We are onto Part 3 of our How to create NFT series.
Part 2: Digitizing the Artwork
Part 3: Creating the Collection
In this article we are going to talk about how to actually create the collection. Now you can do this before you even create your artwork or you can do it after all your artwork is created. Whichever you choose this step is going to take a lot of thought and planning so be prepared to take your time on this step.
We are going to use AtomicHub for this step but you could use other services if you wish because the concept is the same. If you make changes to your collection here then they will be made on the WAX blockchain so you could edit them from any other site, like what we will be doing with NeftyBlocks later. So to start login to AtomicHub and click on "NFT Creator" at the top of the screen.
You will then see a screen like this:
I already have 2 collections. And if you wanted to make edits to a collection you already created then you can click on "Manage Collection" but for us we are going to click on "Create New Collection".
**Now the NFT's I recently created I created them under the 'trocproclock' collection for a few reasons that I won't get into right now**
You will be brought to this screen.
Everything on this screen is semi straightforward but we will touch on it in a high level. In the top left you will set your Collection Logo which needs to be a file under 7MB.
One thing to note is that your Collection Name field can NOT be changed later. It has to be 12 characters long and only can include lowercase letter and the numbers 1 through 5. The rest of the fields CAN be changed later but still put some thought into them
Here you can see my collection's manage page:
So you will need to fill out all the details that you want filled out for your collection. But scroll down to the "Accounts" section and this is where we need to put some work in. If you are going to manually make each NFT yourself and mint them all then you can leave the accounts as is. However if you are going to utilize NeftyBlocks to create packs/drops and blends then you are going to need to add some accounts here.
**IMPORTANT**
If you add a WAX address as a 'Authorized Account' that means it has access to your collection to create and mint NFT's and make edits so please please do not put any account you do not trust here. I personally trust all the account I put here but you HAVE to make sure you spell them correctly. Also you will see the account 'trocproclock' listed and that is because I have a secondary WAX account with that name so do NOT add that to your collection because I do not want access to your collection.
Why do you need to add these accounts? Well if you want NeftyBlocks to be able to sell a pack of yours and then let people open the packs they will need the ability to mint those NFT's and give them to the owner who opened the pack and in order to do that they need access. They are all smart contracts that work in the background.
The Notify Accounts section is purely for accounts to be notified when NFT's are burned/minted etc. This is handy with Nefty with dealing with RAM usage and refunding. So again if you are following this guide and plan to have all the functionality that I will lay out in the next 3 articles then you will need to add those account as well.
Once you are done with that click on 'Save' and sign the WAX transaction. Then you will have your first collection! But we are not done yet folks. Just because you have a collection doesn't mean we are done. Now we need to work on getting Whitelisted so that your NFT's will show up for the majority of people by default.
You can head over here: https://support.pink.gg/hc/en-us/articles/4763342411282-What-are-the-requirements-to-become-a-whitelisted-collection-on-AtomicHub- to read about the whitelisting process but the rules are simple.
1st you need to decide if your collection is "art-based' or "game-based". Is your NFT Collection going to be used in a Play-to-Earn game or not is really what it boils down to. For me mine are "art-based". If you have a blank collection I can almost guarantee that you will not get whitelisted. So you are probably going to have to create a few templates and schema's and create all that backend work first before they will consider you for whitelisting.
If you are going the Art-Based route you will also need to decide if your collection is Fan Art, Drug-Related Art, NSFW Art, Non-Original & Royalty Free Images, Political Content, or Gambling.
Once you have read through the entire document then head over here: https://support.pink.gg/hc/en-us/articles/4405472290322-How-can-I-apply-for-whitelisting- to actually apply to be whitelisted.
They mention KYC and how it is a requirement for whitelisting. Unless things have drastically changed since I got whitelisted that doesn't mean they need to know your name or home address but more so all your Social Media's and such to verify you are a real person who is trying to make a real collection and not some cashgrab bullcrap.
Now you have a collection created but you need to create Schema's and Templates and all that so you can get whitelisted right? So let's get into that briefly.
What is a Schema?
Think of a Schema as a way to divide up your collection. For me I have a schema called "packs" and I also have a schema called alphabet. The Alphabet Schema is used for all my... well alphabet letter NFT's. The Pack schema is where I will create all my packs. Think of Schema's kind of like a folder to group like NFT's together.
Look at the Alien.Worlds collection here Each one of these listed are a different Schema. They have one for land, tools, arms, levels, crew, faces and awards. It's a clean way to divide you collection.
But further more the reason to create schema is also to assign different attributes to that group of NFT's. In the Alien Worlds example they may have a NFT attribute called Mining Power on theirs tools. But if they create a Award NFT it doesn't have a mining power so that wouldn't make sense to include that.
Go to you collection and click on the "Schema" tab under the header information.
When you create a new Schema you have a few options.
You need to name your Schema of course but also then need to pick your attributes as well. You can create new attributes and name them what you would like and also give them a type.
Here is my Schema for packs. Something to note is that you can NOT get rid of the 'name', 'img' or 'video' attributes but even if you are not going to use one of them that is okay and we will talk about that in Templates.
Once you have everything the way you want then Save that and sign the WAX transaction.
What is a Template?
A template is a NFT. If you are going to draw a Bitcoin logo as a NFT and you want to have 100 Mints of it then those 100 mints will be 1 template. It makes it easier to mint out a NFT without having to input all the information over again each time.
Go to your collection and click on Templates then "Create New Template".
You will then need to select which Schema you are making a template under.
Now you will need to fill in the information for this NFT. Here is one I am creating now for HIVE.
I filled out all the fields that I want and you can see that the 'video' field is not filled out and the "Set Field" is unchecked which means that it will not show up in the NFT. You should also note the 'img' field is where I pasted the IPFS CID from Filebase.
You can also have unlockable content that will only show up if you are the owner of the NFT which is a cool feature. Once you are ready and done the Create the Template.
And that is all you need to do for now but rinse and repeat for all the Schema's and Templates you will need. You can always add more later but be VERY CAREFUL to not do what I just did and while performing this tutorial I created the HIVE NFT under the 'pack' schema and not my 'crypto.design' schema so I had to create a new schema under the correct one. Almost everything on the blockchain is forever so please read over everything you do when creating NFT's to make sure you don't screw up!
If you like my work and want to hang out with other cool people join my Discord server! https://discord.gg/ra2nFdUNaw
I give away NFT's and stuff from time to time too.
