I try to look at all the art in the poser gallery, but somedays by the time I'm up and awake, there are already 6-8 pages of new posts for that day! It seems like only minutes after something is new, it's buried. Has anyone at R'osity every suggested maybe subdividing the Poser category, thematically? -Adam

you know what?... That's not abad idea, I belive they should do that.

I agree---it breaks my heart to know how many, many images I'm missing each week, but I only have so much time (if I want to get my own work done!) to browse. Have you given any thought to possible categories?

Well, of course one category should be "Nude vickies with swords in temples and/or Bryce water". But I don't know about the rest. I suspect coming up with categories would best be handled like other community decisions: people submit ideas, rosity staff picks the top 20 or so, and then it goes to a vote. I'd personally like to see at least these major categories: *Magic, Faeries and Fantasy *Poser scenes rendered outside of Poser. I know there are categories for every major 3D app here, but that includes everything non-poser done with those apps. I think it is entirely appropriate these days to have this category which is still primarily poser art, just rendered in more expensive packages like LW, Maya, C4D, 3DS, etc.. *Pinups. Seems like there are enough of these to get their own category. *Dark / goth. For Vampries, demons, zombies, monsters, H.R. giger type stuff, etc.. stuff that is fantasy, but darker than what you find in the magic and Faerie gallery. *Sci-Fi / Future. Space scenes, star trek type renders. Anything with laser beams and future concepts. *Everything Else. Newbie stuff, character studies, everyday scenes, this would be the "General Poser" category. I'm sure there are lots of major categories I'm missing too. Anyone? -Adam

I don't agree on the idea of categorizing the Poser gallery too much. These days there is simply too much to look at, and I find myself just focusing on the nude women. I would love a "Nude Vicky" category, since it would save some valuable time. I've come to the conclusion that the best way to showcase my own art is to put it on my site. I have a 300MB site that has been mostly devoted to freebies and tutorials. I still have plenty of space to spare.

I'm too brain dead right now to think of other categories, but I think it's really a good idea. With the limited time that we have to look at all the images being constantly added to the gallery, it would be nice to be able to filter out the ones we're usually not interested in anyway. This way it would be more likely that we could actually see the kinds of images we like. Sue

Why? we just need the 3 categories mentioned...Nude Viki w/ Sword in Temple, Bryce Water, and Other. Maybe add "Women with Wings" as well. That way when you hit "Other", you would get to see the 5 or 6 pictures posted for that week that are not the other subjects. =)

Err, Terminus, could we keep the Fae segregated from the "Fantasy" images? I'd rather my wee cuties not get mixed up in the pile of Nekkid Vickies swinging swords, thx. /P

Not to offend anyone but it is a silly idea. After all it won't diminish the number of Poser renders in the gallery. It will allow you to skip a category if you don't like it, say like NVIATWAS, but lets be honest you can do that by looking at the thumbnails. I go through the gallery every 1-2 days. It takes 15-20 minutes. I just skip stuff I don't want to look at. See that way I don't got to look at images I don't want to see and the artist still gets maximum and equal exposure. Besides, as it is most people don't use the Mixed Medium gallery when they should, so what makes you think that they will use the Naked Vicky with Monsters and Laser Guns in a Temple on a Planet with Horny Indigenous Lifeforms(TM) as opposed to the normal Poser Gallery?

Worth trying if people can agree on the categories. The downside, I suppose, is that people my have a tendancy to gravitate to one or two categories of image and miss some great stuff. I guess that's inevitable.

I've thought this change ( 1 image per day ) was a good idea for awhile now. I'm sure many will think that's to restrictive. but think about it. That's 365 images per artist per year. You can't tell me that that's not enuf. Subdividing the catagories wouldn't bother me at all. I know my stuff is not that great but I know that not many people see my work. Especially if they look at "all" catagories like I do. My image is usually on page 27 by the second day if you look at everything. The amount of new members posting here is growing, eventually there has to be some fair method of dealing with it.

I don't think thumbnails is working that well. Instead of shrinking their images to the size of thumbnails, more than half the folks are cropping a thumbnail sized piece out of a huge image. When scanning a page of 20-something thumbnails of part of vicky's face, it's impossible to tell if she's sporting wings, riding a bike or nude and swinging a sword. I blame bad thumbnail making for this more than anything else. I also seem to have a slow pipe to renderosity, and it's not my cable modem. When I hit NEXT to get a new page of thumbnails, I can expect to wait 2-3 minutes for it to load. During the day, I often get a "Too Many Connections" error from the gallery also. In short, it takes me a long time to go through 10 pages of pics. -Adam

I have DSL and a fast new iMac and it's still slow! That's why the idea of categories appeals to me so much---there are a lot of images that I would look at if I had the time, but I don't. So I'd like to be able to be more selective in what I browse. I'll still be looking at the same ones that I look at now, but there'll be more per page and I'll be able to look at more of them per half hour. It gets so monotonous sifting through the ones I'm not interested in.......Maybe if the 'Rosity server was faster or more efficient categories wouldn't be necessary...but it isn't and they are. I hope the moderators have their ears perked up---this is an idea whose time has come.

Just my opinion, but I think it would help if half the images in the poser gallery actually were posted to the mixed medium gallery where they belong. It would split up the workload anyway...

Voodoo, you're absolutely right. The problem is that the Poser gallery is the most popular, and people know it. They want their stuff to be seen by the majority, so they put it in the poser gallery where it will get the most traffic, even if there is another more specific category that is a better match. I think the real challenge in spliting up the Poser gallery would be to create specific categories that lend themselves to being fairly evenly weighted in terms of number of relevant posts. If any one category is too general it will become dominant, and it will succumb to this same 'most popular' problem. For example, if there was simply a "nude vicky" category, it could be too general, and when trying to categorize their post, people might put their nude faerie vicks in there instead of in the faerie category, just to get more hits.

terminus, thanks :) I think in the long run everything would even out. Once people knew that painted renders were in mixed medium they would go there, and viewings would rise accordingly. However, I must also apologize as a while back I posted in the poser gallery as well, though I paint like hell over the renders. I've tried to remember in all my latest ones to post in mixed medium, even though I know the viewings are less. But I will continue to do so. If more people would (like the description of the gallery says), get some more painters in the mixed gallery and the actual renders in the Poser. ok... so I may ramble a bit... long day, I'm beat, and hitting the sack.

I think the entire gallery at renderosity should be reworked. Segmenting ONLY by software is a silly idea. Members should be able to view the gallery according to their own preferences. For example, I should be able to sort the gallery by ALL (newest), CATEGORY (fantasy, sci-fi, etc), or by METHOD (poser, bryce, 2D).

When I upload an image, I should be able to check what applies to my piece... FANTASY, NUDITY, POSER, or whatever.

I don't really think that it is possible to categorize work like that. All we'll end up with is a huge OTHER cataegory and massive flamewars over 'wrongly filed' images. A better way to ensure less posting is to actually use the rating system in a meaningful fashion. If I actually rated the images that I viewed according to my reaction - well I would have made a LOT of enemies. (and possibly have driven some lackluster artists to actually work for a change) This is not an easy problem to try to solve, and it is possible that there is no solution that will not end up with a number of offended people. As for the poser-in-other-programs - that's what the mixed media gallery is for folks. Use it. For the moment, to see some nice images - try checking out my 'ten to see' threads in the Art Theory forum Lyrra

I like Kiera's solution the best of any so far. Make the gallery results pages entirely based on custom searches. It seems to work for the marketplace, so why not? It's a brilliant idea because it would let people customize what they see, but it would also be flexible enough to return "last 30 days, all galleries" type results, for those who want to wade through everything. -Adam

for those who customize their homepages and profiles, there is a section where you can fill out your "genre" to categorize your artist page. Perhaps you could add the same thing to the gallery so that when an artist uploads an image, he/she can check off which categories it belongs to exactly like on the artist page, and the image will be show on those categories in the gallery only.

I think it's an excellent idea to seperate the gallery into categories. I know that I don't like to waste my time looking at a bunch of stuff that I'm not interested in anyway. I may be new at this site, but I'm not new to surfing around from one gallery to the next, and many others on the web do seperate their art into categories, subcategories, and even specific artists. I hope this idea will be given a chance.

I think categories would be a good idea. And a somewhat dangerous idea as well. You see, if all you look at is Nude Vickies, you might never see any of the really good pictures where sometimes the only difference is that the figures wear clothes. I once posted the same image to both the Poser gallery and to the Mixed medium, and you know what? The mixed Medium did't get any hits, (well almost) whereas the one in the Poser gallery had a lot more hits. So I guess that's why peeps post to the Poser gallery: To get hits. The thumbnails mentioned is also an issue. When I started posting I made my thumbnails just miniatures of the full image. However, when I started cropping out the "interesting" parts instead, the hitrate went up. Personally I would like the thumbnails to be a real thumbnail of the image instead of a crop, but I'm not changing mine as long as I'm the only one to do so. Why not do it as Renderotica does? They make the thumbnail from the picture so all you upload is the full sized picture. This way there will be no "cheating" with cropped thumbnails. Also it's peculiar how thumbnails that contains breasts, or titles the include "NUDITY" seems to get a helluva lot more hits than pictures without nudity. Peeps: Go to Renderotica if all you care about is nekkid women.... that was 2 e from me I guess ;o) ~TrekkieGrrrl a.k.a ernyoka1

I don't think it's good idea. It's just me, but having sub-categories would make me miss some magnificent renders. Most of the best artists don't have a theme so they could post a picture in a gallery and I could miss it. Could you imagine missing you favorite artists best render because he/she put it in a sub-category? Aiee! :)

I agree with FaerieGurl, thats the way it should be categories. I'm so tired of all those "nude Vicky with no other invirement" pics and all those "nude Vicky with a big sword". I mean what the hell is a nude girl with a sword doing. There is no imagination or hard work in that kind of pictures what so ever.

The Poser gallery isn't that bad, guys. All the galleries combined only get, what, 180-200 new images per day? Takes me less than half an hour to browse through them.

And least we forget, here's SnowSultan's definitive answer to the problem:
"Pleasing Everyone"

Yes, yes! Categories! I gave up on the galleries long ago - too much stuff, too many cryptic thumbs by people thinking they're smart. I go in and look at a few maybe once a week, otherwise it chews up too much time. Mostly I look at works by specific artists I know I like, that way I can see just good stuff. It means I often miss good new artists, but that can't be helped. :] FishNose

I think categories would be very nice, since vicky is used so often,it would be nice to have a "male" gallery

How about a gallery for Mike so he doesn't get all mixed up in all the Vicky pics?

I think FaerieGurl and the rest of you have a good idea, but I do not agree with splitting up the Poser gallery by [Poser:Bryce] [Poser:Vue], etc. Part of the problem is due to the gallery descriptions.

Poser Gallery description:

This gallery is primarily for images rendered within Poser itself. Images of Poser figures rendered in other applications are still welcome, but what's the challenge in that? See how well you can do using it's basic rendering tools!

Mixed Medium description:

This gallery is for Renderosity members to display their original Mixed Medium (created with more than one program or tool) images for review, critique and feedback by other Renderosity members.

The description of the Poser gallery is broad to allow images with a Poser basis (i.e. staged in Poser, then exported and rendered in Bryce, etc.) to be allowed, but what about postwork?

We all know that postwork is necessary to fix some defects in renders, but when an image has a description stating "heavy postwork" or "figure rendered in Poser, clothes, hair, and the rest Photoshop", the image is more Photoshop than Poser.

When the majority of the final image is not the result of Poser, does it really belong in the Poser gallery? By the descriptions of the galleries, it belongs in the Mixed Medium gallery.

crawling back into my hole now

milamber42, You made a very good point there and I totally agree with you on that. If the majority of the image was done outside of poser, it shouldn't be in the poser gallery.

LOL Little Dragon, thanks for the link. :) I also agree with you, it's not THAT bad going through the Poser gallery the way it is now. Takes me about a half hour too to get through it in one shot and I'm on a 56K dialup. And what's with all the hostility towards Vicky with swords again anyway? "There is no imagination or hard work in that kind of pictures what so ever"? There's not much originality in a facial close-up either, but the galleries are full of excellent pics that are just an extreme close-up of a beautiful Vicky face. It's the end result that shows the hard work involved, not the subject matter. :) As far as shrinking images to create thumbnails instead of cropping them, I think it's a good idea...except when you've got an image that's 450x1300 or something much taller than it is wide. Then you end up with a toothpick for a thumbnail and no one bothers to check it because they can't tell if it's nude or not. ;) Just my opinions as always though, thanks for your time. Take care. SnowS Hoping his pictures are worth 1001 words.

Yay, SnowSultan. ;) I am quite sure that Boris Vallejo, Luis Royo, and Julie Bell would be disturbed to hear that they have "no imagination." Don't like Vicki with a sword? Make stuff you do like and leave people who deal with subjects you dislike alone. How many times have you seen a popular "naked vicki in a temple with a sword" artist sitting around railing about fairy pictures? Or goth images? Yeah.

A category entitled 'This is an advertisement for something now available for sale in the Marketplace or now posted in Freestuff' would be useful. Half the new posts would fall into this category though.

No-NO I like the gallery as is. I would miss half the great posts if you split it up. And no-no to someones idea of one image a day. We have the very best Poser gallery on the internet, why mess with what is great.

I think people are still missing the point of the split: There is no reason anyone would have to "miss half the great posts" if they didn't want to. You would just browse using "Show New: All Poser Categories" as FaerieGurl noted already. No one would have to miss out on anything, there would just be more filtering options available for people who don't have 30-45 minutes each day to dedicate to viewing poser art. And let's face it, 15-20 of those minutes aren't going to be viewing art at all, they are spent waiting for the pages and art just to load...

I like the idea of categories, AND one upload/day. It might encourage folks to take a little more time working with each individual render, and to post only their best stuff. Ultimately a good thing. But I disagree about what I think the categories should be. How about (in order of popularity): 1.Nude/seminude Vicki w/ sword/helmet/armor 2.Nude/seminude Vicki w/ elf ears and sword/helmet/armor 3.Face shot of Vicki gazing soulfully into middle distance 4.Face shot of Vicki w/ elf ears gazing soulfully into middle distance. 5.Other I think that would pretty much solve the problem, if there is one, although the "other" gallery wouldn't get many hits, of course. Oh, and to Trkkie Grrl (thanks for all the cool fre stuff, by the way!): "Also it's peculiar how thumbnails that contains breasts, or titles the include "NUDITY" seems to get a helluva lot more hits than pictures without nudity." I think it would be peculiar if it were otherwise. I like a creatively cropped thumb, sometimes.

I totally agree wit Kiera and Snow ... and theres also a biased towards newbies doing nakid vicki and ... lets just say more seasoned artists roudn here who do amazing post work so it's okay for them to do nakid vicki ..that's art ..but newbie who's just proud he finally figure out what texure goes where is frowned upon .... Tis community was built to help each other but lately every other comment i find is very condisending at times and hypocritical .... I think cats would be great ..and no one would miss anything is you still want to see what's new that option would still be available like someones previous idea ..and maybe not 1 but 3 a day like 3dc wouldn't kill ppl ...perhaps it ppl took a lil more care and work on images then maybe we wouldnt' have all vicki nakid ..etc etc.. k i'm done with my first offical rant ...and am prepared to be flamed and honey roasted

Just my two cents, but I think one gallery post per day is plenty. For me, one per week would be ok.

The answer is not to split the Poser gallery by subject, but to define all the galleries in the site by subject instead of software. From an artistic point of view, it doesn't really matter whether a picture is rendered in Poser of Vue or 5% postworked or 50% postworked, what matters is, is the result any good? An artist has certain intentions when starting a picture, and her object is to realise those intentions using whatever means are at her disposal. Quibbling about what render engine was used and how much postwork was done is really irrelevant to the point and merit of the picture. Unless you have no interest in art and just like mucking around with software.

Attached Link: http://www.i-a-s.de/IAS/Bilder/Altdorfer/Lot.htm

LOL@thip

Okay - I was just joshing around up there the last time I posted in this thread (oh, about a zillion posts ago), but Some real seriously cool suggestions could come out of this: 1) Limit to one a day (one a week would be better) - that way you're sure your image is what you want up before you upload it. If it's one a week, then make sure some sort of undo or edit function is in place to allow for correcting massive boo-boos. 2) As for thumbnails, R'otica has the best idea, which would do wonders here - they make 'em for you, you only upload the images. Kinda sucks for those who want to be a bit mysterious about the intros, but it is a fair and honest way of doing it. 3) Categories? Naaah... No need, so long as some sort of limit is set for images. /P

A 'one a day' limit would help, but we need those categories.....If a fast new 'puter can't speed things up (and it hasn't for me), then we need to figure out some way to cut down on the number of thumbs a person needs to go through. Period. Terminus said it best way back in post #38. And as for making the categories gallery-wide, I'm all for it---those few, rare times that I have had time on my hands and browsed another gallery than Poser +/or Bryce, I've seen amazing works in media I know almost nothing about....it kills me to think how many thousands of images like that are languishing right now in multiple galleries that I just can't spare the time to peruse.