Simple Bits #2: Navigating the Dreams Workspace

Too often I find myself doing something wrong or too ambitious with the Dualshock, and then I’m off somewhere in outer space and hopelessly detached from my work in progress. Or I otherwise make a nice mess of things.

I attribute my clumsiness to the fact I’m not a gamer. It’s only because of Dreams that I bought a PlayStation. My goal is to create animations and tunes, then export those to a video editor to create cartoons or short films. So you may not encounter my problems as a beginner and be sufficiently adroit to not need the tips in this video. But if you find it difficult to maintain an ordered and stable Dreams workspace, or you fumble at the controls as much as I do, then you can profit from watching this tutorial.

But first, here’s the most important tip I can give you as a Dreams beginner: be sure to watch as many of the Dreams tutorials that come with the game as you can. They are very professionally done and cover many of the basics well. You will want to strangle Cuthbert before you’re done with them, but pedagogically these tutorials are perfect and worth going through more than once.

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Errata — this is where I report any mistakes or omissions committed in the video. Here are some so far:

1. I do not make it clear in this video that the unwanted “ghost clones” I refer to come from holding down the L1 button while at the same time touching the R2 trigger — that combination creates clones. I am constantly making unwanted clones that can hide in my creation that can possibly muck things up.
2. I lazily refer to just about everything on the Dualshock 4 as “buttons.” The tools and modes “buttons” that appear when you press the Dualshock square button are icons; L2 and R2 are triggers; the cross-shaped four buttons on the top left are the D-Pad; and the joysticks are “analog sticks” (L3 on the left when pressed, R3 on the right when pressed).

Other Approaches — this is where I put additional or better ideas pertaining to the video’s subject matter.

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Questions — this is where I post your questions pertaining to the video’s subject matter and provide answers.

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