That is a very cool script. Excellent job!
Thanks for the "Christmas in June" image ideas. :)

But I just want to say that, as someone who used to live in a snow area, I'm glad to be gone.
The only snow we get here in Orlando is the fake snow during the Christmas events at Disney World.

I grew up in the Baltimore, Maryland area and I got sick of the snow and ice and ice-covered snow. Although snow-covered object may be pretty to look at (just like these sample renders), it's a pain in the **** to drive in.

--John

Quote - one word-- PAYPAL

Huh?

What does PayPal have to do with Renderosity "censoring" thumbnail images?
First, as it's been stated so often, this is Renderosity's site and they can set any rules that they feel like. If they don't want nudity in the thumbnails, then so be it: either follow their rules or don't post.

Second, PayPal has nothing to do with the policies in Renderosity's galleries. The rumor is that Renderosity changed the policies of the marketplace so no nudity was shown in the thumbnail or first sales image.
Why would PayPal care about nudity in an image gallery? I'm sure there are plenty of sites (both artistic and adult) which contain nudity... yet PayPal processes payments for those sites.

And why is the "poor man's copyright" myth still going around in 2008?
From Snopes, the Urban Legends Reference Pages:
"Mailing one's works to oneself and keeping the unopened, postmarked envelope as proof of right of ownership to them (a practice known as the "poor man's copyright") has no substantive legal effect in the U.S. [The site has] yet to locate a case of its use where an author's copyright was established and successfully defended in a court of law by this method."

Their page is dated 9 August 2005, so this issue was debunked by them almost three years ago.

From the US Copyright Office. (It can't get more official than this!)
"The practice of sending a copy of your own work to yourself is sometimes called a “poor man’s copyright.” There is no provision in the copyright law regarding any such type of protection, and it is not a substitute for registration."

And these are just 2 examples I found in a few minutes of searching. Imagine what can be found if someone uses Google instead of blindly accepting "urban legends"! ;)

Anyway, today's results weren't nearly as good as yesterday:
-There seemed to be a lot less people walking around the show today than there was yesterday. When I walked over to get some lunch, I noticed the main parking area was only about 60% full... and this was around 1:30pm, when the art show should be the most crowded.
I only had one sale today, compared with yesterday's three sales.

-I had a major problem with wind gusts. Every so often, the wind would pick up and blow through my tent, sometimes literally moving it a few inches! I placed some tent weights on it, but that didn't help much since the tent just slid on the concrete.
A few times, my artwork almost got knocked down! I used plastic ties to tie the artwork to the tent legs (and tripods), but the wind gusted so hard that the tripod itself almost fell over.

Near the end of the day, I had to take down the back "wall" so the wind could pass through the tent... and so the wall wouldn't act like a sail. But this also meant that I had to take down all the artwork which was hanging at the back of the tent.
That seemed to work, though, since the tent didn't move as much after that.

The wind and low attendance caused a number of artists to start closing down early. It started to rain a little and I think people wanted to get out before any downpours came through (which has been predicted for "late afternoon".

Here's a photo of my booth as it looked Saturday morning. The weather was a little overcast when I took the shot.

Here's the story from Saturday...
Like the San Marco Art Festival, I forgot to bring my card reader, so there are no photos for now. I'll post some when I get home Sunday night.

The art festival was a little busier than the one at San Marco, but I still thought the crowds were low, especially compared to some shows (where I went as a visitor) which had mobs of people.
However, people seemed to be buying at this show: I saw a lot of people walking around carrying artwork... at least, I assumed they were buyers and not artists carrying their own stuff around. ;)

In fact, I had THREE sales today! At the previous two shows (Jacksonville Beach and San Marco), I didn't sell anything until Sunday afternoon... so this is definitely a good sign.

Like at the San Marco Art Festival, my most popular pieces were "Tabby Portrait Ladybug" and the artwork I made with the "Project Soldier" (by lygher_xero and mrsparky). In fact, an image made with the soldier was the first piece to sell today!

On the other hand, some of the other artists didn't think the show was as good as they expected. One artist who lived in the area, said that the organizers didn't advertise on the radio or TV, which may have caused the low attendance. I sort-of agree: while there were more people here than at San Marco, the number of people could have been better.
When I talked to the show organizers about what they thought, they said they had reached the right demographic and that there were enough buyers for their taste... and that they'd rather have a few buyers than a lot of lookers.

On the other, other hand, another artist I talked to seemed to think that the show was getting "junky", especially since this show had booths from a teeth-cleaning company, Bank of America, and too many "crafts" booths (such as sea shells and "build-your-own-necklaces"). He does have a point: what does a teeth-cleaning company have to do with an art festival?

At least the weather turned out nice: last night (Friday), it poured down rain. This is actually a little ironic: Florida hasn't seen rain for about a month... and now it decided to start pouring??
Luckily, the weather today was a little overcast and cool, instead of raining or super-hot.

We'll see how it goes tomorrow. :)

Attached Link: Goodies - Poses

A slight change in plans: I've been moved to booth #93 (instead of #34): when the organizers looked at the location, they found a manhole right in the middle of booth #34!

Booth #93 is a few booths down from the main information booth (which is booth #100), so this should be a much better spot.

Quote - You misunderstoof what I was asking. Noone said "Blanket ban"

Actually, I think I was the one who mentioned (or implied) that a blanket ban should be put into place. To me, a commercial posting is a commercial posting, whether it comes from a merchant posting a message about his own product or someone else posting the same message. So, "no commercial postings" should mean no more "Hey, check out the latest from Merchant X, over at DAZ".

Even now, at the 6th page of this thread, the admins really haven't explained the difference between the two. Like Anton said, it doesn't matter who the author of the thread is- it's still a thread announcing a for-sale product... sometimes for sale on another site.

Anyway... today (Sunday) was about the same as yesterday. There were more people walking around, but there still didn't seem to be many buyers.
Later in the day, though, I finally sold something!
It was a framed image that I made using lygher_xero and mrsparky's "Project Soldier". The girl who bought it was going to give it to her brother as a gift. You can sort-of see it sitting on the table, to the left.

Just my two cents from years of being a member here. Let's see... "Joined 23 Mar 2000" should be worth something, right?

Anyway, the "new" rules seem to be an extension of the existing rules, which are:

1. You CAN NOT create a new thread talking about your own product, in any forum other than the Product Showcase Forum. This is called a "commercial posting".
   The new rules state you can't post a message about your own products in outside stores.

1a) Talking about your own product, even answering someone's question is considered bad form and some of the mods will delete the posting as being "commercial".
As an example, if someone asks "Where can I get a cool X?" and you reply, "Well, I have a X in my store!", a mod may delete it and give you a warning. (This happened to me a few times, even when my answer was to go to my marketplace here at Renderosity. As an aside, I wonder if my "verbal warnings" ever expire or if they're part of my permanent record!)

1. The forums have ALWAYS allowed people to say "Check out this cool X made by someone else". This is not a commercial posting, but a "informing the greater community of a new item that's available" posting.

So, while Stonemason can't announce his new product here at Renderosity (using him as a recent example), it is perfectly within the rules for other people to announce it and even post links to it over at DAZ.

Personally, I think this goes against the spirit of both the "no advertising" rule and the "no links to outside stores" rules, but that's just me. If the rule is "no advertising", then people shouldn't be allowed to post links to product. Although the creator of the product isn't promoting his own item, he's certainly getting attention and advertising... and probably a bunch of new sales.

And if the rule is "no links to outside stores", then ALL links, no matter who posts them should be removed... including links to DAZ and Smith Micro.

The same is true for free items: you can make a freebie and announce your creation in the Freebie Forum. If you post your message in the Poser Forum, someone may complain about the "spam" message you posted.
Yet people are free to post a "look at this cool freebie made by artist X" message without it being considered "spam". Like product announcements, isn't this still advertising?

I've wondered why self-promotion is "bad" advertising, but getting other people to promote your items is acceptable. Again, no matter who creates the message thread, the link to your item is still getting posted in the forums.

Just an update:

It's Saturday night and I was at the show all day today (and I'll be there again tomorrow). I'm actually at booth #46, not #47.
I took a few photos of my booth (and I'll take some tomorrow)... but I forgot my card-reader, so I can't copy the files from my camera! I'll post the photos when I get back home.

Overall, the show had a very good mix of artists and styles. There were a lot of crafts, though: from jewelry to ceramics to woodwork to beads.
I was the only artist at the show displaying digital artwork: every other artist displayed traditional styles, from watercolor to oil to paint. So, yes, I got a lot of attention just for being different!

I displayed a number of my "Tabby" images, including the ones I took to the Jacksonville Beach Art Festival, back in October of last year. I also had some Giclee prints made of some of my sci-fi images so I'd have a wider range of artwork to display. This actually worked well- I had a number of kids commenting on how cool my robot images looked. Though their parents didn't buy the artwork for them. :sad:

Unfortunately, the show has been a tad slow. Even the other artists were talking about how this year's show seemed to be slower than usual. Although there were a decent number of people walking around, it didn't seem like anyone was buying anything! Even the merchants selling jewelry said their sales weren't very good.
I'm not sure why the show was slow. After all, this show has been running for the past 12 years- I would think that everyone knows about it by now. (As a comparison, the show I attended in Jacksonville Beach had only been running for 2 years.)

Hopefully things will pick up tomorrow.

There was an accident, though: the wind gusted and one of my 24x36 inch prints fell off the tripod. The glass completely smashed and the print got scratched. :sad:
Luckily, I had another print with me (which I taped to the leg of my booth so it wouldn't blow over!) and I still have the file at home, so I can make another print later.

Those are some great photos. I like the half white statue and not-black & white trees! :)

I didn't want to get involved in this huge thread, but I'd like to clarify some points:

Quote - My theory is that Renderosity, still smarting from being dissed and dropped by Content Paradise...

Can we please let this rumor die? Do we know for a fact that Renderosity was "dissed and dropped"? Where is the official statement from CP "dissing" Renderosity?
In my opinion (and according to a number of other forum postings), it was Renderosity that left CP. Despite all the theatrics about how "CP is kicking out all its merchants", this is completely untrue. As of April 2008, how many providers have left CP? I believe it's only been Renderosity and RuntimeDNA.

Quote - If someone says "Hey, where can I find barbarian-style weapons?", you can list all the packs you can find in our MP, RDNA, DAZ, CP, and any other little store you can find.  Even if you made it.

Um, this is incorrect. A few years ago, when someone asked a direct question about a product at my marketplace here, my reply was deleted and I was given a "verbal warning" (or would that be a "written warning" since it was in an e-mail?) that I was posting a commercial message. My reply was almost exactly like quote above: a customer asked about how to find something and I said "I have one of those in my marketplace".

Since then, I have been under the impression that merely mentioning your own product (even one for sale here) in a non-marketplace forum will get the message deleted and will result in a warning, suspension or ban.

I think Gareee said it best:

Quote - Example: Do you think my advertising my Deadcorn sets here hurt any rendo vendors at all? There's nothing like that here.

Like Spock, this is a very logical approach. Unfortunately, we're dealing with humans, not Vulcans. And because of that, humans may not care about logical arguments: they see that a message linked to a product on DAZ could possibly, potentially, maybe, sort-of take one visitor away from Renderosity. So, to stop all these hordes of people from leaving, a new policy must create a new policy.

I also agree with redhorse: if someone claims that outside advertising affects the Renderosity merchants in any way, then let's see some proof. Let's see some definitive numbers that show "person X clicked a link, purchased a product at DAZ and resulted in a Z% drop in income for this site and this merchant."
Personally, I don't think this kind of analysis is even possible, given all the factors that affect website traffic and this business in general.

I also don't think we should should be viewing the community as a pie to be sliced up, as in "if you get more money, I get less money".
If I buy V4 at DAZ, does Renderosity lose any money? No because they don't sell V4. So how does a Renderosity merchant lose money? I would think that all the Renderosity merchants who make V4 characters would be very happy that I just bought V4 from a competitor: now that I have the base figure, I'm in the market for their products.

As a follow-up, I received the art festival information in the mail today. I'll be at booth #47, which the drawing shows as near the gazebo and the lions. I've never been to San Marco, so I don't know what the gazebo or lions are either, but it looks to be in the center.

Quote - Seeing that most of will not be able to go, maybe you could give us highlights and let us know if some others from our little corner of the CG business are represented (Poser/D|S/etc)?

When I was at the Jacksonville Art Festival last year, I saw no digital art. However, the San Marco Art Festival looks like it has a lot more booths. So maybe we'll see some. I'll definitely keep my eye open.

If it hasn't been said before, it is very important to keep the proper case. "actor hip" is not the same as "Actor hip" or even "actor Hip". If you have the wrong case, will the pose work? Maybe or maybe not.
If it doesn't work, you'll be pulling your hair out wondering what you did wrong.

Just so everyone can calm down a little:

Vanishing Point is not leaving Content Paradise. They have always treated us well and they provide us plenty of advertising opportunities.

And, no, CP is not "cleaning house", nor are they "firing vendors".

Although I can't speak for Renderosity or RDNA, I would be willing to bet that they were the ones to quit CP, not the other way around. This is based on logical information and is not wild speculation. ;)

Remember, when CP first started, they needed tons of products to entice customers to visit. Who had the biggest supply of Poser products? Renderosity!
I would also be willing to guess that, at the time, CP paid Renderosity more than they should have, just to get access to all the products.

And now that CP has been bought by Smith Micro, it's logical to assume that the company would want to re-negotiate everyone's contracts. Unfortunately, it looks like some of the re-negotiations took a turn for the worse and resulted in Renderosity and RDNA leaving CP.

When it comes to contracts, there are at least two parties involved. I wish people wouldn't jump to wild conclusions about how Smith Micro is "evil" and should be called "Sith Micro". Why is SM the bad guy?
Do you now for a fact that the people at SM kicked out Renderosity or RDNA? If not, then maybe SM doesn't deserve to be called "Sith Micro". Maybe RDNA is the "evil" party for not allowing customers to buy their products from CP.
Yes, I know RDNA isn't actually "evil", but why not? If we're wildly speculating about things, who else can we call "evil"?

Quote - Ah, didn't know VP was bigger than I'd thought; my apologies. Now for a question: when's their contract w/ CP come due?

Now that's an interesting question. The contract is between Vanishing Point and Content Paradise. Beyond the fact that VP will continue to sell at CP, why are the details of the contract anyone else's business?