Attached Link: Why do game characters look so creepy

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"There are also allegations that Renderosity is staffed by volunteers so Bondware doesn't have to pay employees. "
Just wanted to address this, its not a fact at all:)  We have an office staff (admin) and we are full time paid employees. Lordy my son and I would starve if I went into the office everyday for free, LOL
Wanted to clear that up.

That's what I thought. I'm glad no-one's starving by going into work everyday. lol :-)

Where do people come up with ideas like this? ;)

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Quote - It's the creeping introduction of charges that should be of concern.

I don't quite get that... Renderosity pays their staff, they pay for servers, they pay for bandwidth, they have a lot of costs and overhead. Why shouldn't they charge for some or all of their services?

Sorry, but I can't resist:

Let me first say that Renderosity has every right to charge for whatever services they like. If they want to charge $24.95 as a "deterrant", that's completely up to them.

But, make no mistake: we shouldn't think these extra services are a way for them to pay the bills.

First, I doubt enough people will use this service to give the site a steady stream of income.

Second, the site keeps 50% of the product sales sold in the marketplace. I've seen people post estimates that the site takes in anywhere from $10,000 to $30,000 a month. (I don't remember the exact message thread, but see various postings in the "Community Forums".)
There are also allegations that Renderosity is staffed by volunteers so Bondware doesn't have to pay employees. I think this is an unproven allegation, but it would be an interesting fact since it would significantly reduce their cost.

On the other hand, these calculations and allegations are usually made by people who have become upset that their account was banned or removed. So take their postings with a grain of salt. ;)

It seems like the choice is either create a new account (for free) or pay $24.95 to change your name. If you create a new account and ask for your images to be transferred, you'll lose your image-view history and such. Is this worth $24.95? If so, I can forsee many people taking this option... and Renderosity then starts charging for this "item-transfer" service.

I agree with the above posters: although name-changing may be a pain for the admins, this is a part of running a community website. There will always be people who want to change their username. This is not a "cost" that should be passed along to the commnunity members.

On the surface, charging $24.95 may certainly compensate for the time it takes to change a user name, but just look at how many people are complaining. On the other hand, if a few people pay for this service, it may be worth all the complaints. ;)

Quote - This is not true, John. And a cursory search of the freestuff will put paid to that misconception!

You're right. Thanks for clearing up that misconception. I stand corrected.

I agree that EllPro makes some great freebies.

In this case, I think the Free Stuff mods slipped up big time. A while back, there was a huge blow-up about how anything with the word "fetish" would no longer be allowed. Yet the mod approved an item with the name "Anal Probe".
It would be one thing if the item was called "Scientific Probe" or just "Probe", but it's not: the item is named "Anal Probe" and it was approved for inclusion in the free stuff section.

Quote - it's considered bad form here to criticise freestuff providers like this,

I'm going to have to disagree with this statement. People should have every right to offer criticism, especially if the comments are helpful.
Suppose a new person uploads a converted model? Do you talk about how "generous" he is or do you "criticize" him by explaining that he can't convert other people's models without express permission?

Never mind. :)
I reduced the bucket size to 32 and it's rendering now.
 
--John

Quote - God i love this site.

So do I.
Where else can you get into a heated argument over naked zombies? I bet they don't talk about this over at those fancy 3d sites like CGTalk!
 
I do think it's interesting that we're applying nudity guidelines to horrific images. It's okay to show zombies with their flesh dripping off and eating people's brains... just make sure they're clothed!
On the other hand, have you ever seen a zombie movie where the zombies did not wear clothes? Personally, I do not want to see any naked zombies. ;)
 
--John

Changing the subject slightly:
In the world of computers, there are programs and documents. For years now, programs were always able to open multiple documents in the same program. If you wanted to switch between your open documents, you went to the menu option and selected which document to work with.
 
With IE, Microsoft broke this usability standard: instead of keeping all web pages within one program, IE opens a new copy of itself.
Then, starting with Office 2000 (or was it '97?), Microsoft continued this trend: if you open two Word documents, you'll have two copies of Word open... instead of one copy of Word containing two documents.
They must have realized that this was causing too many open programs on the Taskbar, so they created "grouping" in Windows so all the open copies of Word would stack up on each other.
Imagine if this idea extended to all programs: if you want to work with a second Photoshop document, yep- another copy of Photoshop has to be opened. How many copies of Photoshop could you open before your computer runs out of memory and gives up? (I frequently load 10-15 files into Photoshop and run a "batch convert" action. Imagine if Windows tried to open 15 copies of Photoshop!)
Then why do users need to open a second copy of Word to work with a second Word document?
 
Personally, I think tabbed browsing is the correct way to do things: all of your web pages are contained in a single web browser and you don't have to guess which IE contains which page.
And, yes, it is faster to glance at the tabs instead of going to the taskbar, clicking on the IE group, and trying to find the page to work with.

Links to free items at Content Paradise:
DSU
DSU Bonus Pack
JAGDPanther (with fully articulated tracks)
 
The CP Squirrel was last week's freebie, so I don't know if it's still available. The skunk is located on the main page (scroll to the bottom).
Note: the skunk and squirrel were made by e-frontier, not Vanishing Point. ;)

I made this point on another site: I don't think e-frontier needs to tell us anything. They have a built-in market of existing users. Let's face it: all they need to say is "Poser 7 pre-order. Click here" and tons of people will click and pre-order.
The list of features and benefits are for the people who are "on the fence" and may be debating about whether they should spend the money.

Attached Link: DSU Bonus Pack

Congratulations for getting this far in the competition.
Your model is nice, but she'll never beat Tabby. :-)
(Just kidding- I wish all of the entrants the best of luck.)
 
MDW Competition 2006
 
--John

Quote - Are you sure that is the right link? 

Yep... though it looks like I posted the link for page 2. :(
Click on the link for "Previous" to see how the discussion started.
 
--John

For future reference, here's a link that slinger found over on ArtScuttleButt about this gallery:
ArtScuttleButt Discussion Forum. Needless to say, I've been talked out of paying to exhibit at this gallery.
 
--John