Easy NFT

So you want to create an NFT and have this amazing idea, but you have no clue how to get started. No worries, this list should help guide you in the right direction. As a disclaimer I'm not a financial advisor nor do I claim to be an expert on the topic, I'm just sharing the knowledge I know.

Before jumping into the NFT space we need to determine what purpose the NFT idea will serve. Will it be just an amazing piece of art, will it have functionality such as being a part of a game or special access to certain content on a website or DApp? Will this be a one of kind or a part of an entire collection? It's best to plan out what the NFT(s) will do now because once an NFT is created it usually cannot be changed.

Now that you planned your NFT it's time to create it. There are tons of digital art mediums out there to create practically anything but I'll list what I'm familiar with and what's free to use.

If you are creating a digital piece of art I personally use Affinity Designer and Photo for anything graphic/photo related since it is easy to use and does most of what Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop can do at a fraction of the price and isn't subscription based. Now there are other programs that are also good to use such as Procreate or Gimp(free) but I'm not too familiar with these apps. If you like to work strictly with pixel art I highly suggest checking Pyxel Edit out as it has everything you need from creating still images to making an animated gif.

For video editing I use Shotcut(free) which I may add I'm not a video editor but this program is pretty easy to understand and works great on my old laptop. I'm not into editing any audio but if I had to recommend something that's free to use check out Audacity. 

For any 3D modeling I use two programs. I use Nomad Sculpt on my iPad for making anything in a 3D space to get the idea out, however the measurements isn't perfect so I use Blender(free) for more precise modeling and touchups. Blender is also amazing for creating animations or simulations.

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This is just my short list of digital art mediums, there are plenty more out there to discover for yourself to see what suits you best.

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It's time to start making the idea happen! This is the fun part, least it should be anyways. While designing the idea we should stick to a plan of how the NFT will be structured. In this example we will assume it is a collection of NFTs we are making that have a main base layer image with different changing image elements to make each NFT unique. A good way to achieve this is with a folder system representing each layer. Your folders should resemble something similar to the following:

1. Backgrounds

2. Base

3. Hats

4. Shirt

5. Ties

Now you can have as many folders as needed or even make a subfolder within each to represent different projects like the following:

1. FancyFrogs

1a. Backgrounds

1b. Base

1c. Accessories

2. BittyBirds

2a. Backgrounds

2b. Base

2c. Accessories

When saving each image part we will need to keep in mind how Easy NFT will read information in the image name if we want it to have rarity or additional traits. The standard for each name can be as simple as just the name and that's it, meaning no rarity or additional traits. If you wanted to set a rarity to the element then you will need to use # followed by a rarity number. For example the image part GoldChain you want to have a rarity of 15% you will need to name it GoldChain#15 (this is assuming you left the layers "out of" range at 100). Keep in mind each layer can have it's own range so if "out of" is changed to lets say 200, then in order to keep a 15% chance you will need to rename the GoldChain#15 to GoldChain#30.

If you wanted to set additional traits to the image element then you will need to use the (value). For example the image part GoldChain you want to have an additional trait of 25 Defense you will need to name it GoldChain(25) and in the layer in Easy NFT add an Additional Trait and call it Defense. This will ensure that in the metadata file in the attributes a trait_type is called "Defense" with a value of "25". Note that if the GoldChain also had a rarity it would look like GoldChain#15(25) for example.

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To the left is an example of how the metadata may look using the above example. Note that the values are all in quotes, this can be edited to numeric values using Easy NFT.

Adjusting Metadata is pretty easy using the Convert Trait Value. However it is also important to make sure what you change is accurate as editing values cannot be undone. With that said it is highly suggested to check the "Create EditedAttributesFiles Folder" box or make a copy of the JSON files incase you need to redo something. 

Each attribute in the metadata JSON file is ordered by an index value starting at 0. So looking at the metadata example on the left the first {"trait_type": "Neck", "value": "GoldChain"} is index 0 the next set in the curly brackets is index 1 and so on. So in order to change a set we need to know what indexes are to be changed in this case we want all the number values to not have quotes. So we will take note of index 1, 3, 5, 9, and 10. We will input the index in the Input Field and ensure the Float box is checked and press Convert, do this each time for each index to change. The result should now look like the left metadata example.

If you wanted to have the index be a specific display type you could check one of the display type boxes and it will add a display type for that index. If you already changed the value and it isn't adding the display type simply change the index back to a string first then change it to a display type.

Easy NFT works with the information you provide it in layers by specifying the folders where each layers image parts reside aka the Subfolder and optional Parts Folder. See image on the left for layer example.

Layer Name will represent the main trait_type for this layer while the image part that is picked will represent the value.

Layer Order is where in the layer stack the images will reside, low numbers are shown below higher numbers.

Typically after generating you will want to look over the generated images to ensure visually everything looks in order. Then you need to decide where the images will be hosted. Usually the preferred hosting site is IPFS. You'd put all your generated images into a Folder on IPFS and get the CID (hash) of that folder. You can then use Easy NFT to update the image url to ipfs://yourCID/ and press update. This will change each image url to have a direct link to the image uploaded into IPFS. You can also update the other fields such as name, description, external url, royalties, and royalty recipient.

Go back up and look over Adjusting Metadata to Numeric Values.

Depending on how you will mint your NFTs will decide the next steps. If you decide to Lazy Mint your NFTs by just uploading them to Open Sea one by one then you can just ignore the above hosting image step and disregard your JSON files and follow this video. However if you decided to mint your NFTs yourself you'll need to add to another folder in IPFS to hold all your JSON metadata files. It's best to decide what token standard your NFTs will be by this point so you have an idea of how to start your smart contract later. You can then drag those JSON files into the folder you created into IPFS to host the metadata files.

Now to get everything tied together if you didn't go the Lazy Minting way, is to create a Smart Contract for your NFTs. You can follow this tutorial video if you went with ERC1155 token standard or this video for ERC721. Now these videos are just guides as examples on what you could do as there are other ways to go about creating your Smart Contract to suit your needs. 

Now I've search high and low through countless pages and watched weeks worth of videos to find the easiest way to Bulk Upload NFTs. Now I'm not talking like a few NFTs, I mean thousands* (OpenSea has issues sometimes with collections higher than 500 so be patient when getting the collection listed). Here is what you need to do:

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0. Get some testNet tokens from a faucet such as: Polygon Mumbai Faucet or Ropsten Ethereum Faucet. If you need to set up your Metamask for the Polygon Mumbai network please follow this tutorial.

1. Update your metadata to tie the image_url in Easy NFT to IPFS by copying the CID of the images folder in IPFS

The CID it should look like this:

QmNxLVKQgHNV9Fgj2fgf818KHmMjHXkAhXHRaPcDDy7EoM

then type in image_url in Easy NFT:

ipfs://theIMAGEfolderCIDyouJUSTcopied/

Making sure to end it with a forward slash. Once updated check to make sure all the metadata files look correct by viewing a few of them within the metadata folder.

2. Drag the metadata folder into your IPFS and copy the CID of that folder, the CID should be different from the image folder CID.

3. Now open any browser that has access to your MetaMask wallet and ensure you have access by opening up Remix IDE checking it is connected to a TestNet like Ethereum(Rinkeby) or Polygon(Mumbai)

4. Warning Coding Ahead Changing a few fields! Create a new contract file by right clicking on contracts folder and call it whatever makes sense for your collection in my case for demonstration I call it MyCollection.sol but again you can call it whatever just make sure to end it with .sol or it will not work.

5. I've made an Easy ERC1155 Bulk Mint Template here just copy paste. Then edit the contract MyCollection to match the name of your contract this time without the .sol at the end. Then fill out the editing section changing only the name, symbol, and ipfsCID within the quotations and change the collectionTotal amount. See image on the left for reference.

6. Once your smart contract is filled out correctly you can compile the smart contract using the 0.8.0+ compiler.

7. If the contract compiled successfully you should see no red warning at the bottom left corner. Then click on the deploy section button on the left should resemble a ethereum symbol. Change the Environment to Injected Web3 and ensure it is on your correct account. (MAKE VERY SURE BY DOUBLE CHECKING METAMASK, MESSING UP HERE COULD COST YOU, you've been warned, I'm not liable for any actions or lost goods, I'm just sharing my knowledge)

8. When you are ready press Deploy, and it should, after a moment give you a confirmation through MetaMask to accept the minimal gas fees. Once you accept you've now successfully deployed your very own smart contract for your collection and own them as official NFTs!

Congrats to you!!!!

9. Now to see them in OpenSea we need to get listed. So we need the smart contract value by pressing the copy button shown on the left image as two papers at the bottom. 

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10. Then go to opensea.io/get-listed and select Live on a test net. Then in the next window that shows up select the network you chose for test net and paste in the smart contract value we copied. Then press Submit.

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11. You will now be directed to your collection in Open Sea, it will take a while for everything to populate (depending on the size of your collection and traffic on the network it could take a long time so just be patient, you can check the status on a scanner in this case mumbai.polygonscan). Once it all looks good you can prepare it the same way but using the main net. Refreshing Metadata can help get the images and metadata to show if it hasn't loaded in yet.

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12. Verify Your Smart Contract on Polygon Scan for mainNet or testNet. Paste in your contract address, change compiler type to Single File, compiler version to the version you used for deploying your contract, and License to MIT. You can follow this video for further in depth instructions.

Then there is a lot of copy/paste if you want to do it all manually. Otherwise you can use and change my flattened template by just deleting the MyCollection contract at the bottom and then pasting in the contract you made for your collection. Then copy and paste this entire script into the Solidity Contract code section back in Polygon Scan. Make sure to delete any constructor arguments and yes for optimization if you had the contract optimized on deployment. Finally confirm the steps at the bottom of the page to then verify your contract.

If there was any issues you'll be shown a window with errors in which case it is a case by case basis to try and resolve as shown in this video. Otherwise you should now have a verified contract you can interact with on the site.

Congratulations on your NFT journey!

We went over a lot of information, but you should be proud of your very own NFT collection!

At this point if you are on a main net you can adjust your page and make it look nice and set up prices and all that fun stuff!

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I hope this guide helped in some way and if you have any questions about anything discussed in this guide or Easy NFT please reach out and I'll do my best to answer.

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Cheers! =]