like to create a tutorial for, then you can certainly volunteer to do that straightaway.

To request a tutorial:

If you don't know how to create anything, or if you're not yet confident enough in your abilities to offer your insight, then you can request that a specific tutorial be made. Either skim the lists of other creators' skills or make an explicit request. Feel free also to request a tutorial even if you plan to make one on a different topic!

Rules & Guidelines:

• The next two weeks—up until the 14th—will be used for signups and requests, and to give creators enough time to get started on their tutorials. The tutorials can be posted anytime within the ten-day span of the dates above, as a thread in this board.
• Content can be from The Sims 2 or The Sims 3. Please make sure to specify which game you can create for or that you're requesting for.
• Tutorials can be either videos or pictures and text.
• You can volunteer to create more than one tutorial, if you wish.
• Remember, also, that you can both volunteer to create a tutorial and request that one be made. Additionally, it's also okay if you can only do one or the other (but surely everybody has something to request!).

12 Days of Christmas

The 12 Days are the time for you guys to put to use the skills learned from Tutorial Week. We'll be creating gifts to be shared communally. More information will be posted about this once we get closer to December 25th.

Any questions or concerns? Feel free to ask below.

Signups

You can sign up for this event by posting below with your tutorial volunteers and/or requests. You will then be added to the following list(s).

Tutorial requests:
Object recoloring
Photo-skinning clothing
Blending skin tones
Clothing meshing (swapping tops/bottoms)

Volunteered tutorials:
Laura - Making Objects Recolors with SimPE
Caitlin -
Samantha - Photoskinning Clothing - A Tutorial


Edit:

The 12 Days of Christmas gift-sharing thread is located here!

[Laura]

Wow! This sounds like great craic. Count me in.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Everything mentioned below applies to TS2 only.}


Tutorials:

• I'm happy to make a tutorial (though my skills are limited) if someone requests one, within my range of knowledge.
  

CC Making/Skills:

• I can make CC. Recolouring Buy Mode objects is sort of my thing, but I'll happily attempt anything (bar hair retexturing/anything that requires meshing).
• I like also to make lots. I'm no great shakes at it, but I can build things other than shoeboxes, and I'm also not the worst decorator when it comes to interiors.
• Sim-making is something I enjoy.
  
• I have a basic handle on SimPe. I know how to tweak things, such as family trees, changing LTWs and editing Sim DNA. I can also edit the genetic value of eyes/skintones (that is to say, towniefying/geneticising).
• Finally, I'm alright at photographing things in game too. I'd happily make a basic 'take good Sims 2 pictures' tutorial, if I have the time (I should, within the specified time span).
  

This sounds like a brilliant event to host. Great idea Samantha!

[Caitlin]

EDIT: I forgot to mention that all of the information below only applies to TS2, but I am hoping once I have a computer that can run TS3 I'll be able to learn how to create for that game as well.

Tutorials: I'm open to making a tutorial within my abilities, so feel free to request them.

CC Abilities/Skills: I can geneticize and townify skins, eyes, and clothing. I can retexture and bin hairs. I can shoe-swap meshes and mesh outfits (like, take a sweater and throw it onto a new mesh) and make a full outfit into a top-only/bottom-only outfit. I can recolour objects, eyes, and clothing.

Requests: I'd love it if you made an object recolour tutorial Laura. I loved your Pokemon objects.

[Samantha]

For The Sims 2:

Abilities: I can make a tutorial for anything within my skills. I'm best a photo-skinning clothing and retexturing hair (gradients, too). I can recolor things by hand, like eyes and makeup (meaning, I've never really used actions on anything but hair), and also default/geneticize/townify skins and eyes (but it seems that a lot of people here already know how to do that). So, yeah. I'm most keen on either doing a photo-skinned clothing or hair retexturing tutorial, if anybody would like one of those in specific.

Requests: I'd love to learn how to blend skin tones, if anybody knows how to do that. Caitlin, would your clothing meshing skills include, say, swapping a new shirt/new skirt onto a full-body outfit? I tried to learn how to do that this summer using the shoe-swap method, but it didn't exactly work out...

[Laura]

Dec 2, 2013 13:08:27 GMT -5 Caitlin said:

Requests: I'd love it if you made an object recolour tutorial Laura. I loved your Pokemon objects.

I'm happy to oblige! Might be an excuse to make more Pokémon memorabilia for my sims game. *cough*

Dec 4, 2013 15:56:48 GMT -5 Samantha said:

Requests: Caitlin, would your clothing meshing skills include, say, swapping a new shirt/new skirt onto a full-body outfit? I tried to learn how to do that this summer using the shoe-swap method, but it didn't exactly work out...

I'd love this too! In fact, I'd love a tutorial on making anything within Bodyshop, beyond the basic 'this is how you make a project' thing. I know in theory how to; I don't know how to make anything that's not crap.

If either of you guys could make a sort-of intermediate level clothing texturing/photoskinning tutorial, that would be cool.

[Caitlin]

Dec 4, 2013 15:56:48 GMT -5 Samantha said:

I'm most keen on either doing a photo-skinned clothing or hair retexturing tutorial, if anybody would like one of those in specific.

I would LOVE if you made a photo-skinned clothing tutorial, Samantha. I absolutely love all of the clothes you make, and have always wondered how you've done it.

Dec 4, 2013 15:56:48 GMT -5 Samantha said:

I'd love to learn how to blend skin tones, if anybody knows how to do that.

If no one else knows how to do this tutorial for you, just wanted to mention that there is a tutorial at GoS here if you hadn't noticed it. I've never actually used it/tried it out though.

Dec 4, 2013 15:56:48 GMT -5 Samantha said:

Caitlin, would your clothing meshing skills include, say, swapping a new shirt/new skirt onto a full-body outfit? I tried to learn how to do that this summer using the shoe-swap method, but it didn't exactly work out...

Here is an example of what I can do, since it is easier for me to explain via pictures rather than words.

I did this as a request from someone over at GoS in the Wishing Tree. I stole the sweater mesh from here, jeans from over here, and boots from over here. Then I combined them all together and made them into a full outfit body mesh. If I wanted to make that sweater top-only or the jeans bottom-only, I also know how to do those as well. I don't actually know how to make brand new meshes, sadly. I basically figured out how to do this from first doing the shoe-swapping idea, so it would probably be a better idea to throw that tutorial out there for beginners first. I originally used a tutorial over from GoS to learn, but I did get a little confused at certain parts because I find they forgot to mention you have to have certain plugins and what-not.

Dec 4, 2013 17:29:49 GMT -5 Laura said:

I'm happy to oblige! Might be an excuse to make more Pokémon memorabilia for my sims game. *cough*

If you do, be sure to share them with the rest of us! The more Pokemon memorabilia, the better!

[Samantha]

Okay, I'll do a photo-skinning tutorial then. (And, yeah, Laura, I agree: most of the tutorials for Body Shop out there are crap, really. So basic that you don't learn how to do much of anything decent. I've learning most things just from fooling around with it.)

That's not exactly what I had in mind, Caitlin, but I wouldn't mind learning how to do that, either. Don't feel pressured to the tutorial on my account, but if you don't get any other requests and have the time, I'd appreciate it. (And I do know how to shoe-swap, don't know if that matters).

[Samantha]

It's December 15th, which means that tutorials can start being posted, whenever they're finished up. Caitlin, did you decide for sure which tutorial you want to do? So far we have Laura doing object recoloring and myself doing photoskinning.

Anybody else interested in signing up? It's not too late! Remember that all tutorials should be posted by December 24th.

[Laura]

I actually just sped-tutorial'ed there, because for some reason, I thought the deadline for posting tutorials was sooner?

No harm done, mind! Since I'm done with mine early, I'll happily make a second tutorial, or a follow up to this one, if anyone has further questions.

I'll post it as a new thread Samantha, no problem. Sorry!

[Samantha]

^ The deadline for posting tutorials is December 14th - December 24th. That hasn't changed. The event was announced on December 1st to give people time to make their tutorials before the posting period.

Oh, cool, you got that done really quickly. But would you mind too terribly posting your tutorial as a new thread instead of as a reply, in this board? I just realized I forgot to link to that in the main post, so I apologize for the inconvenience!

[Samantha]

I'm a bit late with my tutorial (I apologize!) but I will for sure have mine up within the next day. It's very close to being finished.