Personal Tutorial Database

I'm not fortunate to have a Internet connection at the house which means if I want to watch a tutorial, I need to download it along with any project files it includes. No big deal and I actually prefer it. But after a while the files became a mess and trying to locate one or remember which one had a particular technique became somewhat over taxing to say the least. So I set out to find a solution to this problem. And that solution was to create a database which included all the tutorials I had, in all file formats.

But which database creator to use that could do what I wanted it to do let alone what I needed it to do was somewhat an issue with-in itself.

I tried most all the Movie database creators. And though many were great for DVDs, few allowed customization fields, let alone scanned the file types I had for tutorials such as .flv, mp4, .mov, .pdf, .doc or .rtf files. I did find one that when I first used it, showed great promise and came pretty close to this common sense approach to media files. However since then and within a very short time, I had very bad luck with it and worse luck with there support and website. Which is unfortunate but the case with many apps and more so of websites and the people who run them.

You know the type website I'm referring to, one were any type question or statement that doesn't shine a brilliantly beautifully light on the software and you get shut down, statements deleted and the thread locked. It's almost as if they are working against their own software... go figure? So I moved onto another database creator.

At any rate - despite the fact - there is still some good that can come of all the work I put into this database and fixing some of the problems with the app. And it would be a waste not to share the database as I intended along with the app that I worked a bit on, that is pretty stable at this point. Though none of the bells and whistles work - nor ever worked. But it is still a good database. And can be customized to suit.

So, I'm going to upload it rather than just delete it all. First however, I need to make some instructions so you won't go through half of what I went through.

In the mean time - here are a couple of screen shots of my Personal Tutorial database which I used PVD to create:

This first one shows the Basic Training series from Video CoPilot for example.
The Light green are the episodes and show that they have been seen other wise they would be blue like the rest. I have gone through and marked everything "Not Seen" and "No" for whether it was completed or not. That way when you watch one - you can check it off as seen and when you complete the tutorial you can mark it "Yes" - for completed.

Also you can see I've added in custom fields at the bottom. These fields include Difficulty, Completed, Completion Time, Required software, Additional files /Plug-ins, and lastly Tools Used (what tools will you use or learn in the tut)

and the second Screen shot below:

For example this shows VCP's 126 - Mid-Air Emergency which I included some screen shots and you can see the additional software required - that project files are available in the comment section etc etc.

I've included tutorials from everywhere including VCP, Creative Cow, AEtuts, AETutsPlus, Blender Cookie, Blender Guru, CG Arena, Vimeo, Youtube, and on and on.

Tutorials for software's as FL Studio, After Effects, 3D Studio Max, Cinema 4D, Blender 3D, ZBrush, Houdini, Photoshop, Illustrator, and more...

As well as Publications, Books etc etc. - and Hot Keys for most of the Apps as well as Alt codes for Math and General use.

However - since I switched database builders, with this particular database I didn't add in all the pictures nor all the URLs. You can easily add them in yourself - and other tuts you as you like.
Included are 411 visible tutorials with around 200 or so episodes giving you a starting base of over 600 tutorials in total within this database. - many have the location URLs.

File locations of course will not be the same- since you don't have the actual tut files nor the same drive letters I'd assume. But you can download the tutorial like I did and add it's location on your drives to the database and I'll include how to do so in the instructions. Or just follow the link to watch it online for the ones that I filled in the URLS for.

I'll show you how to set up and name your files if you wish to watch them off line as well.

The Don'ts: There are some - as mentioned this app is plagued with issues.  So do the following at your own risk and at risk of you database. And the PVD site is no help what so ever. So...
Don't update it.
Don't use the Debug.bat while online... (use it and open the file -you'll see why)
Don't update it... did I already mention that? Well don't, unless you put a back up on a usb and Sandbox the app.
Forget the plug-ins for online search for DVD info
- they don't work - they did but only once for me then quit - 90% didn't even with the update.
The Good: You can customize this app even further
- and I do hope you have better luck with it and PVD themselves if you run into a problem than I did.
Though from what I've seen in their forums and the answers they give, I doubt you will - at least support wise.

I'll be uploading my PVD version along with the the Tutorial Database. Its stable and I removed some problem areas. It runs on Window x64 and x32bit machines as an x86 app. I think it will on Win7 as well but I haven't tested it.

The database itself currently weighs in at around 25 to 28 megs. And all images added I optimized to keep the database as small as possible. I suggest you do the same rather than bloating it with oversized images and screenshots.

Give me about a week or so to complete the instructions and it's yours to download as you please...
If you like it and want to re-distribute it - feel free to do so, just please leave my credit and the instructions for building the database and add yours in if you added to it.

chow for now,

chase