New Feture

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DIY bag

Hey guys. I know i said that i was going to be posting items that i have made, but i have neglected to post much of anything. Anyways, i finally got a digital camera that i can use at my own expense instead of using my mons camera. This is a bag that i made over the summer, and its not of the best quality but its till pretty awesome. Its the first thing that i have ever sewn and i'm really happy with the way it turned out.

So this here is my bag that i have made out of black and purple velvet, safety pins, and a guitar strap. I' m very pleased with the way it turned out and i love it. I know i said this several times already. But its a really good job for being my first sewn item.

My first bag i made over the summer.

IMVU avatar photos

Over time i have been developing imvu avatar photos from basic imvu avatar screen shots. I have gotten a lot of request to share this information and i felt that it is time that i do so.

What is a screen shot? A screen shot is the current view of your monitors screen. It takes a photo of everything that is in view including the task bars, start menu, and any other programs that are open down bellow.

Screen shot tip. If you have several items open and you want a screen shot of a specific item. Make sure the target is above everything else. So that when you take you screen shot you don't have clips of other programs in your photo. Don't worry, you can cut out the parts you don't want. You will read how to do this in the tutorial.

Items you will need.

IMVU 3d chat
Normal Windows Paint Program
Paint Shop Pro (sorry, i do not use photo shop.)
Internet connection
Your best imvu avatar screen shots
Some extra time-time variation-depending on how skilled you are, one photo should take a maximum of 30 minutes. An hour at the most for thoughs who are little lest skilled than others.

1. Open your imvu and log in if you have not done this already.

2. When you have completed this step, you want to set your status in DND(do not disturb) mode. Make sure you set back to available when you are done (optional.)

3. Click on the "My Room" icon in the buddy's window at the bottom. Once your window is open check to make sure that your graphics are running smoothly. If they have a block like texture you want to change that to Accelerated graphics (Open GL or Direct 3D), and when you have done this close the window and reopen it to refresh the graphics settings. Now your avatar should have a smooth texture.

4. Click on the inventory tab in the buddy's window and scroll down till you find the tab "Rooms & Furniture." Once you have opened this click on "Rooms" and find the "Bionic White Room" and click on it.

5. Now that you are in the white room. Its time to customize your avatar. If you have poses this will make the photo exponentially better. Now that you have your avatar the way you want him/her to look. Size your photo. Meaning you can Zoom in, Zoom out, take aerial view, side view, and any other view you can think off. Once you are satisfied with said view. Take a screen shot. How to take a screen shot. On your key board hold down Ctrl+Print Sc. The Print Sc button is under the insert button. -----Oh btw... i would, really, really, really, suggest that your avatar not be wearing white. Why, because when you do background erase. It will erase you avatar as well, because the clothing sometimes blends into the background that the program thinks it is part of the background. Making your avatars leg, or arm, or shoe erase. It is fixable, but if this is your first time doing something like this. I recommend you stay away from white clothes till you get more experienced. Pixels are a hard thing to work with when you have to do it one by one instead of doing a billion with one click. Plus the color variations are noticeable when you zoom out if they are not blended properly.

(I'm sorry that the video is not the best. I was using my digital camera to make it. But i'm sure the video can give you some kinda of an idea on how to take screen shots from different view points.)




6. Wallah. You have now taken a photo of your current screen. Now this is where this start to get fun (not really.) Open the windows paint program and when you have done this. You want to hit Ctrl+V to paste you screen shot. Now you have your photo pasted, you want to crop the image. Cut away all the extra parts you don't want in your photo. Now you have done this, your going to want make your canvas fit to size of your photo. Meaning, move your photo to the top left hand corner of the paint program and take away the extra white part of it. When you are done cropping the image. Save the photo in your photos. It helps to have a fold just for these. I usually name min IMVUpix. This makes for a nice and simple way to find your photos.

If there is no scroll bar to the right of the image window. You can skip this step and move to Step 8.
7. Okay, here is the fun part now. Now that your ready to get your hands dirty. Open your paint shop program. If your computer runs slow, it mite be a good idea to close all unnecessary programs. Now that you have done what you need to do to get ready. At the top left hand corner, there will be an icon with a folder that has an arrow above it. Click on the icon to access your files. Open your imvu folder and choose the photo you want to work on. If you image is to big, meaning that there is a scroll bar on the right side of image window. Zoom out until that scroll bar disapper. Now take a screen shot of the page. When you have your screen shot hit Ctrl+V to paste. On the left side there is a Tools bar. Look for a box type icon with a line going through it. When you hover over it there should be a drop down box that says "Crop Tool (R)" and click on this tool. Select your photo and the photo only. When you are done dubble click to bring the picture to full size. Now you are ready to go.

8. In the Tools bar on the left there will be an icon with a pencil that looks like it is erasing something. There is an arrow next to it. Click on that arrow and then click background eraser. Now, at the top there will be a tool bar for the eraser. There are a few things you need to do before you start erase. Make sure you Hardness, Density, Thickness, Opacity, and Sharpness are all set to 100. Your Step should be set to 1. Rotation set to 0. Sampling and limits should both be set to contiguous. Last make sure you have check marked the box Auto Tolerance and nothing else.

9. When you have everything set to the proper settings you are ready to erase. When erasing you only want to erase the white only. When you have everything erased that is in plain veiw. You need to zoom in on the hair and find any white spots that you think need to be erased.
Sizing.
When erasing large areas of white you want to make your eraser bigger. When erasing small areas of white you want to make your eraser smaller. Simple stuff if you ask me.

(Fonts- Before moving on to Step 10, you can download fonts that you want to use for your text when you have finished erasing.)
10. Your done! Lets hope if your on this step. Now, its time to add text. Think of something catchy to put for text. Maybe your avatar name if you cant decide what to put. Anyways, to add text you first need to click on the A on the tool bar to the left. Setting-Create as should be set to vector. This will let you size and move your text. The other options are not as good as this one. Font can be anything you want, same with size. Your Strokes with pixels should be set to 0.0 or 0.1 unless you want the font to be thick. Anti-Alias should already be selected. Alignment does not mater if you use the vector setting. Everything else should be automatically set correctly.

11. Changing the hue(color) is simple. On the color pallet to the right there are 2 boxes. More than likely the top on should be black for you outline color. The second on can be any color you wish, or you can make it transparent by clicking on the circle with the line going through it. Once you are happy with your color selection and font you can now add personal text. Click anywhere in the image window. A box should appear. In that box, type the text that you want to add. If you find that you have found something wrong with the photo and need to go back, (Go back-meaning you have to change something to the photo, because when you apply text it goes onto a new layer) check the box that says remember text. This will remember your text so you don't have to type it again. But if you delete it and type something else and find you don't like it and want to go back. You have to retype it if you clicked the apply option. When you are peachy with your text click the apply button. There will be a circle thing in the middle. This will allow you to move your text. On all sides and corners of your text there will be small boxes. This will allow you to re-size you photo.

12. YAY TEXT! Now you have your text, your image is looking good, and your happy. Its time for shadowing but, first you need to open the picture in your internet browser and save the photo. This will put both the image and the text on the same layer. To open your image in the internet browser you need to go to the top and click view. Scroll down the drop menu and click the "Preview in Internet Browser" option. Now there should be a window that says "Web browser, image formats, blah. blah..." Choose the "IEXPLORER.EXE option. If you do not see this go to edit web browsers, click on add, and type it in. If you want you can browse for the option or you can enter it manually. Submit it as IEXPLORER.EVE and click ok. Once it is added click okay again. Now you have it added. Choose the IE option only. If something else is highlighted in gray under the browser click on it. This will un-highlight that browser. Under image format click png and un-highlight jpg.Why PNG? PNG files keep the background transparent when opened in a web browser. This also has a smaller file mass than a jpg or gif file. When you are done click preview, this should go to another window. Under the colors tap select the option 16.7 million colors (24 bit). In the next tab select Alpha channel transparency and Existing image or layer transparency. When you are done click OK. A window should show up, allowing you to view your picture. If there is now white around you photo, you have done everything correctly. If there is a white background then you need to go back and check what you did. When the window has opened and loaded, save the image.

13. Go pack to paint shop and close any image windows that remain. You do not have to save unless you want to. BTW, the reason we open photos in IE, is because if you save it through paint shop, the format of you photo will change. It is very difficult to take away the white background when you have saved it, if you have shadow behind your photo. Plus you can not upload photos to your myspace, myyearbook, or any image hosting web sites. Now, reopen the preview file you saved when you opened the photo in the browser. Now you ready to add shadowing. If you don not see a teel box with shadow behind it anywhere on the tool bars you need to open this. Right Click anywhere on the gray at the top where the file, view, image, ect are at. Hover over tools and when the drop menu appears click the effects button. This should open all your effects options. Find the teel box with shadowing and click on it. Now a window should open. where is says off set make both options 0. Under Attributes make the opacity 100 and the blur 18.00 and remember. The are the options i go by. Feel free to chose you own. Now click on the color box and pic a color you want for your photo's shadow drop. When you are complete click okay. Make sure you do not have the "Shadow On New Layer" options selected. Now you have shadow. To make the shadow darker. Click on the shadow tool, when the window opens click okay. Now you have darkened your shadow a little more.When you have completed this. Open your image in the web browser the same way we did before. When it has open and loaded, you can save it and share your creation with the world.

YOUR DONE!!! AWESOME JOB!...lol

Remember, any questions/concernse-email me at jc_cj_jackel@hotmail.com or leave a comment. If you have any suggestions feel free to email them aswell.

For a little more advanced editing. Ask me. What i mean by this is that, ill show you how to add a background to your image and how to make it fade to transparent background.

Where do all the balloons go?

Deifying the laws of physics is a fascinating expression of great talent and understanding of are known world. I know this has nothing to do with diy, but i thought it would be an excellent idea to show you a short cartoon that does just that. In the short cartoon, it is based on a child's wondering mind of where balloons go when they are lost. It indefinitely deify's the laws of physics, but a child's mind can not fathom these laws when they are at such a young and tender age. Follow the underlined link listed bellow and enjoy the cartoon. The name of said cartoon is "Where Do All-The-Balloons-Go?"

Where Do All The Balloons Go?

Steampunk

So, as most of you know by now, im sure, that threadbangers is having there steam punk week. Well, i can tell you that i have most defiantly see it and im liking what i see. The goggles from the first episode are so cool and i plan to make some when i get the time (actually its when i get all the materials then when i get the time). So after rummaging through the inter-web i found amazing sighs for some awesome steampunk how too's, blogs, and other amazing steampunk finds.

www.streettech.com explores the mind of one man who helps organizing fares and other such things. Explore and learn.

Of course we all know etsy has some amazingly awesome items. Check out sewlutionsbyamo's etsy shop for some wicked leather accessories.

When your done looking around those sites head over to www.steampunkworkshop.com for some amazing creations by Jake Von Saltt.

Looking for some Steampunk music. Well check out Abney Park over at www.youtube.com and head over the official www.abneypark.com web site for more info on the band.

Remember, threadbangers is hosting there steampunk week, so make sure you check it out.
If you find any sites that are appealing to you. Leave the links in a comment and ill get them posted.