Kotaku: tutorials

Master Photoshop The Legend of Zelda Way

Michael McWhertor — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:40:31 MDT

Despite more than a decade of futzing about with Adobe Photoshop, my digital painting skills are considerably amateur. Creating something like David Cousens' The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask piece above is beyond my skills... or is it?!

The answer is still "Yes, it is," but Cousens fantastic Photoshop tutorial, in which he walks us through the step-by-step creation of his "Broken Link" digital painting, is extremely helpful in touching on the finer points of advanced techniques. A bit of computer arts knowledge wrapped in a tasty Majora's Mask coating might just spurn you too to up your Photoshop game.

Cousens' tutorial warns that this tutorial is not for the beginner, but for those "comfortable with radial gradients, overlay layers and clipping mask layers and have a good foundation level of artistic skill." Still, even for the Photoshop clumsy, it's a gorgeous little walkthrough.

Thanks for sending it our way, David.

Advanced Tutorial: Creating ‘Broken Link' [PSDFAN.com]

PlayStation 3 101: Surfing The Web

Mike Fahey — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 10:40:00 MST

It really makes me wonder what sorts of people Sony feels purchased the PlayStation 3 system this year when they feel they have to post a video tutorial explaining how to surf the web.

While the first couple of tutorials presented as an introduction to new PlayStation 3 owners delivered some information you might not have come across during normal poking about on your console, this one is obviously directed at folks who have absolutely no idea what they are doing. I'm just worried that the folks who need this tutorial might not be technically proficient enough to even make it to the PlayStation Blog to see it. Pity too, because that music is catchy.

PS3 How To: Surfing the World Wide Web [PlayStation.Blog]

Introducing LittleBigWorkshop

Mike Fahey — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 08:40:00 MST

The LittleBigPlanet blog has undergone a transformation while we were all busy deciding the leader of our country, giving way to LittleBigWorkshop, a place to find inspiration, share building tips, and create wallpaper to somehow aid others in building their own LittleBigPlanet levels. The Inspiration section of the site contains images meant to spur the imagination (LOLcats), and the Workshop section is where people can share fan-made tutorial videos, such as this helpful video that shows that cats and dogs can indeed live together. I don't know about you guys, but I am inspired.

At least they've got the Blueprint Room, where you can spend all day at work planning and plotting out your newest creations, printing them out to use as reference later. The dogs and cats can't take that away from us.

LittleBigWorkshop [Official Site]

Update: The dog and cats video has been neutered. It went something like this.

Learn How To Make Your Own Shmup!

Michael McWhertor — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:40:02 MDT

Kongregate, the online community/portal dedicated to playing and developing games, is furthering the "democratization" of game development with Kongregate Labs. Using the simple-as-its-name-implies side-scrolling shmup Shoot! as a foundation, Labs features an ongoing series of tutorials (or *groan* "shootorials") that help you, the little person, learn how to make your own shooter. You'll get a primer on designing controls, scrolling backdrops, collision detection and so much more.

And if shooter creation fame isn't enough to light a fire under you, Kongregate is handing out cold hard cash to the best shootorials-based user created game. Play Shoot! if you want — the fun lasts many, many seconds — but then read on to learn about Flash game development with handy illustrated examples. We're hard at work on our own "Dude Huge" shmup, currently known as Cliffydius. Watch for it!

Kongregate Labs [Kongregate]

Get Blood on Your Suit With the Spy

Owen Good — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 17:00:00 MDT

While we're waiting for the real Spy updates and unlockables (and not fakes which momentarily fooled even Valve) OMFGNinja.com has gone and created an amazingly deep three-part advanced tutorial on how to play the Spy. It is mesmerizing, and showcases how any character in this game, with enough skill and planning, can become downright unstoppable. The leaping backstabs in part one, above, are jaw-dropping. The other two videos are at OMFGNinja, so follow the link and give them some credit. Youtube resolution sucks, but you get the idea of what the character class can do.

Advanced Spy Tutorial [OMFGNinja]

EA Starts Selling Tutorials

brownlee2 — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 10:40:50 MDT

How fast can EA race to the bottom of the dung pile? Coming right off an opening salvo trying to establish themselves as the scumbag kings of microcontent by way of selling cheat codes or in-game money as Marketplace downloads, EA are now selling tutorials over Xbox Live, rebranding them "video strategy guides."

The videos are hundreds of megs, and cost about 2 bucks each. EA is currently selling the tutorial vids for the games Madden NFL 07 and NCAA 07 Football. By common report, they aren't helpful in the slightest: you'd get better tips downloading the strategy guide off of GameFAQs. Florian Eckhardt

EA Charges for Everything [Aeropause]