Photoshop Tutorial : Making Unique Blends

- Following is a PrintScrn tutorial explaining how to make blends with different pictures, using Photoshop. Click on the images for bigger versions. -

Final finished version of the blend. Different patterns, brushes, photo effects and texts have been used on it. Credits are posted at the end of this Blog post.

Blend;
© Proshun
Featuring: Cute, young models, including Mackenzie Foy.
Duration (Time taken to make): About four hours in all.
Credits;
Brushes; Ego-Box (here) and by myself.
Images; Miss Mackenzie Mackenzie Foy .
Textures: Created by myself.
Patterns: Created by myself.
Frames: Various sites.
Software Used: Photoshop CS.

Making posts on Blogger.

Step 1: First, log into your blogger account. [You must have a Blogger account already in order to log in. If not, then make one.]
Step 2: Your dashboard should be the page that shows up on the screen immediately after log in. Look at the page; right under the green bar with the “New! Email Notifications : Get feature announcements and tips to get the most out of your blog. Enable now!” line. Look under that, and you will find the box labeled “Manage Blogs”. In that box, there should be a link called “New Post” enclosed in a blue rounded box. Click that.
Step 3: After clicking on the link, a new page with an e-mail-construction-like page. There will be slots where you will be able to write the name of your post, put a link in, and/or construct your post.
Step 4: If you would rather construct your post using HTML, then click on the “Edit HTML” tab. This should switch the mode to an HTML entry mode.
Step 5: When you’re finished, click “Publish Post”. If you are not quite done with your post and would like to be able to access it at some other time, then click the “Save As Draft” button. That way, you can log on any other time and we edit your post again.
Step 6: If you clicked publish post, then you are done! If you clicked "Save As Draft", then access it again later.

Peer Game Evaluation

I played Devni’s game, and the following evaluation is of that game’s.
• Briefly describe the game, including its objectives.
Ans: Devni’s game is called Exploration Natsia 3. The main objective of the game is to find the EscapePod that will allow the player to finish the game. There are occasional gems along the way, but those are not necessary to be collected.

• List two strengths of the game.
Ans: 1) The game is very intense, and is sure to keep the player interested, and make them jump up in their seat from all the excitement.
2) The design of the game is very, very attractive and the designs on it match nicely with the game.

• List one weakness of the game.
Ans: 1) The game was a little bit too short and could easily be finished in about twenty seconds or so, and there were too many ninja’s at the beginning of the game, making it harder for the player to proceed.

• Answer the three questions provided by the game’s designer.
Ans: Devni has no questions on her post.

Nostalgic Submergence; Own Game Evaluation

• Describe your game (including a title).
My name is called “Nostalgic Submergence”. Bob is stuck in a queer world that he somehow got trapped in. He is sure that he has seen this somewhere before, but he cannot recall where. In order for him to get out of this mysterious world he must collect all the diamonds and find the EscapePod.

•What is the objective of the game?
Bob, the main character, is stuck in a strange, unknown world and he has to rescue himself from it. In order for him to be able to do this, he has to find all the diamonds around the world, defeat his enemies and make it alive to the EscapePod at the very other side of the world.

• Discuss two strengths and one weakness of your game.
STRENGTHS: 1) The game is captivating. It keeps the gamer captivated, especially because tone of the firsts enemies they encounter are a large troll and it takes more focus to defeat that.
2) Very original; all ideas came from myself.
WEAKNESSES: I think the game is a little bit too short. I could have made it longer, and a few more enemies would have made the game more challenging to play.

• What improvements could be made?
I could’ve made the game a little bit longer, and maybe add some more different types of structures instead of going with the normal and plain ones. It looks kind of boring at times.

• What difficulties did you encounter while creating your game?
When I was playing the beta version, I realized that when the weak blocks gave away underneath the character, the game failed to make him fall into a hole. He kept standing on that black area of space.

• What did you have to modify or change from the original design?
In my original design, I was going to make the aerial portions much larger and lengthy, but I realized that I didn’t have enough time to do so. Also, if I made the aerial portion larger and lengthier, then the, player has more chances of falling and loosing the game. The higher it is, the harder it gets and the farther the ground is. It would also get harder for the player to climb back up.

• Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your performance during this assignment.
STRENGHTS: I wrote and posted my written parts on time, constructing them well. Also, I believe that my game idea was good.
WEAKNESSES: I lagged behind in the game making process. I was confused and had to constantly change parts of the game. Reconstruction and remaking took a while for me.

• What did you do well at?
I think I did pretty well on the written parts of these assignments. They were in depth and informative. They explained and answered all the questions that Mr. Parago had asked us.

• What could you have done better at?
I should have used my time more affectively and also work at home in order to finish the game on time. The game is finished, but now Sploder refuses to save it right and claims that they are “Building game…”

SPECIFIC QUESTIONS:
* What was the level of difficulty? Was it too hard, too easy or just normal?
* Did you find the game captivating, or was totally boring and a waste of time?
* Out of a scaling on 1 to 5, how much would you rate my game?

Plan

• What will you do first? Why?
Ans: First, I will plan out everything I am to do from scratch. I will write down the story line, the elements I want to add into the game and other information on a separate word document and work with that. It will have the initial design ideas and all the step by step procedures needed to create the game. Then I will start producing the game, trying to stick to the idea written down.

• How will you insure that you complete the project on time?
Ans: I’ll work on the project everyday, even if just for a little bit time. Not slacking and waiting till the last minute, since I do that often, helps too.

• Who will test beta versions of your game?
Ans: My sister and a few of my friends will probably be the ones to test the beta version of my game. It will be their opinion that will change the overall final version of the game.

• Will you incorporate other people’s suggestions into your game’s design?
Ans: As much as I wish that I could put every single person’s idea into my game, it is not exactly possible to do so. I will, however, take their suggestions and probably change something that is close to what they have suggested into the game.

• How will you decide if you have created a good game or not?
Ans: Viewer opinions will be the main focus of game evaluation. Of course, the gamers will all have their individuals ideas and commentary, but, if altogether the greater percent of the viewer opinion is positive, then I can possibly be assured that the game I produces wasn’t totally a waste of time.

Design

• What type of game are you going to produce?
Ans: I’m going to produce a platform type game. It will be at a medium level of difficulty – not too hard, not too easy. There will be a lot of fighting, and lots of traps in which the character will try to be sucked into and defeated in.

• What will it look like?
Ans: My game will consist of different varying “levels”. “Ground” levels, “underground” levels and “sky” levels, to be precise. There shall be many traps and lots of enemies trying to stop the main character from reaching his destination and accomplishing his mission. There will be many power-ups at different portions, allowing the character to regain power by collecting them. Also, there will be different landmarks throughout the game

• How will the characters be controlled?
The “left” and “right” arrows on the arrow pad will be used to control the avatar/character in the game, while the “up” arrow button will allow it to jump. The “space bar” will allow the character to use the many weapons provided to destroy enemies and hazards, and the “C” button will be used to activate the provided jet packs.

• What will be the objective of the game?
Ans: The game is about how the character is seeing a vague world in his sleep. He is sure that he has seen this world somewhere before, but he can not recall where from. He soon finds out that he is not able to leave this world, and the only way for him to do so is to eliminate all the enemies and predators in this world, collect all the gems and safely reach the other end of this world. He has a long journey ahead of him, and it will not be safe.

• How are you going to make sure that the players like your game?
Ans: First I will play the game myself, and see if there’s anything that I think is terrible or bad, and then I’ll fix that part. I’ll get my friends and other classmates to check it and take their feedback and suggestions and ask them what they think of the game. I will also ask them to tell me what they thought was good and what they think that I could do better on.

• How long will you need to create it? Give a timeline for its completion.
Ans: The game will take about three to five days to finish, as it is slightly complex and filled with different elemental stages (water, fire, sky etc.). The game should be finished by the 8th of March at the most.

Investigate.

What? Online games…?
As our world turns more technological, our likes and dislikes also start taking a turn towards digital and technical amusement and pass-time activities. One of the most popular such technologies are computer/video games. They’re easy to access, free on the most part, and all you need is to have a good source of internet connection and – PRESTO!, you have your ultimate weapon of un-boredomness.

Online games are amazing to play, filled with amazing story-lines, ever-changing plots, cool characters and fun ideas (well, most of the time really). However, not all computer/video games are amazing and fun and great to play. A lot of them are, to be honest, dreadful and disputable.

There are many elements that make a game good, or bad.

Good, or bad?
Games are judged on several traits, such as the idea and main objective of the game, the difficulty level and complexity, the visual quality, the originality and overall enjoy-ability of the game.

I will be explaining each word up there in the section that follows:
Idea and Main Objective: Every game needs to have a plot and the plot has to progress and change throughout the game, even if it is changed just slightly. The main idea is what the player has to accomplish in the game – an example may be the game DX-Ball. In this game, the player has to maneuver the small bouncy ball and the slab that the ball bounces off on correctly in order to destroy all the bricks in the “wall” set up in each stage. As the character proceeds to each higher stage, the difficulty level gets higher and the “wall” pattern changes, turning more complex and hard to break.
For a game to be “good and enjoyable to play”, it should have a fun idea and purpose behind it, and the objective shouldn’t be too hard to gain.
Difficulty Level and Complexity: The difficulty of every game should not be at the extreme, but at the same time, they should never be too easy either. The difficulty puts on a challenge for the player and makes the game more fun to play (as there are significant amounts of “competition” going on between the player and the game). If the game is too hard and not easy to play, then the game will not be liked, but, then again, if the game is too easy, the player just looses interest in the game because it’s so easy.
Visual Quality: The latest graphical technology should be used for the game because the gamers always look after graphical richness at an extreme level.
Originality of Idea: If the idea of the game is stolen from another game, popular or not, then the player wouldn’t be that interested in playing the game as the player already knows what the game is about and doesn’t want to play a different game with the exactly same objective. So, this is why having an original idea for a game is the best way to go.

I’ve already discussed the qualities of any good game.

a) What makes a “good” game enjoyable to play?
Ans: A good game is one that is captivating and wants to make the player keep playing the game. It also has to have a good and fun objective behind it, and the difficulty is based well on each level of the game. The visual quality and original idea also makes the game fun, interesting and captivating. Also, in order for a game to be good, the rating should be give correctly.
b) What makes a “bad” game not enjoyable to play?
Ans: A game is defined as “bad” when it is not fun to play and very uninteresting to the player. Very weak plotline, amateur visuals, complicated applets (controls), inconsistent thrill acceleration – the all are some points that make a game not enjoyable to play.