Categories: Tutorials, Blender, Gimp, HTML, OpenOffice, Podcasting
06/02/2010
Free eBook: Introduction to PHP5
As you may know already, I offer eLearning courses about web development on my site lernpilot.de where I sell interactive courses like HTML, PHP and MySQL. These courses have been sold quite good within the last years but I never could sell them in English for whatever reason. So I decided to make the English version of my PHP course a free eBook instead (because it's already translated in English and would be a pity to throw it away).
=> Read more! (Free eBook: Introduction to PHP5)
Categories: 
04/25/2010
3D book cover made with blender
As I have announced in my last post, I prepared a blender template for version 2.49 or 2.49b to be used for everybody who wants to create their own fancy 3D book covers.
=> Read more! (3D book cover made with blender)
04/20/2010
Fancy 3D eBook Cover (Workflow in progress - final)
I know that I was lazy these days with the creation of background music for my video tutorial. But now, after I got all important work off my desk, I could finish the 3D eBook cover video for Gimp that I have shown you here and here and as a raw cut here.
You can now watch it on mindbites.com for a small fee of $2.97.
04/06/2010
Fancy 3D eBook Cover (Workflow in progress 4)
Over Easter I did not do much productive work.
Today I added my voice over from the original script to the tutorial. What I now need as a final touch is a background music loop.
Here is another version of the raw cut with voice over:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z5LcGbTAGw
03/29/2010
Fancy 3D eBook Cover (Workflow in progress 3)
Today I spent a few hours on the raw cut. You can find the first raw version on youTube. Next step will be the voice over and I also need to adjust some timing in the video.
03/26/2010
Fancy 3D eBook Cover (Workflow in progress 2)
Video is now recorded. I now need to cut the video.
Until this is finished, here you can watch some screenshots as a slideshow
03/25/2010
Fancy 3D eBook Cover (Workflow in progress)
In my post yesterday, I announced a Gimp tutorial on how to make a fancy 3D e-Book cover. Some people even sell these types of tutorials on the internet, so I decided to let my readers participate in the workflow on how I usually create these tutorial videos.
First of all, I had to find out how it works. After that, I did it at least three or four times to make sure I got all the necessary steps of the process right. After that, I made a step-by-step instruction text that I will use for my voice-over on the video.
Here is this step-by-step description so far:
- Create a new image 300 x 400 pixel
- add a layer make it 300 x 400 pixel and name it "front". This is the front of your book
- fill the front layer with a color, then add some text to it
- merge text layers down to the front layer
- you can make the front layer invisible now
- add a layer make it 120 x 400 pixel and name it "spine", this is the spine - or back of your book
- fill with color, then add some text and rotate the text -90 degree.
- merge text layers down to spine lawer
- make spine layer invisible
- add a layer, make it 300 x 100 and name it "paper", this is the top paper edge of your book
- fill with white, then use the noise filter to add black pixels
- RGB Noise, turn off independent RGB, slider to 0.5
- use motion blur filter to give it the paper structure
- Blur Type Linear, Length: 20, Angle: 0
- use bump map filter to give it a mor 3D like structure
- Bump map: paper, map Type: liniear, compensate for darkening, Azimuth 190, Elevation 45, Depth: 3. other values: 0
- add a transparent layer, make it 300 x 400 pixel and name it "empty".
- make all layers invisible except the front layer
- resize the canvas to 300 x 800 pixel
- duplicate the front layer
- flip the front layer
- place two guides, one horizontal at 400, one vertical at 0
- move the flipped front layer down, it should snap to guides (if not, use View - Snap to Guides)
- add a layer mask to the flipped front layer, initialize with white (full opacity)
- draw a black/white gradient into the layer mask for the mirror effect
- change the layer opacity to 70
- merge down the mirror front with the front layer
- repeat these steps with the spine layer
- when finished, make the background layer the active layer
- choose Layer - Layer to image size (so the layer will be 300 x 800 pixel)
- use Filter - Map - map Object to map the layers to a box
- Map to: Box, transparent background, create new image
- map images to Box Faces: Front: front layer, Back: empty layer, Top: paper layer, Bottom: empty layer, left: empty layer, right: spine layer, change scale x to 0.4 and scale z to 0.2
- use "show preview wireframe to control rotation
- in "orientation" set Rotation x to 20, Rotation y to -25
- Click "ok" to create the image (this may take a while)
- draw a path around the upper box (above the reflection)
- select - select from path
- use filter - perspective shadow: Angle: 145, Relative distance: 5.0, length 1.0, blur radius: 20, opacity 80, allow resizing
- cut out the part of the picture you want to use
Next step will be to create a screen capture using this step-by-step script.
Stay tuned
03/24/2010
Creating a fancy 3D eBook cover with Gimp
I often asked myself how to create a fancy 3D Book cover like this one:
I now found out how to do this and I am now working on a video tutorial to explain how you can create fancy 3D book covers like this with Gimp.
Stay tuned.
03/23/2010
New free Gimp course starts April 5
I’m offering a new free Gimp course that will start on April 5th and runs 4 weeks. Check my entry at secondpresentation.com for details.
03/01/2010
Looking for participating students
Rent-a-tutor is still offering free courses on my Moodle site (see this article for details).
Since my first offer, there was not much response. Most people who requested a free course on Gimp did not log in to the Moodle course or did not participate actively in the course. I'm offering stuff that I usually sell for money on mindbites.com, so what I would like to have are students who are willing to participate actively in the courses.
I have also enabled my Moodle site with the opportunity to request a course (you need to create a free account on the Moodle site first), so if you would like to participate in an interactive learning environment, please fell free to suggest a topic that you would like to learn.
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