cant figure out how to get it on you tube, says its the wrong file type but i used windows movie maker.. hmm idk... but there it is. can anyone tell me how to get it on youtube?
I've wanted to make this tutorial for a while, since I don't think I've ever seen a tutorial on how to make designs. Ok so let's begin. :)
First off, you need to download Gimp2:
The best way to explain everything is through pictures so:
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa285/Sabrewulf238/GimpTutorial1.png
1. When you have downloaded and installed GIMP, make sure to download the AvatarTemplate_PUBLIC.psd file which can be downloaded from here: http://www.tengaged.com/design/howto (I download the photoshop Template and it works just fine) Open the psd file in GIMP, we'll come back to it later.
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa285/Sabrewulf238/GimpTutorial2.png
2. Open the picture file of the design you want to create. In this case it's a pair of eyes. It won't always be this easy though...sometimes you will have to use the eraser tool (or pencil in white) to take away the parts of the picture surrounding your design , there is a magnifying tool you can use to get in close which is represented with a magnifying glass. (when magnifying glass is selected you can press + to zoom in and - to zoom out) Removing the picture surrounding your design takes time and patience, there isn't a quick way around it unfortunately.
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa285/Sabrewulf238/GimpTutorial3.png
3. First thing we need to do, is to get rid of the white background surrounding the design. If I tried to layer(cover) this design as it is over the avatar template it wouldn't work because the white would cover the entire avatar template too (making it almost impossible to correctly place the eyes on the avatar) To do this, click on the "layer" tab at tje top of the screen as shown, then select the "Transparency" option and click "add alpha channel".
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa285/Sabrewulf238/GimpTutorial4.png
4. Now select the "Fuzzy select tool" as shown in the picture. It's represented by a wand.
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa285/Sabrewulf238/GimpTutorial5.png
5. Click on the area you want to remove (the white in this case) and click delete.
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa285/Sabrewulf238/GimpTutorial6.png
6. You should see that the white has been deleted and you can see a black and grey checkered effect. You don't need to worry too much about this, just know that the checkered part will not show up when you layer it over another picture. Don't forget to save your picture now (I would recommend to save it as a .png as that's what I use and it's never caused a problem for me)
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa285/Sabrewulf238/GimpTutorial7.png
7. Bring up the AvatarTemplate_PUBLIC.psd image again. Notice that this is a multi-layered file/picture. This means that there are seperate images that make up the full image as you see it now. If you look to the right you should see the layers that make up this picture. I'll go into it in more detail now.
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa285/Sabrewulf238/GimpTutorial8.png
8. These are the layers that make up the file, as I mentioned before. By clicking on the eye symbol you can make a layer disappear or reappear. Take a look at T-Shirt_Example, if I were to click and grab that and move it above Dress_Example....then enable the eye(make it visable) then I would see T-Shirt covering the Dress. It's not very hard to grasp, it's something you need to play around with to full understand how it works. The only use you will have for layering will be for testing your design on the AvatarTemplate and making sure it's in the correct position. (For example for most designs you would want to make sure your design is above the "Body" layer or you won't be able to see your design because the Body would be covering it)
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa285/Sabrewulf238/GimpTutorial9.png
9. Here is an example of the "eye" button. Remember before there was no scar visable on the avatar, but when I enabled the eye button to scar appeared. It was also placed at the top of the list. Which means it will appear above everything else. The idea of layers is exactly the same way you would layer things in real life. Imagine you had seethrough sheets of paper and you painted the body on one and a t-shirt on another and then placed the see through sheet with the t-shirt over the see through sheet with the body so that you now have a picture of a body wearing the t-shirt. This works in the same way.
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa285/Sabrewulf238/GimpTutorial10.png
10. Now that we have an idea how layering works, we need to open the design as a layer. Do this be clicking on file and then "open as layer" and select the design that you have prepared earlier.
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa285/Sabrewulf238/GimpTutorial11.png
11. Your design should now appear as a layer over the AvatarTemplate. Usually it should appear as the top layer, but if it doesn't make sure to move your design layer to the top on the right list of layers.
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa285/Sabrewulf238/GimpTutorial13.png
12. You can use the scale tool to resize your design if you think that it's too small or too big. This is useful if you're clothing design isn't covering the entire body as you can make it wider.
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa285/Sabrewulf238/GimpTutorial14.png
13. You can use the move tool if you want to move the design over the template. With the tool selected, just click and hold the design and drag it around.
http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/aa285/Sabrewulf238/GimpTutorial15.png
14. When you feel that your design is correctly placed on the avatar. Delete every layer except your design by clicking on each one and then clicking on the bin icon as shown in the pic above. Make sure to select "save as" and save it as either a .png,.Jpg or .gif since the image you're working in at the moment is .psd (layer file) and tengaged won't allow you to upload that file)
Here's some extra pointers:
1. In the pictures, if you look at the left box you'll see a small pointed hand between the water droplet and the round black thing (don't know what else to call it :P) The pointed hand is called the smudge tool and you can use it on the edges of your design if it looks a bit rough.
2. I mentioned cleaning up an image earlier in the tutorial, what I meant by that was....say you have a picture of some famous celebrity on the red carpet, and she's wearing a dress you want to turn into a design on tengaged. You'll have to erase all the extra stuff you don't want before you can even start working on the fuzzy select tool and onwards. By extra stuff I mean, in this case (The red carpet, the crowd, the celebritys head and body....everything except the dress/design pretty much) It takes alot of patience and you need to be very careful that you don't erase parts of the design by accident. This is the slowest part of making a design but it's not really hard to do you just have to be careful.
That's the basics of how to make a design using GIMP, this is my first time ever really making a tutorial so I hope it wasn't too long winded and I hope it was understandable.
If anyone has any questions about it please ask. :)
