I played some with making a clear background. Removing a background is easy enough. Turning the picture into a CAP pattern, then saving removes the clear background, and makes it white. Is there a trick to keeping it clear? :?:
I have a cc mod type thing called Book of Talents. It allows me to click on it and master every skill; including hidden ones.
I am looking forward to this course!
I will be able to be "live" for this one
I used to have the Book of Talents download, but it no longer shows up in my game. I've done a bit of research to figure out why and moved it to various folders but nothing I have done has made it show up in the game. Same with any other mods I download.
More research showed that apparently I am supposed to have some resource.cfg file somewhere in either the Sims3 folder section of My Docs or the Sims3 folder section of Programs Files. I've tried placing this resource.cfg file in various places with no luck.
I exit the game, move it, load the game back up, nothing, reinstalling didn't help either.
Is there a trick you are using to get the Book of Talent and other mods to show up in your game?
Sorry to go totally off topic but this has been driving me crazy for awhile now.
Zoo what did I do wrong here.. The first pictures have the right color border but dark. The next picture is light enough, but the border is to light is that alright,or can it be fixed?
I played some with making a clear background. Removing a background is easy enough. Turning the picture into a CAP pattern, then saving removes the clear background, and makes it white. Is there a trick to keeping it clear? :?:
Did you save your work as a PNG file in CAP? If you save as a JPEG or BITMAP it will discard your transparencies.
I have a cc mod type thing called Book of Talents. It allows me to click on it and master every skill; including hidden ones.
I am looking forward to this course!
I will be able to be "live" for this one
I used to have the Book of Talents download, but it no longer shows up in my game. I've done a bit of research to figure out why and moved it to various folders but nothing I have done has made it show up in the game. Same with any other mods I download.
More research showed that apparently I am supposed to have some resource.cfg file somewhere in either the Sims3 folder section of My Docs or the Sims3 folder section of Programs Files. I've tried placing this resource.cfg file in various places with no luck.
I exit the game, move it, load the game back up, nothing, reinstalling didn't help either.
Is there a trick you are using to get the Book of Talent and other mods to show up in your game?
Sorry to go totally off topic but this has been driving me crazy for awhile now.
I'm on my phone at the bus stop on my way to work, but I think I've got something on my old laptop that will help.
My new laptop that I try to keep not much on, for simming :-D doesn't have powerpoint or publisher, so I haven't tried the clear background yet as younger son has been playing Minecraft on the older laptop. He's helped me choose some moshi monsters for my homework though!
I kinda dropped the ball on this class because I was busily working on Boot Camping my computer. It took me days to get it to work and I was pretty close to "boot kicking" my computer out the nearest window and then going postal at the mall :evil:
What sent me over the edge was my latest build. It's the largest and most complicated house I ever attempted. I thought I'd just borrow J.T. from Zoo so I could be ready for class and have her check out my build at the same time. Well, Miss J.T. comes fully loaded with so much stuff and between that and my build, and the mere 2 GB of Ram that Cider allows you to access during Mac gameplay, all I could do was build for a bit, save, crash, build, crash, start again, build, crash, re-install, build some more and keep my fingers crossed that I didn't crash again before the next save. I managed to finish the house and submit it for a contest before I broke down and started boot camping my Mac.
Now I'm a happy "boot camper" and on to installing CAP and catching up with y'all
If you are interested (and some of you dearies have already left kind comments on my thread, thank you!) here is the build that sent me over the edge:
I played some with making a clear background. Removing a background is easy enough. Turning the picture into a CAP pattern, then saving removes the clear background, and makes it white. Is there a trick to keeping it clear? :?:
Did you save your work as a PNG file in CAP? If you save as a JPEG or BITMAP it will discard your transparencies.
I saved as a PNG file when I removed the background. When I did the work in CAP, I didn't really save it as anything, I just exported... never bothered to look, I just assumed it exported as PNG, the same as I brought it in. Silly me, maybe I should go back and do it again, save it first, as PNG this time before I export it? :hunf:
I kinda dropped the ball on this class because I was busily working on Boot Camping my computer. It took me days to get it to work and I was pretty close to "boot kicking" my computer out the nearest window and then going postal at the mall :evil:
What sent me over the edge was my latest build. It's the largest and most complicated house I ever attempted. I thought I'd just borrow J.T. from Zoo so I could be ready for class and have her check out my build at the same time. Well, Miss J.T. comes fully loaded with so much stuff and between that and my build, and the mere 2 GB of Ram that Cider allows you to access during Mac gameplay, all I could do was build for a bit, save, crash, build, crash, start again, build, crash, re-install, build some more and keep my fingers crossed that I didn't crash again before the next save. I managed to finish the house and submit it for a contest before I broke down and started boot camping my Mac.
Now I'm a happy "boot camper" and on to installing CAP and catching up with y'all
If you are interested (and some of you dearies have already left kind comments on my thread, thank you!) here is the build that sent me over the edge:
Later, gators -- away for a couple of days so will catch up class then.
Hugs to all,
Sue Pea
Hi, Susie P! We missed you in class, you are one of my hardcore Zoo Uers, you know!
So sorry to hear about your computer woes! The only thing that even approaches computer woes for annoyance is car trouble. And the one can be nearly as expensive as the other!
Hope Julianna with her huge inventory wasn't the cause! She does have a lot of good stuff. I have lately learned that it works better to move stuff into the family inventory out of the Sim's inventory if you are having problems. For future reference you might try that to see if it helps with computer performance!
I played some with making a clear background. Removing a background is easy enough. Turning the picture into a CAP pattern, then saving removes the clear background, and makes it white. Is there a trick to keeping it clear? :?:
Did you save your work as a PNG file in CAP? If you save as a JPEG or BITMAP it will discard your transparencies.
I saved as a PNG file when I removed the background. When I did the work in CAP, I didn't really save it as anything, I just exported... never bothered to look, I just assumed it exported as PNG, the same as I brought it in. Silly me, maybe I should go back and do it again, save it first, as PNG this time before I export it? :hunf:
And I will get started on my thread, too!
P-Pup, you are confused as to my meaning and it is entirely MY fault!
If you saved your artwork as a PNG file when you removed the background then that should work. You import as a sticker into CAP (and you are right-- you don't save it as anything once you get there). Then that sticker should have a transparent background.
Now, the advantage of this is that it can be combined over and over again as a sticker on top of another pattern. The PATTERN will not ever have a transparent background, it is the STICKER that does.
Hope this makes sense!
My week has been amazingly busy as students are going wild trying to prepare for their first College Algebra test which every class is taking tomorrow or early next week. So I had students in my office through every spare second the last two days. Since I ALSO have about a ton of other things I have to work on, too, that all has to happen AFTER my office hours. I stayed two hours late on Tuesday and still didn't get even half of what I needed to finished.
My point in all this ramble is that I don't have any supplemental Zoo U lesson up yet, BUT I still hope to do something with this transparent sticker idea.
Just popping in for a quick mo while I procrastinate from my Science assignment. I mean, unless I'm going to become a seismologist, why the heck am I going to need to know how to measure the magnitude of an earthquake!?
Anyways, I'm hoping to get to my homework later this evening. I'm loving the idea of the artist's boardwalk. When it's finished, we should all get our sim-selves to have the first meander through it.
P-Pup, you are confused as to my meaning and it is entirely MY fault!
If you saved your artwork as a PNG file when you removed the background then that should work. You import as a sticker into CAP (and you are right-- you don't save it as anything once you get there). Then that sticker should have a transparent background.
Now, the advantage of this is that it can be combined over and over again as a sticker on top of another pattern. The PATTERN will not ever have a transparent background, it is the STICKER that does.
Hope this makes sense!
My week has been amazingly busy as students are going wild trying to prepare for their first College Algebra test which every class is taking tomorrow or early next week. So I had students in my office through every spare second the last two days. Since I ALSO have about a ton of other things I have to work on, too, that all has to happen AFTER my office hours. I stayed two hours late on Tuesday and still didn't get even half of what I needed to finished.
My point in all this ramble is that I don't have any supplemental Zoo U lesson up yet, BUT I still hope to do something with this transparent sticker idea.
Stay tuned!
Zoo
Makes perfect sense. Even with a sticker with a transparent background, the end result is a pattern, on whatever color background I choose. I figured it out, thanks! I even made a brooch on the collar of a jacket! And in order to do this, I had to turn the sticker sideways so it would be in the correct position when I recolored the jacket. I could never have done this without your amazing class, and your numbered graph! Thank you!!! I should probably pick a different brooch, and make it a little smaller now, but since I haven't yet made a homework thread, I shall give you a little look-see.
On this Jacket, the collar actually colors separately from the rest of the jacket. I should have taken the shot without the graph on the rest of it, sorry. You see the area with red 11 and purple 12? It only shows there in front. Also, on the opposite split side, the small area with orange 3 and the darker red bit of 4 showing only show up there, so you could put a brooch on that side.
And here we see the end result. I could have done better with the color, if I had played around more. Did this last night. The only complaint I have is the dang launcher... it takes forever! When I want to install patterns! I will try with nicer colors, or a pattern, maybe, and a different brooch, but you get the idea.
Thank you, I love these classes!
ETA: Hey, I just noticed! In my pic with the brooch, Mr. Pup is in the background! There is the Sim Mr. Pup, and a pic of Mr. Pup looking dashing in uniform that I put in the Miscellaneous Wallpaper!
Just popping in for a quick mo while I procrastinate from my Science assignment. I mean, unless I'm going to become a seismologist, why the heck am I going to need to know how to measure the magnitude of an earthquake!?
Anyways, I'm hoping to get to my homework later this evening. I'm loving the idea of the artist's boardwalk. When it's finished, we should all get our sim-selves to have the first meander through it.
Rosie out xx
PS: When is homework due Zoo? xx
Rosie,
I was thinking of the homework as due on Saturday, but people turn it in late (especially if they didn't take the class "live") and I still look at it and comment on it, so don't stress if you can't have it finished by then.
It is nice to make a thread and post your photos of your homework and then give me the link to your thread so that I can put you in the Blackcat Builders post so that we can all look at your awesome work.
P-Pup, you are confused as to my meaning and it is entirely MY fault!
If you saved your artwork as a PNG file when you removed the background then that should work. You import as a sticker into CAP (and you are right-- you don't save it as anything once you get there). Then that sticker should have a transparent background.
Now, the advantage of this is that it can be combined over and over again as a sticker on top of another pattern. The PATTERN will not ever have a transparent background, it is the STICKER that does.
Hope this makes sense!
My week has been amazingly busy as students are going wild trying to prepare for their first College Algebra test which every class is taking tomorrow or early next week. So I had students in my office through every spare second the last two days. Since I ALSO have about a ton of other things I have to work on, too, that all has to happen AFTER my office hours. I stayed two hours late on Tuesday and still didn't get even half of what I needed to finished.
My point in all this ramble is that I don't have any supplemental Zoo U lesson up yet, BUT I still hope to do something with this transparent sticker idea.
Stay tuned!
Zoo
Makes perfect sense. Even with a sticker with a transparent background, the end result is a pattern, on whatever color background I choose. I figured it out, thanks! I even made a brooch on the collar of a jacket! And in order to do this, I had to turn the sticker sideways so it would be in the correct position when I recolored the jacket. I could never have done this without your amazing class, and your numbered graph! Thank you!!! I should probably pick a different brooch, and make it a little smaller now, but since I haven't yet made a homework thread, I shall give you a little look-see.
On this Jacket, the collar actually colors separately from the rest of the jacket. I should have taken the shot without the graph on the rest of it, sorry. You see the area with red 11 and purple 12? It only shows there in front. Also, on the opposite split side, the small area with orange 3 and the darker red bit of 4 showing only show up there, so you could put a brooch on that side.
And here we see the end result. I could have done better with the color, if I had played around more. Did this last night. The only complaint I have is the dang launcher... it takes forever! When I want to install patterns! I will try with nicer colors, or a pattern, maybe, and a different brooch, but you get the idea.
Thank you, I love these classes!
ETA: Hey, I just noticed! In my pic with the brooch, Mr. Pup is in the background! There is the Sim Mr. Pup, and a pic of Mr. Pup looking dashing in uniform that I put in the Miscellaneous Wallpaper!
This is AMAZING! Mr. Pup looks quite dapper and handsome, both the real-life photo AND his Sim, and I am really impressed with how well you did the perfect placement exercises of the brooch and the photos inside frames on the wall covering. LOOKS GREAT!
Zoo Thank You for adding my BlackCat thread, I was so busy working with my CAP and Photo's I didn't notice it myself.. Thank You P-pup... I have added more to my BlackCat thread if you all want to take a look see..
Zoo I love this class gosh I love it... I can't wait to see the background remover and how to do that.. You are a brilliant professor Zoo... I bet your students just love you... I know I love you you are awesome....
Hi Zoo, the concept of a broadwalk or museum to display everyone's artworks to be useful to the simming community is a fabulous idea. :thumbup:
In my feeble attempts to take another class photo ... that i was going to post before class but never got finished in time ... I've quickly built a sort of artist broadwalk as a background. I'm just posting the photos here to see if that would be what you've had in mind.
And here is one of the class photos ... as usual I've had trouble keeping everyone in check, but you can just about see that all your students are hanging on your every word!!
Thank you again for such an awesome class my dear professor!!! That you give up your time to teach us all Zoo is most appreciated!!!
This is SO awesome! LOVE IT! Love the class photo, love the artist's walk, just love it all! You need to make sure that participate in the class discussion on the class project. You clearly have some great ideas for what you guys might want to do.
Zoo
Zoo sorry I had to quote this one also... Hide that is an awesome idea.. I really love the class photo hehehehe You do them so well.. The boardwalk is breathtaking I love it, I love the idea lots... You are one very talented person..
Zoo Thank You so very very much for all the time you have spent teaching us, as I said before you are BRILLIANT...
MY GIFT TO ALL MY BUILDER FRIENDS:
My Greenwood Gallery is FULL of art on all the walls. You can download it and strip the walls bare to use in your own builds. That is what I made the gallery for. It delights me to see the art from this lot in the builds of my friends. http://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=7177890
[/quote]
Zoo I just wanted to say Thank You so much for this wonderful gift....
Bree, you really touched my heart with all your wonderful comments! I have to admit that I am completely hooked on CAP and photographs for my builds. I played in a house that I built a long time ago and immediately found all the artwork boring! LOL!
I commented on your Blackcat thread--- which is GREAT by the way!
MY GIFT TO ALL MY BUILDER FRIENDS:
My Greenwood Gallery is FULL of art on all the walls. You can download it and strip the walls bare to use in your own builds. That is what I made the gallery for. It delights me to see the art from this lot in the builds of my friends. http://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=7177890
Zoo I just wanted to say Thank You so much for this wonderful gift....[/quote]
You are SO welcome! I would love to see some of these photos find their way into your lovely builds! MWAH!
Oh, Zoo, I forgot! I made a homework thread! I finally finished up some more patterns, too... took forever! So looks like I need to head into game and get my other photos done! Or, work on my farmhouse!
Supplemental Lesson (Turning a Sticker Background Clear)
This is really easy, has only a few steps, and results in a sticker that is just like the ones that come with CAP in that it has a clear background.
First, let’s talk about why this is advantageous. Go back to our Brooch Exercise.
If we do NOT have the option of having a clear background, each time we want a brooch on a new background fabric, we will have to take our brooch image back into Paint (or other graphics program) and make a new image that has the brooch on our background choice, then import this as a new sticker in CAP. Then we will ALSO have to have the background as a sticker AND it will have to EXACTLY match the background that is behind the brooch (in scale and in shape, which is not easy as you are picking it up and laying it into the grid in CAP and stretching it into place). Finally you would make a new pattern and you’ll have to first place the grid sticker and new Brooch sticker to get it placed right and then manage to put the new fabric sticker under it and match the pattern again, then export it.
So we would have a lot of work, and have to create two new stickers (even if we already had other versions of the fabric and the Brooch since we would have to match the scale) and a new pattern (which would have a lot of careful matching up of things required).
But how would this go if the sticker we have with our Brooch has a clear background?
If we then wanted a pattern with the Brooch on a new fabric, we would lay the fabric sticker on the first layer in CAP that will accept stickers, then in a layer above that one you would place the grid sticker, place the Brooch sticker on top to get the placement right, delete the grid sticker and export the pattern.
No new stickers created (unless we WANTED a new fabric sticker), we would reuse our Brooch sticker and using the grid sticker for perfect placement of the Brooch is all we would need to worry about. The Brooch will be on the fabric pattern without any tedious matching. SUPER EASY and not a lot of extra graphic files needing to be created and saved.
So, having clear backgrounds on stickers is a huge and obvious advantage. It allows us to reuse those stickers as parts of other patterns, to use them as a graphic image that we can work with and not as a one-use item.
I made some Cabbage Roses stickers and created the wallpapers shown at the end of the last lesson. Since those stickers had a clear background I could use them to make repeating patterns across the wallpaper. Because each of these is a separate sticker and can be placed on different levels in CAP (with each level being a different recolorable channel when in Create A Style), this also allows us to start to make the sort of versatile patterns that we have in the EA patterns.
Just to refresh your memory, here are the new wallpapers I made after learning this trick:
You will notice that this wallpaper DOES have some recolorability. It was my first try, so it isn’t as fully recolorable as most EA patterns, but I’m getting there! With a little practice I expect to have some really useful, versatile patterns.
So, now we know why we would WANT to do this, the question becomes HOW do we do it?
You will need Microsoft PowerPoint from Office. Publisher has a similar feature if your version of Office doesn’t have PowerPoint.
1. Find an image that you like, let’s go ahead and use a new brooch image.
2. Open PowerPoint
3. Notice on the toolbar that you have an “insert” option. Choose it, then tell it you want to insert a picture, then choose your image of the brooch.
You see the image on the left? That is how your PowerPoint slide would look. The image on the right is the one that we work with.
4. In the toolbar, choose Remove Background. It will give you a colored grid over your image on the right. You will see (on the left) what your final image is going to look like.
You can choose to click on the stuff you want to remove OR on the stuff you want to keep (your choice for each picture you are working on, so do whatever is easier for that picture). After you get it to suit you, choose the option to keep the changes. Sometimes you lose a few details on the edges of the image along with the background. Sometimes you can fix this and sometimes you can’t. The program isn’t great about keeping really thin lines (I lost some of the stems on my Cabbage Roses image, for example).
Here my Bat Brooch doesn’t have the chain. I honestly didn’t try to get the chain back as I liked how it looked okay without it, so I don’t know if it would have been possible or not. I DO know that I tried to make a lace sticker that had a clear background and it didn’t work at all because my lace image just had too many really thin and delicate lines that we would have wanted to keep. A less intricate lace might have worked, but the program DOES have definite limits.
5. Now choose to Save as Picture and THIS IS IMPORTANT, make sure that you are saving as a PNG file type. Save this into the folder where you put the images you want to import into CAP (last time we created a folder on the Desktop for those images).
6. Now go into CAP and import your image as a sticker and you will see that your sticker has a clear background and that opens up a whole NEW world of creative possibilities in CAP.
I have become totally addicted to CAP and I can see that I have addicted some of my friends, too. Several people have told me how much fun they are having making new artwork for their games using CAP and photography. You should SEE how many such artwork files are on my computer right now because of this addiction.
I think that most people seem to WANT to do the class project that I proposed.
I would like EACH person who wishes to participate in the project to check in to this thread and post answers to the following questions:
1. Would you like the project to be an Art Museum, an Artist Boardwalk, or Something Else? If you vote for something else, please state your idea.
2. Would you like to have a try at being the builder of the structure? It is acceptable for more than one person to work on the building, you will have to decide how you will upload and download so that more than one person can work on the build.
3. Please mention your ideas for the project AND comment on any ideas that other students have posted.
THE DUE DATE ON THIS PROJECT WILL BE ONE MONTH FROM TODAY.
IF THERE ARE NOT ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS BY SOME OF THE STUDENTS IN THE CLASS BY THE END OF THE WEEK (BY NEXT SATURDAY) THEN THE PROJECT WILL BE CANCELLED.
I will be very happy to participate in any way that the class would like. I very much intend this to be a class project, so I really want it to be STUDENT driven, but I am very happy to help in any way that students wish.
I think this is a fabulous idea! I was having a hard time deciding which type we should do. Zoo has done a wonderful Art Museum, so I'm thinking maybe we should go for the Artist Boardwalk. Loved the version that Hidehi posted, with little stalls in it... kind of like an Open Air Market. Maybe each stall is filled with different type of photos/ artwork? Or one stall for each student? And a big photo out front of the stall of the Sim/ student?
Just some thoughts to get it rolling! We have so many talented builders here, I will be happy to assist one of them (or several?) in any fashion necessary!
Comments
http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/711206.page#11297955
Fantastic wall patterns, Zoo! I think they could make quite a nice feature wall
I used to have the Book of Talents download, but it no longer shows up in my game. I've done a bit of research to figure out why and moved it to various folders but nothing I have done has made it show up in the game. Same with any other mods I download.
More research showed that apparently I am supposed to have some resource.cfg file somewhere in either the Sims3 folder section of My Docs or the Sims3 folder section of Programs Files. I've tried placing this resource.cfg file in various places with no luck.
I exit the game, move it, load the game back up, nothing, reinstalling didn't help either.
Is there a trick you are using to get the Book of Talent and other mods to show up in your game?
Sorry to go totally off topic but this has been driving me crazy for awhile now.
OOPS! So sorry, Bree, I will fix this right now!
Nice catch, P-Pup!
Did you save your work as a PNG file in CAP? If you save as a JPEG or BITMAP it will discard your transparencies.
Have a look here & see if it helps
http://nonasims.wordpress.com/2012/05/17/dcbackup-ccmerged-package-and-your-premium-content-items/
I'm on my phone at the bus stop on my way to work, but I think I've got something on my old laptop that will help.
My new laptop that I try to keep not much on, for simming :-D doesn't have powerpoint or publisher, so I haven't tried the clear background yet as younger son has been playing Minecraft on the older laptop. He's helped me choose some moshi monsters for my homework though!
I kinda dropped the ball on this class because I was busily working on Boot Camping my computer. It took me days to get it to work and I was pretty close to "boot kicking" my computer out the nearest window and then going postal at the mall :evil:
What sent me over the edge was my latest build. It's the largest and most complicated house I ever attempted. I thought I'd just borrow J.T. from Zoo so I could be ready for class and have her check out my build at the same time. Well, Miss J.T. comes fully loaded with so much stuff and between that and my build, and the mere 2 GB of Ram that Cider allows you to access during Mac gameplay, all I could do was build for a bit, save, crash, build, crash, start again, build, crash, re-install, build some more and keep my fingers crossed that I didn't crash again before the next save. I managed to finish the house and submit it for a contest before I broke down and started boot camping my Mac.
Now I'm a happy "boot camper" and on to installing CAP and catching up with y'all
If you are interested (and some of you dearies have already left kind comments on my thread, thank you!) here is the build that sent me over the edge:
http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/710698.page
Later, gators -- away for a couple of days so will catch up class then.
Hugs to all,
Sue Pea
I saved as a PNG file when I removed the background. When I did the work in CAP, I didn't really save it as anything, I just exported... never bothered to look, I just assumed it exported as PNG, the same as I brought it in. Silly me, maybe I should go back and do it again, save it first, as PNG this time before I export it? :hunf:
And I will get started on my thread, too!
Hi, Susie P! We missed you in class, you are one of my hardcore Zoo Uers, you know!
So sorry to hear about your computer woes! The only thing that even approaches computer woes for annoyance is car trouble. And the one can be nearly as expensive as the other!
Hope Julianna with her huge inventory wasn't the cause! She does have a lot of good stuff. I have lately learned that it works better to move stuff into the family inventory out of the Sim's inventory if you are having problems. For future reference you might try that to see if it helps with computer performance!
P-Pup, you are confused as to my meaning and it is entirely MY fault!
If you saved your artwork as a PNG file when you removed the background then that should work. You import as a sticker into CAP (and you are right-- you don't save it as anything once you get there). Then that sticker should have a transparent background.
Now, the advantage of this is that it can be combined over and over again as a sticker on top of another pattern. The PATTERN will not ever have a transparent background, it is the STICKER that does.
Hope this makes sense!
My week has been amazingly busy as students are going wild trying to prepare for their first College Algebra test which every class is taking tomorrow or early next week. So I had students in my office through every spare second the last two days. Since I ALSO have about a ton of other things I have to work on, too, that all has to happen AFTER my office hours. I stayed two hours late on Tuesday and still didn't get even half of what I needed to finished.
My point in all this ramble is that I don't have any supplemental Zoo U lesson up yet, BUT I still hope to do something with this transparent sticker idea.
Stay tuned!
Zoo
Just popping in for a quick mo while I procrastinate from my Science assignment. I mean, unless I'm going to become a seismologist, why the heck am I going to need to know how to measure the magnitude of an earthquake!?
Anyways, I'm hoping to get to my homework later this evening. I'm loving the idea of the artist's boardwalk. When it's finished, we should all get our sim-selves to have the first meander through it.
Rosie out xx
PS: When is homework due Zoo? xx
Makes perfect sense. Even with a sticker with a transparent background, the end result is a pattern, on whatever color background I choose. I figured it out, thanks! I even made a brooch on the collar of a jacket! And in order to do this, I had to turn the sticker sideways so it would be in the correct position when I recolored the jacket. I could never have done this without your amazing class, and your numbered graph! Thank you!!! I should probably pick a different brooch, and make it a little smaller now, but since I haven't yet made a homework thread, I shall give you a little look-see.
On this Jacket, the collar actually colors separately from the rest of the jacket. I should have taken the shot without the graph on the rest of it, sorry. You see the area with red 11 and purple 12? It only shows there in front. Also, on the opposite split side, the small area with orange 3 and the darker red bit of 4 showing only show up there, so you could put a brooch on that side.
And here we see the end result. I could have done better with the color, if I had played around more. Did this last night. The only complaint I have is the dang launcher... it takes forever! When I want to install patterns! I will try with nicer colors, or a pattern, maybe, and a different brooch, but you get the idea.
Thank you, I love these classes!
ETA: Hey, I just noticed! In my pic with the brooch, Mr. Pup is in the background! There is the Sim Mr. Pup, and a pic of Mr. Pup looking dashing in uniform that I put in the Miscellaneous Wallpaper!
Rosie,
I was thinking of the homework as due on Saturday, but people turn it in late (especially if they didn't take the class "live") and I still look at it and comment on it, so don't stress if you can't have it finished by then.
It is nice to make a thread and post your photos of your homework and then give me the link to your thread so that I can put you in the Blackcat Builders post so that we can all look at your awesome work.
Zoo
This is AMAZING! Mr. Pup looks quite dapper and handsome, both the real-life photo AND his Sim, and I am really impressed with how well you did the perfect placement exercises of the brooch and the photos inside frames on the wall covering. LOOKS GREAT!
Zoo
Zoo I love this class gosh I love it... I can't wait to see the background remover and how to do that.. You are a brilliant professor Zoo... I bet your students just love you... I know I love you you are awesome....
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Zoo sorry I had to quote this one also... Hide that is an awesome idea.. I really love the class photo hehehehe You do them so well.. The boardwalk is breathtaking I love it, I love the idea lots... You are one very talented person..
Zoo Thank You so very very much for all the time you have spent teaching us, as I said before you are BRILLIANT...
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MY GIFT TO ALL MY BUILDER FRIENDS:
My Greenwood Gallery is FULL of art on all the walls. You can download it and strip the walls bare to use in your own builds. That is what I made the gallery for. It delights me to see the art from this lot in the builds of my friends.
http://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=7177890
[/quote]
Zoo I just wanted to say Thank You so much for this wonderful gift....
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I commented on your Blackcat thread--- which is GREAT by the way!
Zoo
Zoo I just wanted to say Thank You so much for this wonderful gift....[/quote]
You are SO welcome! I would love to see some of these photos find their way into your lovely builds! MWAH!
My Homework Thread:
http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/711998.page
Thank you for all your hard work! I love this class!
Zoo
Supplemental Lesson (Turning a Sticker Background Clear)
This is really easy, has only a few steps, and results in a sticker that is just like the ones that come with CAP in that it has a clear background.
First, let’s talk about why this is advantageous. Go back to our Brooch Exercise.
If we do NOT have the option of having a clear background, each time we want a brooch on a new background fabric, we will have to take our brooch image back into Paint (or other graphics program) and make a new image that has the brooch on our background choice, then import this as a new sticker in CAP. Then we will ALSO have to have the background as a sticker AND it will have to EXACTLY match the background that is behind the brooch (in scale and in shape, which is not easy as you are picking it up and laying it into the grid in CAP and stretching it into place). Finally you would make a new pattern and you’ll have to first place the grid sticker and new Brooch sticker to get it placed right and then manage to put the new fabric sticker under it and match the pattern again, then export it.
So we would have a lot of work, and have to create two new stickers (even if we already had other versions of the fabric and the Brooch since we would have to match the scale) and a new pattern (which would have a lot of careful matching up of things required).
But how would this go if the sticker we have with our Brooch has a clear background?
If we then wanted a pattern with the Brooch on a new fabric, we would lay the fabric sticker on the first layer in CAP that will accept stickers, then in a layer above that one you would place the grid sticker, place the Brooch sticker on top to get the placement right, delete the grid sticker and export the pattern.
No new stickers created (unless we WANTED a new fabric sticker), we would reuse our Brooch sticker and using the grid sticker for perfect placement of the Brooch is all we would need to worry about. The Brooch will be on the fabric pattern without any tedious matching. SUPER EASY and not a lot of extra graphic files needing to be created and saved.
So, having clear backgrounds on stickers is a huge and obvious advantage. It allows us to reuse those stickers as parts of other patterns, to use them as a graphic image that we can work with and not as a one-use item.
I made some Cabbage Roses stickers and created the wallpapers shown at the end of the last lesson. Since those stickers had a clear background I could use them to make repeating patterns across the wallpaper. Because each of these is a separate sticker and can be placed on different levels in CAP (with each level being a different recolorable channel when in Create A Style), this also allows us to start to make the sort of versatile patterns that we have in the EA patterns.
Just to refresh your memory, here are the new wallpapers I made after learning this trick:
You will notice that this wallpaper DOES have some recolorability. It was my first try, so it isn’t as fully recolorable as most EA patterns, but I’m getting there! With a little practice I expect to have some really useful, versatile patterns.
So, now we know why we would WANT to do this, the question becomes HOW do we do it?
You will need Microsoft PowerPoint from Office. Publisher has a similar feature if your version of Office doesn’t have PowerPoint.
1. Find an image that you like, let’s go ahead and use a new brooch image.
2. Open PowerPoint
3. Notice on the toolbar that you have an “insert” option. Choose it, then tell it you want to insert a picture, then choose your image of the brooch.
You see the image on the left? That is how your PowerPoint slide would look. The image on the right is the one that we work with.
4. In the toolbar, choose Remove Background. It will give you a colored grid over your image on the right. You will see (on the left) what your final image is going to look like.
You can choose to click on the stuff you want to remove OR on the stuff you want to keep (your choice for each picture you are working on, so do whatever is easier for that picture). After you get it to suit you, choose the option to keep the changes. Sometimes you lose a few details on the edges of the image along with the background. Sometimes you can fix this and sometimes you can’t. The program isn’t great about keeping really thin lines (I lost some of the stems on my Cabbage Roses image, for example).
Here my Bat Brooch doesn’t have the chain. I honestly didn’t try to get the chain back as I liked how it looked okay without it, so I don’t know if it would have been possible or not. I DO know that I tried to make a lace sticker that had a clear background and it didn’t work at all because my lace image just had too many really thin and delicate lines that we would have wanted to keep. A less intricate lace might have worked, but the program DOES have definite limits.
5. Now choose to Save as Picture and THIS IS IMPORTANT, make sure that you are saving as a PNG file type. Save this into the folder where you put the images you want to import into CAP (last time we created a folder on the Desktop for those images).
6. Now go into CAP and import your image as a sticker and you will see that your sticker has a clear background and that opens up a whole NEW world of creative possibilities in CAP.
I have become totally addicted to CAP and I can see that I have addicted some of my friends, too. Several people have told me how much fun they are having making new artwork for their games using CAP and photography. You should SEE how many such artwork files are on my computer right now because of this addiction.
http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/711685.page
I would like EACH person who wishes to participate in the project to check in to this thread and post answers to the following questions:
1. Would you like the project to be an Art Museum, an Artist Boardwalk, or Something Else? If you vote for something else, please state your idea.
2. Would you like to have a try at being the builder of the structure? It is acceptable for more than one person to work on the building, you will have to decide how you will upload and download so that more than one person can work on the build.
3. Please mention your ideas for the project AND comment on any ideas that other students have posted.
THE DUE DATE ON THIS PROJECT WILL BE ONE MONTH FROM TODAY.
IF THERE ARE NOT ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS BY SOME OF THE STUDENTS IN THE CLASS BY THE END OF THE WEEK (BY NEXT SATURDAY) THEN THE PROJECT WILL BE CANCELLED.
I will be very happy to participate in any way that the class would like. I very much intend this to be a class project, so I really want it to be STUDENT driven, but I am very happy to help in any way that students wish.
Zoo
Just some thoughts to get it rolling! We have so many talented builders here, I will be happy to assist one of them (or several?) in any fashion necessary!