It helps to have a theme in mind. I have created several kinds of rooms. Some are round; some are square, some just flat. It’s all up to you how you want to make the room. As to the theme there is everything from gothic to romantic bedrooms.

My suggestion is to create a room for your self first. Think to your self “what kind of a room would I have if I could make it any way I wanted” then just start creating it, from colors to furniture. Above all, take your time and use lots of layers.

(Tip for making an animated room: duplicate the layer you’ve just worked on, otherwise you will end up with a master background and all the rest of the pictures will be transparent.)

A really important tip is to learn to optimize your images. It will help your loading time immensely. If you are going to put your finished rooms on a web page some other great tips are to always use “width” “height” and “alt”. Nothing is worse then waiting for a web page to load because the proper html code wasn’t used.

There are several tutorials out there for creating WebPages, some will even create it for you, you just tell it what you want and add the graphics. For beginners and those who don’t really want to learn html code this is the best way to go.

Ok, now that I’ve gotten all the tips out of the way, lets get on to the tutorial.

(I am using PSP 8 to create this room, all the tubes used in these graphics can be found on the different web sites I have listed at my link page)

In PSP (this tutorial will work with all versions, I think, of PSP) Open up a new canvas at 600 wide x 400 height. This gives you plenty of work area to make a room. You can always down size later.

Next, click on your pen tool, or what ever you use to draw a straight line. First draw your floor line, about the middle of the canvas or lower if you want more wall space and less floor space.

If you draw one line at an angle it will create the illusion of depth, while a straight line will be a horizon line or ending.

If you are creating more then one wall rather then just a flat look then you will want to draw a line from the point where the two lines meet to the top of the canvas as in the picture below. (I have exaggerated the lines to see them better, normally you would make them small and in a color close to what you are going to use for your wall and floor. Not to worry though, you can always clean it up later.)



Here you see I have created 2 walls and a floor. Now click on your magic wand. Tolerance 0, feather 0. Holding down the shift key click inside the two wall sections. Now, click on your flood fill tool. Go to the foreground color and chose your color or pattern for your walls. Now flood fill in your selections. Go to Select/Select None.

Now, click on your magic wand again and click inside the floor area. Click the flood fill tool. Go to your foreground color and chose your floor pattern or color. Flood fill the selection. Click Select/Select None.

Great, now you have just created the backdrop for you first room. Here's were you want to clean up your room lines. If you have jagged edges just paint them in or use your pen tool.

Find a picture of something outside that you would like to look through a window or door at. I’ve used a snow scene from our back yard. Size it to fit. Edit/Copy. Click on your room canvas and Edit/Paste as new layer, right click on the layer and name it “window scene”. Now move it to whereever you want your window or door scene to be. Don’t worry if it’s bigger then you thought or smaller, we can adjust that. It will look something like this:



Now go to layers and create a new layer, call this “window” or “door”. If you have a tube of either a window or French doors you can use that or using your pen tool, shapes tool or any number of things to create a rectangle. I have a tube already made so I will use that. Size it to fit what you want. If the picture of the outside is too large for the window size you have, here is what you can do:

You can either click on the window scene layer and erase around the edges carefully so it fits or you can use your deform tool to resize it. Use whichever method is easiest for you.

When your finished click on the “window” layer. Click layers and add a new layer, name this one for whatever tube you are going to use next. Remember, put in background images first and work forward to make your picture as I have done here:



Remember your perspective. Things in the background will be smaller then those in the foreground.



As you work forward remember to add the little things. Or if you are more comfortable adding some later you can do that too. It’s easiest if for each thing you add you use a new layer. That way if for some reason you are not happy with where you initially put it you can go back and move it. More then one thing on a layer will make it so that everything gets moved at the same time. If you’re used to your PSP you can probably use a few of my favorite tricks. I don’t know how many times I get carried away and add more then one object to a layer. I go to move something and the whole picture moves…sheesh. Rather then redo or erase what I do is click on that layer, click on your selection tool or lasso tool and select the object you want to either move or delete. If moving it you will have to Edit/cut, Selection/select none, Edit/paste as new selection or new layer and put it where you want it.

(For those making theirs into an animation remember, the more layers equals more frames in your animation, which leads to longer loading time. Try to limit your objects or be really sure that’s where you want some you plan to put all on one layer.)

When you are all done I would do two things: First save it as “whatever name you want” in psp format. Next I would click Layers/Merge/Merge All and flatten, click File/Save as and save it in .jpg format. The reason for these two savings is you might find that later you want to go back and add things or change them.

Example: I create rooms for friends of mine. They write and tell me what kind of room they want, style, color and such and I try to make it like they want. I then save it as I have said above, send them the .jpg one to see if they approve and they write back and tell me of any changes they may want. If none then so much the better but that’s rare. If they have suggestions for changes, I just pull up my psp image, which is still in layers and adjust whatever needs fixing. I can do this many times.

What’s really fun is when they tell you it’s great the way it is, not to change a thing. You go into your files and delete the .psp image and later they come back and say “on second thought, can you do this…..”. Grrrr….lol. But I have gotten good and erasing, smudging and using a lot of the tools PSP 8 has for fixing things.
I’m hoping that some of my tips will help you avoid these problems.

Here is the final result of the room I created. At the very bottom is an animated version of the same room, downsized for ease of loading.



Below are a couple of templates you can use or you can create your own.





Well, good luck on what ever you come up with. Above all have lots of fun playing. Also, make sure to read the “terms of use” on the pages you get your PSP tubes from. Those people went to a lot of trouble to collect them, create them or cleaning them up. Remember the Golden Rule: Do unto others, as you would have then do unto you.