Actually I never liked the idea of an AOM, nor do I like the MOM either. Why is it necessary to turn the membership against eachother every month in these silly competitions that don't mean anything anyway? While I'm sure it's an honor to the one chosen, the ones that aren't are sorely disappointed and thus we get days of name calling, finger pointing, allegations of corruption from the supporters of those that "lose" and for what? So some person can be king of the hill for a month while the 79,999 other people worship his/her greatness, even though some may be far greater, but not as well known. We all come from different perspectives. I doubt no two people out of that 80,000 has the exact same list of favorite artists. Sure, some may match, but others won't. So how can it be fair in any aspect to pick one person to be crowned with an honor that is deserved by hundreds or even thousands.

Instead of all this fuss about AoM and MoM, I think it would be much more fair and helpful to have an artist showcase gallery where each artist could submit what they consider their best work or the work that best represents what they do. Have it random so that each time people go into it, they see different artists. This way people can make their own minds up about who best suits their idea of art. Wouldn't this be much more fair than picking out some person that you will never get a consensus on anyway?

All I know is competition seems to be tearing this place apart. If it's not the AoM, it's the Hot20, not to mention best ranked, most viewed, most commented, best seller, how many views next to you, how many comments, how many ponies in a picture. Okay, scratch the last one, but there is enough competition on here to choke an artist's creative vision already, so why perpetuate it with more? All it seems to do is enflame the membership.

PS: I also buy a lot in the store, so where does that fit in to your calculation?

Geesh, hasn't the powers that be at Renderosity ever seen Miracle on 34th Street? The part where Macy's santa sent the people out to Gimbel's when they didn't have a product, only to have the people come back to Macy's in appreciation. Yes, it's a movie, but it's a sound business practice and in this type of a community, it's even more sound. Renderosity, we are artists. Those that buy from the marketplace are looking to create a certain artwork from those products. That means that such products have to match the vision. You don't have a product to match every vision. Neither does Daz, Poserworld, RuntimeDNA, etc, etc, etc. Together, however, you all create a very rich and diverse selection and while Renderosity may not get every sale, it's the goodwill that comes from a member who got what they wanted and learned it on Renderosity that will keep people coming back. Are you in that deep a financial hole that such good will costs you so much in the long run? I subscribe to Poserworld and I love to see the updates to their site and I support Steve and Rena on this fight. It's a really big sandbox and Renderosity needs to play nice if they are to keep the community and the loyalty that they depend on to bring in the people. There are very few web entities that can claim large communities based on a store. 'rosity has a very rare thing going here, one that they should respect, not destroy. After all, what good is the store if no one comes to the site. And as far as Daz getting away with it, even they have to offer some free stuff, and without ads from here, they'd probably be pretty quiet. My 2cents...

He looks really good. Great job...

Especially since they have some of the finest computer animation available to them. I guess cost cutting measures have brought them to this. What's next? Cool vehicle model though...hehe

While I'm the first one to admit that the internet health has to do with the speed of any web site, this site is running like a mouse stuck on a glue trap. Okay, bad imagery, but the point is that their servers seem to be busting at the seams, specifically the mySQL one. I'm not surprised that the server upgrade didn't help that much if at all. mySQL, despite the speed of the server, is a free program by the open source project and is fairly stable if properly configured, BUT it has a bottleneck in the amount of write versus read requests it can handle at any one time without getting all choked up.

To fix this site, it seems to me they have to rethink their whole database strategy. If they insist on using mySQL, they need to be aware of it's shortcomings and find ways to work around them. We use mySQL at work and have fairly high volume, but we don't rely on just the mySQL daemon for all requests and processing because we know it's a dog. If database handling is the only option, then Bondware needs to consider opening up it's wallet, getting Oracle and an administrator to keep an eye on it (it's kinda finicky) and go from there. Oracle, while not the most stable, does handle high end traffic situations such as this, as does other packages like SyBase, etc...

So the question is when is Renderosity going to make an effort to replace their current SQL system? I realize they may be out a programmer at the moment, but still, this is something they need to address with more than a bandaid for as Richabri said, it is still unacceptably slow...

My 2c as an internet developer...

3D art, to me, is comparable to art direction in a film (which I consider very much art). In most films, a lot of "models" are bought, rather than created for budget and time constraints. If you are filming a library scene for instance, do you really need to create every book in the set by hand? Not really, but the vision of the library's look is the art. The art director of the film, though responsible for the look of that film, is usually rarely the one who actually creates the things that he uses. He either has other artists or products that are bought. Much thought and feeling goes into pictures that are created, whether there is use of other models, or not. I've seen some pictures where you'll see a certain model or prop and go okay, not bad, while another picture using that same prop will blow you away. That to me is the art, not where ya got the elements from.

The fault I have in the argument above is the analogy that making one's own brushes is the same as using other artist's models. It's not. What it is similar to is using Poser or Photoshop rather than a canvas. Most artists wouldn't make their own paints or write something like Poser/Photoshop/Etc. However, when you are using another person's models, you are using their artwork in your own work. Again, there is nothing wrong with that, but it's clearly not the same as the analogy everyone seems to make.

Just my 2 cents...Art is art...enjoy...

He looks really awesome Valandar, great work...

Interesting...Nicely done...

KTS,
I agree with you if this was a perfect world. I wouldn't want the young'uns to peruse this site without supervision either. But it's not what you or I or a responsible parent would do. Certainly pre-schoolers are easier to manage, but when were we talking about pre-schoolers only? When they get older, some (not at our house) have internet access in their rooms. How do you think predators find these kids online? It's certainly not because parents are monitoring their access 24/7. I'm not saying that any one of Renderosity's 75,000 members are such people, before I get everybody's feathers ruffled. What I'm saying is that the simplest misunderstanding or misstep on what is deemed for kids, can turn into a whirlwind of accusations and legal problems. That is something that has to be weighed by an administration when deciding on these things. It's not what you and I would do, but what a community would do at large. And heck, look at all the accusations that fly in the adult part, now imagine what comes later. I'm sure someone could misconstrue the MPP as being not for kids (especially after the Mr. Fluffer drink and smoking pic), depending on how people look at things.

Also, there would have to be a responsible moderator put in charge to weed out what he/she would consider offensive images, but even that could be a gray area. Put up a picture of a mech warrior which in most circles isn't any different than Transformers, but for some parents, it could be considered violent and unsuitable for their child.

Let's not underestimate the ingenuity of children. I know a 9 year old that understands computers probably better than most folk. They know how to get to their sites and they would ultimately want to visit the site when the parent is not around, and please don't tell me that responsible parents wouldn't let it happen. In the real world, it's going to happen. Kids are sneaky and parents many times can't spend time with them 24/7 to make sure they are not up to no good.

I do agree on how much easier it would be to sort through the pictures to get ones to show the kiddies, but unless it was a fully separated site (with new passwords, etc) so that the link wasn't possible, then you're going to have trouble at some point when someone's feathers do get ruffled. I've yet to see a site that originally started as a site for adults, successfully implement a kids area without getting into hot water with overzealous parents.

I have to agree with rcook on this one. This is not a site for children and I'm sure if one looked they'd find art sites that cater to children, but opening it up on here where the possibility exists is only leaving Renderosity open for legal trouble. I think a new gallery for children would be a great idea on a separate site, but given the nature of the community and the art, such a gallery would have to be policed like a hawk, as well as the other galleries to make sure kids didn't enter to avoid legal snafoos and people who are easily swayed to yell "child molestation" at every image. Also there are varying degrees of parental tolerance toward images. What one parent might consider good for his children, another may be totally appalled. Such also applies to the children themselves.

If you want your kids to see pictures you deem are good for them to see or what they are interested in, put them on your own personal drive and let them peruse that. Only you know what tolerance level your children has for a particular image.

Just my 2 cents...

I'm sorry for the harshness of my previous comment that I deleted. My apologies mon1alpha. Thanks for the comment and I implemented your suggestion, though not to the point of nudity as I don't do nudity in my gallery for personal reasons, but trimmed it down as it was too big on the right side.

Thanks as well Strangechilde. I see what you mean, but again will keep that in mind for the next pic (good advice for above or below water)...

Thanks for the suggestion VirtualSite and kieraw. Originally I had such colors for her bikini and flower, but it made too much focus on that and was too sharp in constrast with the murky depths she's in. So I trimmed back the color so that the water had more of a flow into her as they were one. But normally I would definitely agree with the contrast of palettes. I can agree that the hair should have been a bit more fluffed out than is there and that I only got a hint of the float that I was looking for. Will keep this in mind in future underwater renders, but probably changing this one would only cause more issues than fix them, so next time, but I didn't want you to think the comment fell on deaf ears...

Wow, thanks for the info Alleycat...I really appreciate it. Never would have thought of that...Cool image by the way...I will give it a try...