Each month, we bring together a selection of the best tutorials and articles from across the whole Tuts+ network. Whether you’d like to read the top posts from your favourite site, or would like to start learning something completely new, this is the best place to start!
Psdtuts+ — Photoshop Tutorials
Quick Tip: Create a Sports-Themed Text Effect in Photoshop Using Layer Styles
In this quick tutorial we will show you how to create sports-themed text effect using layer styles in Photoshop. Let’s get started!
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Quick Tip: Create a Candy Flavored Text Effect in Photoshop
In this quick tip tutorial we will explain how to create a candy cane-style text effect in Photoshop. Let’s get started!
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Nettuts+ — Web Development Tutorials
Building and Testing a Backbone App
In this tutorial, we’ll develop a Backbone.js application, while testing it with Jasmine. Not good enough for you? We’ll do it all using CoffeeScript. Trifecta!
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Vagrant: What, Why, and How
This article will help walk you through using Vagrant to manage your virtual machine instances, and explain how you can take advantage of Puppet to provision various resources, like PHP and PostgreSQL.
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WebGL Essentials: Part II
This article will build on to the framework introduced in part one of this mini-series, adding a model importer and a custom class for 3D objects. You will also be introduced to animation and controls. There’s a lot to go through, so let’s get started!
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Vectortuts+ — Illustrator Tutorials
How to Illustrate a 3D Wireless Home Router
In this tutorial I’m going to show you how to create your own wireless home router with the Rectangle tool, Ellipse tool and gradients and we’ll also use the Pathfinder Panel.
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Quick Tip: How To Create a Cup Of Coffee in Top View
In this quick tutorial you will learn how to create a cup of coffee in top view. Using the shape tools, some gradients and your imagination, creating different kinds of coffee is fun and easy.
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Five Talented Vector Artists and their Favourite Illustrator Tools
In today’s article, we ask five talented vector artists: “What is your favourite tool or effect?”. We’ll gain some inspiration insight into how they use these tools and see examples of where these tricks and tips have been used.
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Webdesigntuts+ — Web Design Tutorials
Emulating Microsoft’s Metro Design Language
Over the past few years, Microsoft has adopted its incumbent design language to a significant extent. Metro is the aesthetic basis of Windows 8; Microsoft’s next operating system shipping this October. Let’s take a look at what Metro is, how we can emulate some of its desirable principles and take a look at where it’s being used already.
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Quick and Easy Documentation Using Markdown
So youve created an awesome theme, template or web application. Now for the tedious part; the documentation. Writing the content won’t necessarily be that problematic, it’s more likely creating the help files which will take up precious time. Markdown, a lightweight and *really* simple formatting syntax can solve all that for you.
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Skeleton to WordPress: Getting up and Running
During previous parts of this series we’ve covered a lot. We took a Photoshop layout, built it into an adaptive web page using the Skeleton framework, explored aspects of CSS3, implemented various jQuery plugins and considered our options
Phototuts+ — Photography Tutorials
Phototuts+ & Lomography Present the Portraits of Summer Competition
Lomography and Phototuts+ have joined forces to bring you a photo competition that will bring out your true photography skills. We would like to present the Portraits of Summer competition! Just follow one of the two tutorials and submit your photos. Check out more information after the jump!
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An Introduction to Holga Photography
The Holga is a camera, first manufactured in China in 1981, made almost entirely of plastic, some even have plastic lenses. It was an invention intended for the Chinese consumer as a low-budget, everyday kind of camera for capturing family photos and portraits, but has since gathered a cult following.
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Making Your Vacation Portraits Pop!
Its holiday season, and what better time to take your camera out and about to capture not only those scenic holiday destinations, but the people that youre sharing them with. Here are a few top tips on how to take eye catching and engaging vacation portraits.
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The Principles and Strategies of Brand Photography
For many photographers, it can be difficult to earn a living from taking the photos that inspire and excite them and therefore have to find other means to support themselves. However, sometimes the answer is closer to home than you think. Working as a commercial product photographer can not only provide financially, but also has it’s own specific creative challenges and difficulties to face.
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Cgtuts+ — Computer Graphics Tutorials
Correctly Setting Up a Linear Workflow in Maya
So you might often find yourself wondering “what the hell is a linear workflow?” It’s the kind of thing that gives cg artists nightmares, waking in a cold sweat, afraid, left stumbling to your computer looking for answers…well you’re not alone. Working linearly is one of the most misunderstood, confusing aspects of computer graphics for all artists, new or experienced. But fear not friends, James Whiffin is here to help turn that frown upside down by giving you a crash course on working linearly.
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Creating The iPhone 4S In 3D Studio Max, Part 1
In this new multi-part project, we’ll be creating the iPhone 4S in 3d Studio Max using tried and true poly modeling techniques. You’ll learn how to setup and model from six view blueprints, create precision cuts and holes, terminate edge loops and how to add proper supporting geometry to retain surface shape when adding subdivision.
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Aetuts+ — After Effects Tutorials
Summer 2012 DSLR Camera Line-up
This article features a list of cameras released since the publishing of Knowing The Basics Of The Video Mode On Your DSLR Camera, and is designed to be an appendage to that article, along with an updated sensor chart for reference. *see below
Note: Cameras are first listed by maker and then by price. All ISO specifications are the expanded limits of the cameras.
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Iron Man Interface Battle Widget – Parts 1 and 2
In this tutorial series we are going to go beyond basics using the true power of shape layers inside After Effects. As you can see we are going to dive into the magic of creating this Iron Man battle widget inspired from The Avengers movie. We are going to recreate the element from start to finish using various different techniques and learning some pretty cool workflow tips as well.
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Linear Workflow For The After Effects User
In this tutorial we’ll look at some of the problems caused when working in sRGB color space and how we can fix these problems using a linear workflow. Let’s jump in!
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Audiotuts+ — Audio & Production Tutorials
Dynamic Reverb Returns
In this tutorial Mo Volans teaches you a great technique for taming your reverb: Dynamic Reverb Returns. Here we demonstrate with Logic Pro, but the technique works in most other DAWs.
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How the Hell do I Use Reverb Again?!?
Welcome to the unannounced bastard child of my old and golden tutorial, How the Hell do I Use Reverb Anyway?!? If you need a primer on the basics of reverb, I highly recommend you read that one before you jump into this one. It goes over everything you need to know about reverb: all the knobs and buttons you need to familiarize yourself with.
Instead of continuing on with the theory that you can read in the previous tutorial, I’m going to jump into some easy to use reverb tricks that can really help you in your mixes. We’ll be looking at some simple, but invaluable tips to using reverb effectively without cluttering up your instruments.
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EQ – The Most Important Part of Mastering
I was mastering an EP recently and I really thought I’d done a decent job on the mix. I set up the tracks in order and found the correct levels for all of them, making sure they all sound equally loud and such. Then I got to work and set up my mastering processors, which are basically just EQ and compression. After a few EQ tweaks here and there, a little bit in the lows, a small boost in the highs, a subtle dip in the mids, you know the drill. Well, after a while I started A/B’ing the before and after.
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Wptuts+ — WordPress Tutorials
Functionality: Plugins vs Themes
There are a lot of factors that influence performance on your WordPress site, and one of the tricks that “experts” will often tell you to do is avoid plugins. They will tell you it is better to place functionality inside of your theme, instead of activating a plugin. Is this true?
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Conquering the wp-config.php File – 11 Good Practices
There are 981 files and 95 folders which come with the WordPress (v3.4.1) package. None of these files need manual modification, except the wp-config.php file. Of course, we don’t have to edit the file if we’re fine with the default WordPress configuration but it’s essential that we learn how to conquer the file in order to apply security precautions, speed tricks and other stuff which we will be studying in this article.
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How to Include and Require Files and Templates in WordPress
When it comes to PHP, a lot of developers love the language, a lot of the developers hate the language, and a lot of developers generally just use it to get their work done.
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Mobiletuts+ — Mobile Development Tutorials
Create Eye-Catching Navigation with AwesomeMenu
This tutorial will teach you how to create an eye-catching iOS menu using the AwesomeMenu open-source project. Read on!
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Learn Android SDK Development From Scratch!
Interested in learning native Android SDK development? Now is the perfect time to get started! Mobiletuts+ is pleased to announce an in-depth, fully up-to-date session on how to become an Android SDK developer.
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Working with Unity3D Physics
This tutorial will teach you how to build a knock down game with Unity3D! Along the way, you’ll learn about the importance of using a physics engine and how doing so will save countless hours of manual animation. Read on!
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Mactuts+ — Mac & OS X Tutorials
Things You Didn’t Know About Mountain Lion
OS X Mountain Lion includes over 200 new features for your Mac, but some of the major ones arent mentioned on the official webpage. If you go looking around in nooks and crannies, you might just find some valuable minor features that youd never even thought of. Ive been using the operating system since its first developer preview was released and there are a few nifty features that lie tucked away and out of plain sight. Read on to see what they are!
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Navigating the Terminal: A Gentle Introduction
It may seem like the kind of geeky realm that only hackers are fit to inhabit, but the OS X Terminal is a powerful and versatile method of interacting with your computer that offers advantages to users of all skill levels. It’s quite a departure from what you might be used to though, so we’re here to help you take your first steps.
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Gamedevtuts+ — Game Development
Make a Splash With Dynamic 2D Water Effects
Sploosh! In this tutorial, I’ll show you how you can use simple math, physics, and particle effects to simulate great looking 2D water waves and droplets.
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Growing From (and Surviving) Mod Teams
Breaking into the game industry can be a long and rocky road — where does one even begin? There are many avenues to take on the journey to making games, and the best path is different for each person. For those looking to jump right in and start making games, I propose to you this: join a mod team! But what exactly is a mod team and how do you find one that’s right for you? Let’s figure that out…
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Collision Detection Using the Separating Axis Theorem
The Separating Axis Theorem is often used to check for collisions between two simple polygons, or between a polygon and a circle. As with all algorithms, it has its strengths and its weaknesses. In this tutorial, we’ll go over the math behind the theorem, and show how it can be used in game development with some sample code and demos.
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