Ed I think Alias (below) has come up with the best idea so far when he suggested getting friendly with the 3D cafe and maybe even hooking up with them, and most importantly, developing a broader based CG Store. Look at it this way, what is your greatest asset in all of this? Your membership of 15,000 and growing. Now while this is a Poser site, Poser by its nature requires other programs to create models and develope characters. As a result of this you have put up Forums for Rhino, 3D Studio Max, Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, Vue etc. etc. You in effect provide free support pages for those programs and thus promote and encourage people to purchase them and use them. On the basis of that huge publicity you get those programs and this sites very large and active membership, you could ask those cash rich companies to pay a certain ammount each year to help this site cover its costs (maybe even the server or bandwidth costs). Remember unlike other sites for users who already have those programs, this is in many ways virgin territory for those companies, a new market with potential for new customers. And it is not just the core programs but also the many companies developing plug-ins, textures and models who might be intersted in advertising or promoting their products in this new market. You may have to physically restructure the forums to do this, but it might be worth it. As regards a donation box I agree with your sentiments Ed, it is a risky idea that may just peeter out. Membership fees are likely to be an even more divisive issue than the Store. I personally have nothing against them but I think you will loose members and thus your greatest asset. Worse you may drive those lost members to other sites, making them more competitive and doing damage to yourselves and this site's ability to tap into the commercial world in the long run. The CD idea is worth trying. Here is a slight refinement. You have huge galleries, far too much stuff for most of us to wade through. Why not issue a six-monthly rlease of the best of the stuff in there. It is a low cost idea. Pick the artworks you would like to feature, e-mail the artists for permission to put their stuff on CD (most will agree because they want to show their stuff) and sell the CDs for 10$ or whatever it costs to produce and make a modest profit on. Hell Amazon might even put it on their listings as might the 3D Cafe etc. Just my few thoughts on the issue. STORM

heya; if rhino/view/carrera/max/everybody else don't want to purchase banner ad spaces, you could charge a small fee for a link to their home page. a sorta referral service deal, even. they could have a link on the side bar, or maybe in a special place on their particular forum/gallery. if they demand referral payments via click-throughs (or just want to see how well their monthly fee is paying off), mightn't it also be possible to somehow 'tag' visitors surfing in via links in posts? for example: i know there are codes on banner ads to see where the click-through came from, but there are ways to track which site visitors come from without that. now suppose e-on pays for a sidebar link, and they count visitors from that. then suppose i put a link to e-on's page in one of my posts telling somebody about something; that link should also go towards your credit for sending referrals. i also see a lot of pitfalls for membership fees. people surf in looking for info; they gotta pay to see anything -- nope, they ain't stopping here. i mean, the regulars know what a valuable resource this place is, but how would 'new' prospects ever find out? i thought the free stuff might work via subscription -- pay a couple bucks to download all the free goodies you want. but that kinda defeats the purpose of it being free. :/ this is a tough one, guys. would splitting up the site do any good? move some parts to... i dunno, someplace cheaper? :/ also, to conserve bandwidth.... might we go to not uploading images in posts, but doing image linking? ('course then you run into people who can't even do that on their freebie sites... ::sigh::)

Here is something I should have added to my initial post. The 3D cafe sell products on behalf of producers, I am thinking of Marlin Textures, Dosch Textures (a German Compay), plugins for various programs etc., and there are many more companies out there that are desperatly seeking high level exposure for their products. These companies could be targetted and asked if they want to put their goods in your potential CG Store, which you could sell for a commission (for instance there are hundreds of commercial plugin makers (all small companies) for Photoshop, Max, Lightwave etc.) Since there is such a diverse range of needs for Poser (modelling, texturing, plug-in programs and even high-end video and web presentation programs) the sheer potential comprehensiveness of the range of goods in a CG store servicing all these needs would be an attraction for Computer Artists generally, thus increasing your membership and making your Store even more attractive as an outlet for retailers. Most software resellers and distributers make a high percentage out of such transactions. The normal markup in realworld retailing is 100% or more. On the web it may be similar. Being a middleman for such products has major advantages because of its long term potential. What is more, since it is not your main business (or purpose in life) you could offer far more attractive deals to the software companies than the people for whom middleman retailing or distribution is the main business, and also deliver significant reductions to customers at the other end (making your shop more attractive), while at the same time making a profit. It would mean of course that you would have to set up your own operation in terms of Credit Card clearence on payments, and you would probably have to get into the physical business of mailing out CDs (nobody is going to download 650Mbs of textures). However, if you can undercut the competition you are in business and you already have the main "attractor factor" in all of this, your huge and growing membership of 3D graphics artists. Prepare a fact sheet about this place, include the figures for visits, membership and the rest, show how this site has grown exponentially and project your future growth, and then go sell it, blitz all of them, sell and promote the hell out of this place, if one company bites the rest will feel they also have to, just to be competetive (in fact that could be the decisive factor in pulling in the rest). And if they will not cut you in for a percentage of sales as middlemen, be flexible and do as bloodsong suggested and charge a referrel fee or any other way of getting them in. And what have any of these companies to loose? Nothing. They already pay large fees to middlemen to sell and distribute their goods for them. If you look at the posts in the various forums there are plenty of Renderosity members that are thinking of buying plug-ins and high-end modelling programs. If even some of them were to buy their stuff through you, you would more than cover the costs of this site. STORM

I fully agree with Storm. (In fact, I was going to post this same idea, but was beaten to it.) I just bought Vue d'Esprit from the 3D Cafe site. I've used a lot of their tutorials, and though it would only be fair to make the purchase through them instead of from Vue directly. Make some stuff available from here and I will buy them from this site.

it is 6:50am and i have been here since 3:30am reading and responding to these and other post. no where near done. but DO need to sleep for about 3 hours and go to church. no smart ass remarks on that one, okay? :: it makes my mom happy to see me go, so i do. let's leave it at that. ;) anypoop i WILL adress this later today or evening. only did a quick browse of storm's excellent suggestions and will quickly address the one regarding having other companies and sites sell items on the OnLine store. in actuality, a couple of very wonderful companies have offered their support in our time of need and jack and i are speaking with them on what can be achieved while at the same time aiding the community at large as well. by definition, those who visit theirs, ours and elsewhere. i will read this thread more completely later and address these excellent ideas. thanks everyone for them and all the emails and voices of encourgement, for those who have brought forth their time and effort and have joined as moderators to help around the place and just a big fat plain THANK YOU to all of you for being a community i am proud to be a member of. ed

You know, these suggestions sound like a move to turn Renderosity into a "Portal" site for (primarily) 3D Graphics. Not a bad idea, but those kinds of sites usually have 24 hour, paid staff... Just ask AOL, Yahoo!, and the others (my employers want OUR site to become a portal for our industry, but don't seem to understand that it runs on INternet time - which seems to be about an 20 hour work day, six days a week, with a few hours on the seventh sometimes needed just to keep things going).

thing is, charlie, that is EXACTLY the hours we are putting into it NOW :) could someone show me how to make a tired smile??? when we first stepped into the running of Renderosity, it was our intention and common knowledge to bring the user and companies together and had spoke with countless companies about taking part in the site to bring that about, while still leaving renderosity impartial and retaining creative control throughout. then the nasty feud broke out between forums, and it was everyone's wise business choice to stay clear of the OK Corral while the shooting went on.

Ah, that actually explains some of what I saw behind the scenes at the time then... I just wonder if things have calmed down enough to look into setting this up again? I know MC had a relationship with Willow directly, but that site seems to be avoiding MetaStream now as a protest against dumping software, and Zygote and Curious Labs MUST remain neutral, showing equal favor (or disfavor) to both sites to keep from setting off powderkegs, but what about Jasc, Adobe, Macromedia, Corel, etc.? Some of them should be willing to at least discuss such matters - especially since some of them have their "own" forums here! :-) (Tired smiley? Hmm. :O maybe (yawning)? I know I've seen one, but lost my smiley list ages ago...)

it is a tricky situation. any support made would be made for ALL the community in some form or fashion. the companies should not have to "pick" a forum over the other. and any agreement or support would have to fit into that narrow region. perhaps the waters have stilled enough to venture out. only time will tell on that one. and jack and i were never ones NOT to venture out or flat out dive into the deep end :)

Support is one thing, and companies may feel the need to distribute that equally or on a pro-rata basis or on membership numbers. However, straight commercial arrangements such as a merchandising operation where you (like any other merchant in the world) sell for a margin profit is another, and between you and the company. Anyway when I wrote the above posts I was in stream of consciousness mode. Take what is best out of it. I believe that despite the very generous help from members of the community you will have to look at sustainable income for the long term, and that probably means some sort of expansion of the Store into some of the things mentioned above. Hey Ed When you and Jack go swimming in the deep make sure you have had your sleep, lots of sharks in that there blue water!!

i like sharks. a little butter, some seasoning. marinated and BBQ'ed. damn fine eating!! ;) Thanks STORM. you were on the same page as us on a number of points. thanks