We are pleased to announce the grand opening of our new online store! The good folks at BBay.com have joined up with Renderosity.com, to provide their catalog of offerings here at our site. Thanks to everyone for being patient with BBay.com while they were having technical troubles, but things should be running smoothly again now! In case you aren't aware, any and all members of this site are welcome to upload items they have created, as long as they follow the rules given in the store. You will be paid approximately 50% of all sales made from your items every month. Given enough hard work, your days of being a starving artist will be over! :-)

Wonderful news! I know a lot of people were getting real antsy not being able to get to the BBay stuff. My $0.02 I don't know if the "Free Stuff" format is the best way to display the products for sale. The old way that BBay was doing it was ok but it too was becoming unwieldy. There must be a better way. First one to make a sale buys the rest of us lunch :-) jje

It's a great idea, though I think many ppl myself included will be a little sad to see Renderosity grow up into commercialism. I know it was on the cards but hey I not always the best at changing with the times :)Another thought I had was I realise that ppl have felt the need to promote their work in the past and have done it through the forums.BBay included. Does this now mean we could have a lot more of the "ads" on the forum? I know that Online Store has a whats new section can we have an update notice on the front page where ppl can put the latest messages concerning their products, mainly to keep the forums a little less cluttered? Goodness knows we generate enough talk with out ads :)Just an idea anyway... Regards Eshal

Will there be any way to keep track of purchases in case someone (you know who included) has some computer disaster and/or lose our backup?

yes, it tracks your purchases, and you can go back and view them at any time

Congratulations - it seems like a very natural idea. I think that the Poser section (just visited) MUST have P3 or P4 or P3 and P4 info on every Poser item. I'm sure you are working on everything still, and haven't gotten everything final yet. Lots of good luck to everyone involved.

jje: We will be making changes to the format very soon. Our first concerns were security for both the buyers and the sellers, as well as getting the store open in a timely fashion. We are open to all sugestions or ideas that you all have :) Eshal: The store will help the site to grow even more :) This will allow us to run bigger contests, add more neat features, and lots of other great things we have in the works :) All of the people involved with running this site do so because they love it, that will never change. Ads will be kept out of the forums, they are busy enough as they are :). Your suggestion for a special forum or front page section is an excellent one :) Thank you. -Trav

I have one question. A few people that were in BBay arent about. Are they taking care of their own things now that BBay is defunct? Is it totally defunct? ... Thanks

I personally see this as an unwelcome development. To me, this community was fundamentally based on the free exchange of information, ideas, and creations. It was a place for the hobbiest (read poor) and not the professional. I have noticed and continue to expect that the number and quality of items available in free stuff will dramatically decrease. (Gee isn't it interesting that few clothes are available for Vicky, but why should someone create for free what they could sell?). To me the establishment of BBay and Zygote's independents page was unwelcome because it took talented people away from the community, but I ignored it. This strikes so close to home it can no longer be ignored. My analogy for this is that I play recreational sports. There is also a semipro league (read paid)in town that plays elsewhere. Today, the semipros started playing at my park, in my league, and has and will take away some of the players I enjoyed playing with. It's no longer play, its business. I congratulate the players who have the talent to sell their services. I might even someday pay to see them play, but today, today is not a good day.

Umm BAM without implementations such as the online store there wouldn't be a Renderosity, a Zygote or BBay, people who work on these projects have to pay rent and eat too.

This community was developed by and with people who did not look at this site as a way to pay rent and eat. I have no problems with Zygote or what was BBay, they existed outside of this community. Today, knowledge and information are far more valuable than art, so why not charge for help and tutorials too. I know that the development of the Renderosity store was inevitable as this sites owners have always left the door open for ways to either defray expenses or make a profit, but I still don't have to be happy about it.

for a dose of reality, goto your favorite ISP and ask them how much they would charge for 200 Gigs of bandwidth per month, and you'll see whats involved in keeping a free site like this free. E.g. mindspring will charge you $100 for 6 Gigs per month.

bam the people who run this site aren't really looking at this store as a way of paying the rent or eating.. I think they are looking at it as a way of making the site pay for itself. Fur is right This site with all it's features is expensive in bandwidth. The banners don't pay that much money (believe me I know) so why not find a way to make the site actually begin to bring in the price to run it and a little extra to throw great contests like they have been? It's a lot better than having to see the site shut down because no one can afford to run it anymore. Storm

:) The banners don't even pay for the electricity to run the servers. -Trav

As I said above I know this was inevitable. My opinion about the people who run this site hasn't changed - I think they do a great job. I am amazed at how a community such as this continues to exist without revenue. However, I still don't have to be happy about the change and I am worried about how the store will affect this "semipro" site. Only time will tell.

Question--have some of the previous BBay contributors decided not to sell their work any longer?--I'm particularly thinking of Debra and Jim Burton.

That was my question too picnic ... Debra and Codeman for me ...

Some have chosen not to, or not at this time, others have made other arangements during the Bbay downtime. The best way to find out would be to ask the artists themselves. (Sorry I don't like to speak for people :) -Trav

Please do NOT look upon this as a setback; rather,it is a step forward. The freestuff will never die, this is an added feature not a replacement. We are NOT ALL poor Artists here. Some of us happen to be professionals, ALL of us are still learning and ALL of us are working together. Instead of looking upon this as something that is a threat to some of you, look upon it as a HOPE; a HOPE for all the wonderful folks who have all this wonderful talent here at the forums and have up to now never been able to do anything with it. I put this to you all. Instead of thinking of this as something negative, look upon it as an opportunity, for that IS exactly what it is!! An opportunity for all of us that are here to learn and improve our skills enough to finally be able to help one another by making our talents worthwhile and at the same time providing quality; whether it be the forum we all love or the material that is made available; or in what we all learn from the experience in itself. We can all gain from this if we nurture and harvest our talents and our resources and thus each and every one of you and me and this forum will benefit!! I think that is a reason to rejoice, and it is a new beginning to something that is now GOOD, getting even BETTER!!! ;-)

BAM, a community like this simply cannot continue to exist without revenue. It costs too much to maintain, as fur and Traveler have so succinctly pointed out. The people who give their time and energy (lots of time and energy!) to this community care about its members and feel this is an excellent way to keep it going and continue to offer the benefits you have been receiving from it and more. The wealth of information you gain from being able to share with over 15,000 other members alone is invaluable. And you will still be able to get that for FREE. Those who share their creations on Free Stuff can and will continue to do so. But as Sprite said, this is a great opportunity. A place for talented artists to make something back for the time and energy (and creativity) it takes to make a quality model or texture. I know how much time I put into my textures. It is not and hour or two. It is at least a day or two! This is and always will be a place for everyone to learn and grow. How you choose to use that knowledge is up to you. Not only that, it is a place where people who use their 3D applications for profesional work to get quality items free of usage restrictions (at VERY reasonable prices!). That, too, is a good thing. Again, as Sprite said, this will take something that's GOOD and make it BETTER!!! Diane

Personally I think it is a good thing. I just wish the Online Store had an identity somewhat separate from the rest of the Forum. I.e. a seperate site, with its own identity, linked via banner ads.

It's not meant to be a separate entity. It is a part of the community as a whole. That is why it is here ;-)

exactly sprite. it is a part of the programming used to run this HUGE community work shop. though this, like so many additions in the past welcome critiques and suggestions from the community. BBAY was having a wide assortment of technical troubles and we did not want to see the artists who contribute hanging in the wind, so we opened the Online as soon as possible. it is still in a constructive state, and alot of things we wished to implement will occur as time goes by. ed

I posted some comments on the thread off the front page about my problems with the current arrangement.

(oops, forgot there were two running threads on this) Due to public and my own personal concerns we are removing the open upload policy to the store. It will from here on in be by invitation or inquiry only. We are doing this to both protect the level of quality in the store and the members.

Traveler, That is a good idea. I'll be more likely to buy something if I know there has been a review of it and it meets minimum standards. Gail

I was impressed both by the licensing agreement and by the assurances about the security of the credit card information and purchaser identity. You guys really thought things through. As for the commercialism of this site, I know that those people who are selling items were going to do so anyway. They might as well do it here. Not everyone is going to start selling their stuff, and some that do sell will continue to give some stuff away as well. Example: Traveller has some items such as clothing for sale but still provides morphs and such for free.

There are many pros and cons about the Store and Free Stuff. Reading all comments to the announcement, I found that everybody has some good points there. We have to give to all buyers and sellers here a good reason to buy and sell. We artists have to find a way of making money out of it, otherwise this will become a closed circuit faded to a fast saturation. There is a limit on the amount of money one will spend just for fun. The only way I see it working is to provide the artists here means to sell prints or posters of their art. There is a large market for that. We must make money outside the 3D community also. Sell our work to people who desn't even know what is a 3D software, but would like to have a nice poster on the wall.

This maybe picky, but not every country in the world has a 5+ digit for a zip/postal code. So those of us out of the US, who don't have one, are going to have problems using the order forms if it requires a 5 digit one. Shae

BRAVEHEART VOICE: well, dat's sumptin' we'll 'ave ta remedy den. ;) thank you for alerting us to that particular situation. it is greatly appreciated. but i believe it is not required. ed