Courses
In this course, author Tim Slavin shows how to design and code an HTML email newsletter, including setting the final dimensions and color palette, placing images and copy in the code structures of the file, and defining the newsletter's parameters with tables within tables. The course demonstrates each step of building an HTML newsletter, up to testing and sending the email.
This course presents the WordPress Multisite feature, which allows web site designers and administrators to create a network of sites and blogs from a single installation of WordPress. Author Justin Seeley covers installing the network components, configuring their web server/hosting environment, using the Multisite Network Administration panel, managing users, and backing up, migrating, and restoring a multisite installation.
Learn to create and animate highly controllable characters using After Effects. In this course, author George Maestri covers every step on the way, from designing the characters in Photoshop or Illustrator, or drawing them straight from After Effects; assembling characters with hierarchies; making realistic deformations with the Puppet tool; automating rigs with expressions; creating realistic head turns; and showing advanced techniques such as using null objects as bones. Finally, the course shows how to perform a basic animation with the character and ensure the rig works correctly.
In Creating Dynamic Menus, instructor Bill Weinman explores the skills and techniques necessary for developing interactive menu structures for the web. After reviewing a number of examples from the real world, Bill defines the prerequisites and components needed to build dynamic structures for the web, including XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript. He works through the construction of everything from a simple, unordered list in XHTML to a robust menu with CSS. He also covers placement and formatting, and shows how to use visibility and opacity to create a more polished look for a final menu. Exercise files accompany this course.
This course is a practical guide to constructing 3D buildings that can be used to populate video game environments. Author Adam Crespi starts with a gas station taken from a photograph—retrieving measurements and dimensions with modular blocking and planning techniques in Adobe Photoshop—and then re-creates the building in Maya with polygonal modeling and advanced texturing techniques. The course shows how to model elements such as walls, doors, and roofs, including stacking UVs on a texture sheet, and also sheds light on simulating real-world details like dirt, wear, and grime, using ambient occlusion and normal baking in a high- to low-poly workflow. The final chapter shows how to export the model to the Unity gaming engine for final cleanup and rendering.
Infographics provide a unique way to visualize your data and trace the story behind it. Join author Mordy Golding in this course as he introduces you to designing charts, graphs, and other infographics in Adobe Illustrator. Mordy reveals five key components to a great information design, and shows how to determine which of the types of graphs available in Illustrator is right for your data. The final chapter takes you step-by-step through the creation of an infographic about renewable energy, using charts, tables, patterns, and text. Plus, Mordy demonstrates how to maximize your export options by creating a file with multiple layers and artboards.
Where would we be without the games? Angry Birds, Cut The Rope, Peggle? Each one is as unique as they come, but they're tied together to one simple principle: Cocos2d can make them. Cocos2d is the leading, open-source, royalty-free smartphone game engine. It's easy to use, community-supported, reliable, mature, and over 1500 mobile iOS games have been published using it!
modo has found a strong niche in creating virtual product shots for use in advertising and marketing. By using modo, you can create highly realistic shots of your products, reducing the need for product photography. In this course, Dan Ablan leads us through the workflow required to create such highly realistic 3D renders in modo. Discover the optimal settings for modeling, sculpting, and rendering; learn how to model real-world packaging; work with UV maps, Photoshop textures, and other basic materials; and light the products effectively. Dan closes with an overview of rendering the final 3D images for print or preview.