Icon Making Tutorial Challenge.

from WinCustomize Forums

On IRC today the Idea was brought up of making a nifty tutorial For making Icons.

A lot of people use different Programs to make Icons, I would like to put together a Group of Tutorial showing how to make a Icon, with certain Criteria, in each of these programs.

I am Volunteering to do the CorelDraw Tutorial.

So here is the Criteria.

1) Must Be a folder

2) Must Show Transparency

3) Must show Gloss

4) Must Show Shadow

5) The finished Icon must Contain, but not be limited to 128x128, 48x48, 32x32, & 16x16 WindowsXP formats.

The rest is up to you.

The Idea here is to answer a lot of questions that we all see, in our inboxes, and on the message boards. And I think it would be kind of fun to see what we come up with. I think for simplify we should just make our tutorials As Text Files with, Numbered Screenshots. We can put them all together when everyone is done in a nice HTML file and post in several places.

If you are interested Please White me back ASAP. I would like to have the entire project done in the next few weeks. Include What Program you would like to use.

AS it is now we have.

CorelDRAW Mormegil (Paul Boyer)

FirwWorks DigitalCHET (AL)

PS. This is not a Stardock Sponsored thing, just something that I think would be cool. And fun for all of us.

Paul Boyer

[email protected]

www.stardock.com


[Message Edited]
9,461 views 31 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
this one might be interesting for you as it meets almost all of your criteria: http://programmer-art.org/?page=ink-first (visit with a web-standards compliant browser)

Inkscape is a free SVG editor available for both X and Windows. as GNOME and KDE can use SVG icons natively the tutorial stops at this point. but the program also can export to PNG. and from PNG to ICO it´s only a small step.
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
How about you Moshi? You could do one in InkScape?
TouchTasks - Access tasks with ease on Windows touchscreens.
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
interesting as well: http://developer.ximian.com/articles/tutorials/icons/output/index.html
Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
me? i´m not an iconist at all. the only thing i use Inscape for is to convert SVG to PNG for personal use. also i´m already in charge for a Rainmeter tutorial over at Custo.
Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I am in! will make a PS one
Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top

OK looks like we got Treetog to do Photoshop, Would still love to get.

Illustrator
PSP
Freehand
Gimp

Or any others

Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Certainly sounds like fun...

Can you tell I've never volunteered for anything like this before?
Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Any 3D program would be cool aswell
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I guess I could do a quick Illustrator, the way I do icons is by doing the base forms in Illustrator then polishing it up in PS. The -shadow effect in Illustrator isn't good (it's sort of pixel-square-like-thingy-not pretty-etc) and there's no support for transparent gradients, so already I would exclude the gloss and shadow parts... The gloss effect could probably be overwon by opacity and blends.
[Message Edited]
Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Hmm I can't write d r o p
Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Would the tutorial need to include the conversion to .ico in another program (like IconWorkshop)?
Reply #12 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I think we can just let it be with, Now use IconWorkshop, IconDeveloper, or whatever to conver to a Icon.
Of course it would be nice if any hints as to how to make sure the Final Icon is nice and clean, would be nice.
Reply #14 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I used Corel Draw 10 and would love to learn how to make icons with it..Took a 3 month night course @ college for it but was only taught the very basics...Hope this works out
Reply #15 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Anyone ever heard of a program called Xara X (vector drawing)? I am currently working on an iconset using it and Photoshop, and will gladly upload a sort of tutorial.



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Reply #16 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Xara is a very cool program, I have thought about using it, but I miss the Mesh Fill to much to use it exclusively.
If you would like to do a Xara Totorial, that would be very cool. E-mail me if you have any questions, about what we are trying to do with this.

Reply #17 from WinCustomize Forums Top
good luck, guys. i'll sit back and watch. icons in fireworks? i do NOT envy you freehand, indeed.. but i can't stand the macromedia pen tool.
Reply #18 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I will try my hand at working with paint shop pro 8 my icons dont look the best yet but I have been useing paint shop pro sence ver.3 so I will give it a go



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Reply #19 from WinCustomize Forums Top
That would be very cool drizzit. Let me know if you have any questions. I am going to do mine thisweekend. It wold be nice to have everyones tutorials in the next week or so.
Reply #20 from WinCustomize Forums Top
moshi, thank you for posting the link to Inkscape. I had been looking for a program that could read svgs and convert them to pngs for a long time. And yes, I had googled, but guess I didn't use the right words to search.
I am amazed at how a 48x48 svg makes a perfect 128x128 png.
Reply #21 from WinCustomize Forums Top
That is because a SVG is vector. It should bake a perfect 1280x1280 as well.
Reply #22 from WinCustomize Forums Top
/me can't wait for the PS version
Reply #25 from WinCustomize Forums Top
ok I had a problem well my puter went down and I lost all my stuff and it is still not fixed right(I think it is the motherbord) > lucky for me I got all the parts in for my new puter and geting it all up and runing
so with any luck I will have my tutorial for PSP8 done by the end of the weekend



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