Hey folks-

You're wondering why we did this redesign. Well, without insulting anyone, our staff wrote up an idea detailing why and what the new changes are.

Please thoroughly read it and understand we wanted to alter things a bit in order to create a more so user-based site,

Thanks!

https://www.renderosity.com/renderosity-revolution-cms-17852

The feedback folks are trying to tell you guys about on Page 2 don't display and is inaccessible. Thought ya might wanna know.

Peace.

I'm seeing page 2 just fine. What are you seeing? Can you take a screenshot? :)

This links me to the original renderosity revolution hype. Is that what you meant for us to see?

I couldn't see page 2 of the comments either. No screenshot is necessary. When I try to go to page 2, the page reloads on page 1. So the "screenshot" image would be page 1.

Personally, I don't want to see all those comments again. I am hoping we can get past all the negativity of the first few days. Things have already improved so much, I don't want to revisit last week!

Tara

After clicking on Page 2

Page 1 again, same way as in the Gallery for Comments

The page issue should be fixed.

Tis now

Yeah. Already saw the hype page. Doesn't really address WHY, unless I'm totally brain-fried (which is entirely possible..) It doesn't really matter; it is what it is. It's your website, you can do what you want with it.

I'm giving it a chance - trying to get used to the new format - too many friends here to leave totally, but I don't see myself spending nearly as much time - or money - here as I used to. We'll see. No more complaining from me...

I'm baffled by the new format; navigating to individual galleries is a nightmare, the viewing statistics have disappeared, finding currant uploads by other fractal artists is something I've not mastered. In summary I see no worth in uploading further mages to the site. No one would see them - but maybe that explains the absence of viewing stats. Zilch becomes standard.

Cliff (clifftoppler).

I have a slower Internet connection at home, and this site is unusable there. It takes a good minute for page loads. I get around 2 mb download speed there. At work I have 50, and the site works fine.

I'm mentioning this because I CAN use the other stores from home - DAZ, RuntimeDNA, etc. So essentially you are gong to lose any potential customers that don't have fast broadband. I'd really take a closer look at the amount of data you are trying to push across the wire. It it were any other type of problem it would be slow in both places.

I don't like the new design and features. Why to change something who have a good working since many years ?

I've been here since willow ran it, since jack K. ran it, and every time it's been changed, they always say:
"worst design ever!"
I know it's upsetting and I freaked out every time, but it's substance I like. style don't matter and it's almost like IQ test:
how fast can you adapt? everything else is changing too and we gotta evolve.

why did they do it this time? my guess is mobile users. they've got disposable income, they're always using those things, they like to keep in touch. they're what we're evolving into.

Have you done away altogether with videos? True, most members stick with single images, but despite the low volume I really enjoy seeing the fruits of our animators' hard work. Or is the section hidden somewhere I haven't found it?

Hi @fsaligny-- What is it that you don't like about the new design? Thanks!

Thanks, @MissNancy! :]

@diogenese19348-- thanks for letting us know! I'll note this and let the programmers know about this issue.

@clifftoppler-- The stats are global now and combines products, free stuff, and gallery stats together. Can you please explain why it's a nightmare? In terms of looking for Fractals photos, please view "sections" and choose "Fractals." You'll be taken to all the Fractals photos. I hope this helps.

Please let us know if you have further questions! Thanks!

gojira-kun posted at 11:27AM Wed, 26 August 2015 - #4224228

Have you done away altogether with videos? True, most members stick with single images, but despite the low volume I really enjoy seeing the fruits of our animators' hard work. Or is the section hidden somewhere I haven't found it?

Can you please explain to me which videos you mean?? :)

Thanks!

I mean animations created by the members.

Just stopped by to see how things were progressing. See incremental improvements. Forum so far is the easiest section to use and follow, with the exception of 'Markdown,' which, as I wrote in another post I feel is a throwback to the days of MS DOS.

If you're going to go to Markdown, but use buttons for convenience everywhere else, I just don't understand the logic. The people who work for Rendo and vendors are most likely benefactors of a programming form of texting. For #D customers who also spend time at sites other than Rendo it is just another site specific thing to learn.

Unfortunately for vendors, if I'm reading and writing in the forum, I'm not spending time browsing and buying.

My two cents today.

I have a couple of questions, the answers which maybe the admins can get from Management. The site re-design is pretty clearly designed for vertically oriented phone rather than horizontally oriented graphics machines. I do realize there are stats floating around that say that something like 80-90% of sales will be on tablets and phones by 2017 (not the actual numbers just an approximation from memory. if someone has a better number please post it as a correction or clarifcation).

(A) What percentage of customers from Rendo shop for products on smart phones currently?

(B) Is it realistic to think that people using high powered graphics machines will be using smart phones to purchase items at Renderosity in the near future? (I really have no idea).

(C) I can see the need for what you are trying to do, but is it possible you are too early for your target market? Being too early with technology happens a lot.

A number of years ago I did some advanced work with a colleague for Will Vinton Studios in Oregon. The take away lesson was that artists liked things simple and generally resisted having to learn new technologies unless they were directly related to what they were doing in art. Extrapolating to Rendo I can see that artists would spend oodles of time on a new renderer, but maybe balk about having to learn tasks on somebody's website, or even learn to use a phone to access the website if it meant unproductive time relative to their art. (Artists out there - Right or wrong?).

(D) Can you take a poll of your users here in the forum? Is there a poll set-up function available? In this case the feedback you get might be worthwhile.

Here are some of my suggested Poll Questions of customers AND vendors if such a feature were available:

(1) Do you do your 3D work on a desktop machine or smartphone or tablet?

(2) Is your primary work machine connected to the web, or firewalled for security reasons? (If there is a trend to fiewalling the fast expensive graphics machines, it means that the machines accessing the web are something else).

(3) How do you normally access the web (desktop or tablet or smartphone or combination)?

(4) If you have a smartphone or tablet, how much time on any given day might you spend surfing the web?

(5) Do you currently make any household or personal purchases on a smartphone or tablet?

(5a) Would you say a lot or a little

(6) Do you surf any sites related to 3D on your tablet or phone in your spare time? Do you periodically TRY to look to see if there are any new 3D sites out there when you're on your phone or tablet?

(7) If Renderosity was easily available on a phone are you likely to take a look at it in the next six months?

(7) Under what conditions might you start making purchases at Rendo on your smartphone or tablet, if the company had a viable app.

I know that it has been in the news that Google has been saying they are looking to penalize firms in their ad search if a site isn't easily navigated on a smartphone, but that may not matter here. Aside from the fact that I'm not sure how important that Google is to Renderosity's target market (It's not like you type in 'airconditioner' and you want rendo to come up first; you probably already know Rendo BECAUSE you're in 3D), there is the issue that when you try to talk to Google about what is compliant, they seem to demure and there has been pushback. Being on the leading edge to convert Rendo to tablet might not be as important to do in this market as it might be for a Sears or JC Penny and it might be wiser until other sites figure out the pitfalls and get the auto resizes to work better. So far, I don't like the metro style that has evolved.

My two cents for the day. I will check back another time, though I do have some RRewards to finish using before the end of the month. BTW I don't see myself shopping for anything at rendo on a phone in the next year, maybe two, but I may be deciding between tablet and laptop for more web access, though it will likely be wifi access not high priced data plan.

#D Customers is a typo. Cannot go back an edit. Should be just Customers.

I don't even have a smart phone. No use for it. I'm retired and home. Land line only..(cell phone old in my purse)
Desktop PC..No laptop, no tablet etc..
How can you do renders on a smart phone???? Don't think so...
People leaving? Sure they have a desktop pc. Or some laptops

People in general are so unhappy..

Creating a responsive layout that works across the board is not easy, I know this all too well as I'm in the process of revamping some of my clients' sites and my own. That being said, I make sure each site works as close to perfect as is humanly possible in both mobile devices and desktops before I flip it over. When designing a site like this the needs of the users really are the most important aspect of any redesign. I'm all for change, I'm all for using the latest techniques that actually work. Design fads come and go and I avoid them like the plague.
But I think it is fair to say that no one on this site is going to be creating 3d renders using their mobile phones. Sure, they might glance at new stuff while at work, but a lot of your users are going to be using laptops and desktops when it comes to downloading and buying. I think the new design has a lot of potential but clearly there are issues that need to be ironed out. Hopefully, this will get done sooner rather than later.

Well the fact that the site in its current hideous form oriented for vertical device screens, smartphones and tablets I knew immediately after the first look at "revolutionary breakthrough" . It is clear that the mobile market will grow,but it is unlikely that I or other vendor or the buyer wants to stare at a tiny ( in terms of graphic display) screens ,in order to evaluate the product and make a purchase, but do not want to consider it on a large widescreen display. Again, the target market is not focused on smartphones and even highly doubt that even 10% of users Rendo use for shopping smartphones. But this is not so important, what's important is to guide the company Rendo already evident that the number of visitors fell three times. Evidence of the number of online visitors, if two weeks ago and sometimes up to 7000 visitors,now above 3000 does not happen, but it makes me think that sales fell and profits from sales decreased. So who did You do better? Its competitors ? That's strange ,borders on absurdity. After this coup, I have no sales , this is an improvement...

Can you take a poll of your users here in the forum?
Daz, Rendo, and RDNA forums do not represent the majority of the customer demographic base. The majority of customers buy skimpwear, for example-- or at least that is what sells better than casual or non-inconvenient clothes. The type of people who post on forums are a distinct demographic that is separate from a major customer demographic. Forumites are typically older and much more likely to be vendors or contribute to Rendo freestuff or Sharecg than the majority customer base, and the percentage of forumites who are interested in skimpwear and porn is far smaller than that of the general customer base. Or at least that's what I have been told over at DAZ. An accurate poll would have to be on many different pages in order to be seen by the customer base.

That is very interesting IceEmpress. I would have expected the group posting to be mostly young, or young adults beginning to raise families and opinionated, especially given the way the site is being re-designed with things like Markdown which favors texting. I can understand a vendor skew but otherwise I would have expected the opposite from people posting.

Adult material users for Poser I would have thought have been waning from the initial novelty and moving more towards gaming, as SM has oriented their latest module.

Would you say the majority are using smart phones - or are likely to use smart phones to purchase? I can see that if my work machine is different from my primary internet access machine. But I don't see smart phones being figure creation or render devices.

By the way, I should add that until recently a lot of my characters in my Render experiments tended to be wearing simpler and often skimpier clothes, though not necessarily suggestive ones, for the main reason that more than one figure in a scene with a fully clothed outfit was barely renderable on my machine. Skimpy clothing was also a novelty, and I think it was true that some of the best executed apparels were lingerie (SP?) oriented, such as those from Hongyu. Conforming was difficult really until the latest POSER release, always requiring tweaking after every single pose practically,. and dynamic clothing did not live up to its promise. I could do a fully detailed background scene as long as it didn't have people in it. Whenever I added people it was a trade-off. Now things are much better, and I'm even circling back going after the V3 and A3 because their clothing was less horsepower intensive and when combined with Gamer's polygon reduction I can use them as well-thought out characters fully clothed in the background.

I"m sorry, guys, but the design of the homepage is a nightmare. The layout jumps all over the place because nothing is really standing out as a visual place to land. The logo is so small and tucked into the UL corner that it's virtually invisible.

I'm sure your team wanted you to look all sharp and edgy, but — to be brutally frank — this looks like it was slammed together the night before Web Design 101 final projects were due. It is a mess as a visual piece of design — and you're supposed to be artists. What happened?

I do most of my shopping on the site on my iPad to answer the poll question, but in landscape mode. During big sales with combined discounts, I often spend several hours in bed before sleep checking out the sale items, the promos and even the gallery images of those who used the vendor's product in their art so I really spend most of my time shopping on the site on my iPad.... If I'm at a doctor's office or something, I occasionally shop on my phone, but mostly just to add to my cart things I already know I want.

That is very interesting IceEmpress. I would have expected the group posting to be mostly young, or young adults beginning to raise families and opinionated, especially given the way the site is being re-designed with things like Markdown which favors texting. I can understand a vendor skew but otherwise I would have expected the opposite from people posting.
Actually, the age thing is just something I pulled out of my ass for the most part. We know that plenty of younger folks (20's and 30's) use Daz and Poser, but we don't see them on the forums that much (myself being one of the exceptions) The 40~60's age demographic is why the communities at Daz, here, and RDNA aren't a bunch of "LOL omg i gg it" types or immature namecallers, hatemongers, and misogynists. Which for me is a first. (I've been to gaming boards, role-playing boards, Portal of Evil *it was sorta like SA, but more tame and with a "prime directive"), anime boards, I've read posts at trucker boards, programmers sites, and of course the comments at news articles (e.g. BBC) Oh, and Youtube comments. With the exception of trucker boards (which are a lot less volatile than the other examples but still more volatile than Daz/Poser sites), all of these communities range in the late teens to late 30's.
Probably the most important factor is that today's 20-somethings view BBS-type message boards as too "retro". It's all about Youtube comments, twitter feeds, and Facebook, now, and woe to anyone who doesn't allow the uploading of flash videos in their entries!

The rest of the stuff I mentioned in my previous post is what I have been told by Daz PAs. Oh, another difference-- on the forums (on Daz at least), the purchases or at least wishlisting for female vs male clothing is something like 2.5 to 1. However, among overall sales, female stuff sells 4 to 1 over male.

and I think it was true that some of the best executed apparels were lingerie (SP?) oriented, such as those from Hongyu.
Hongyu's Shirt 1 and Cowgirl 3 are the most popular behind the bikinis and Maiden 5 Lingerie, and they're not necessarily skimpwear-- Hongyu's stuff is also popular because it is HIGH QUALITY skimpwear-- with more morphs than you can shake a keyboard at, compared to your average McLingerie that only has character morphs and maybe a "loosen just this one piece of clothing".

"McLingerie"
Thanks for that one. LOL!
I haven't laughed so hard all week :-)

IceEmpress, I rarely comment on these forums myself.
It's only when I am doing something in Poser and think that maybe someone has a better way, or has seen my problem before (and it's not in any books or tuts I have) or like now with the massive changes in the site that are affecting usability.

My assumption (Better or worse) is that the 'masters of the craft' eventually wind up here, regardless of age.

I would think that Twitter is best for banter, short directions, and immediacy, not for technical discussion. I can see back and forth crabbing about the site being more volatile on twitter. Hmm. Is there discussion on the Rendo twitter feed? YouTube I use more for projects and tutorials, both reading and posting. Not sure how youTube would fit in with Rendo communication, though, if it weren't a project or a tut or a short, 'tada' (see what I did!). Haven't checked what's going on in the Rendo FB pages. Sounds like if Twitter and FB are active that is the missing part of this activity? Are they more active than this forum?

I thought that flash videos were a windows thing and that Apple had ditched flash. Unless you're talking generically.

Wonderland is the first person to say they shopped with an ipad (Thanks wonderland!). And I'm glad she specified that her searches were horizontal, which is what I would have expected. The overall vertical orientation of the Rendo Redo hasn't made sense.

I note there have been no responses from the Rendo mgt. I am dissapointed. Given the title of this thread and the fact that they started it, I would have liked to have seen some of the thoughts from Rendo Mgt similar along the lines to IceEmpress, which has made me think.