Hi everyone,

I have been following this forum for a while, reading everyone's pov about this subject, and I have to say I am in a bit of dilmena.  Money part doesn't worry me, its that awful word 'mediocre' .  Before I came across sharecg I couldn't model anything, not even anything out of Playdough until I discovered Bryce.  I am now texture and mat-mad, and trying to learn this program.  Sharecg has provided an outlet for that, and now that this announcement went up, I have got some more mats and spaceish sort of models to put up but now I am not sure if I should in case they are crap.  Personally I was happy that anyone actually viewed my stuff at all seeing I am new to this whole thing, but my belief is that there must at least be someone out there as Bryce and mat -mad as me.  I did my research on this before I put up any models, I want everything to be different to anyone else.  I really do want to keep using Sharecg, I love this site - feeds the 'what if' syndrome in my brain.  I just want to know what is considered crap, like some sort of 'you have to be this good to enter' sign with an example of what is elite in the freebie world.  I have spent a lot of money on some sites and I have to say some of the free stuff I have downloaded is a lot of the time better than the models I spent money on.

Yes, that's exactly what's got me so worried, too. Despite what people say, I'm a beginner, and I know I'm a beginner, with not only with making content, but with packaging content. I know I'll make a lot of mistakes until I've learned the tricks of the trade, as it were, but are the mistakes I make going to weigh against me, causing my work to be rated as "crap?"

Every item I posted here was posted because I honestly thought people would be able to make use of them. No, they're not the best content in the world, but as long as people found them useful, I was content. But now, with all this talk of quality control, I'm sitting here wondering, "Is there something wrong with my stuff?"

Another thing that's been bothering me is that some people here seem to look down on Poser. Does that mean that, because my content is Poser-related, it's automatically considered "crap?" I like Poser. It's fun to use, for me. I'm sorry other people don't like it. But why should anything Poser-related be considered crap, especially as a lot of work goes into making certain types of content, such as clothing models?

So, I'm wondering, one-texture uploads aside, exactly what do people consider low-quality content?

Edited by TheKeeper on 01/09/08 11:22 AM.

ummmmm......hmmmm.....First let me say I went and looked at your mats Luchare....I would of tested them for ya but my pc isn't handling bryce right now....But from just looking at them they look good.

 The Keeper....I couldn't find your portfolio by searching, can you post me a link please...

 Lord knows I'm still just an ameture and my opinion at this point is just one persons opinion.....but I felt like both were asking for honest opinions.  I can atleast give that....

 For me its not that things are mediocre...cause well....I can look as stuff I've done that I know was crap and things I've done that I am darn proud of.   For me the issue is more, the single upload packs that could and should have been packaged up as one thing and posted.  I'll be honest....I don't bother downloading 95% of those, even if I think they're the bomb!

Oh, sure! Thank you for taking the time to look!

http://www.sharecg.com/pf/TheKeeper

Just out of curiosity... I don't suppose you put a space in my name while you were searching? That could have been the cause. My name is all one word: TheKeeper

hahahaha I tried Keeper, TheKeeper, The Keeper......

I've sent people with only A3 LE to get the morph targets....They are a great addition for those who only have the base!  I rarely use Hiro....but I have seen the aiko armor used in an msn group....can't link to it.....i left the group.......

I'd also say by the hits that others don't consider you lacking.....Just keep going and learning!  You're doing good already. 

Your stuff isn't that bad, although it appears to be obvious that you're still a beginner.

I'm not an expert at Bryce myself, but having read this thread I tested some of your uploads to see how your items would work. Hope you don't mind my suggestions below...

The space panels are very nice, for the most part. One would usually use symmetrical lattices for stuff like that to have a front and back side, but that's not something that necessarily matters. One thing I would have done differently, though, is the height of the panels. It may be a small thing and can be adjusted by anyone who knows about the Raise/Lower button in the Terrain Editor. If you reduce the height your panels really look much cooler. See the first example below, which is one of the panels I like very much.

This adjustment doesn't work well with all of your panels, however, because of the grayscale values you chose to create some of the patterns. Transitions could be more subtle in some places to allow for better adjustment.

There is one other thing that will present more of a problem. These panels are made for tiling, and the patterns do tile well. However, there are problems when moving the panels along an axis. For example, if you move one of your panels along the Z axis, it does not go where it should. This is due to the rotation values of your panels (I don't quite understand why they have these values). Again, see the examples below. The second image shows how I moved a copy of a panel along the Z axis. The panel should have been placed next to the first one, but hasn't. The third image shows the same movement along the Z axis after I corrected the rotation values the way they should be, and the panel moves correctly. See the rotation settings of your panels and the settings that will allow to move the panels correctly.

brainstew

@Luchare

I tend to agree with Matrixworkz, if you think it will be useful for someone, post it. If you're really worried, try posting a promo shot for it on a site like Renderosity or Daz in the appropriate areas asking if there's any interest. This method along with the help of my alpha tester is how I gauge things personally.

@TheKeeper

Everyone makes mistakes at first with packaging etc, as you said, it takes time to learn all the tricks. I wouldn't be worried about your content being judged as inferior just for that. Anyone who does, is obviously conveniently forgetting their own beginner mistakes.

My personal opinion on making freebies in general, is make what you want and have fun doing it. If you're not getting a ton of comments saying "This sucks!" then why worry?

Panthia: hahahaha I tried Keeper, TheKeeper, The Keeper

Oh, well! rofl! At least the link worked!

Thank you for your review of my things! Greatly appreciated!

WalkerofShadows

@TheKeeper

Everyone makes mistakes at first with packaging etc, as you said, it takes time to learn all the tricks. I wouldn't be worried about your content being judged as inferior just for that. Anyone who does, is obviously conveniently forgetting their own beginner mistakes.

My personal opinion on making freebies in general, is make what you want and have fun doing it. If you're not getting a ton of comments saying "This sucks!" then why worry?

Duly noted! And thank you!

@Luchare

You're welcome! I'm glad I could provide some useful info on your obps.

I haven't had a more detailed look at your textures yet. First of all: they're not that bad either, in my opinion. As a matter of fact, some of them are very, very nice indeed.

One thing I've noticed even with my little knowledge of the Bryce Material Editor and the DTE is that for some of your more complex textures you seem to have used many parameters that have no effect at all on the overall texture.

Example: The parameters in the VALUE section of the Material Editor. For most of them (if not all, I'm really not sure) there is an either/or relationship between the sliders and the dots you place in the colums of this section. That means that as soon as you place a dot in a column and thus control this slot through a texture source, the sliders have no effect anymore. It doesn't affect the texture in a negative way, it's just confusing when you enter the Material Editor and want to tweak a texture.

In some cases, dots were activated for the Bump which refer to the bump channel of texture sources that are, for example, plain gray and therefore will not produce a bump effect, no matter what setting you use for the slider. 

There also seem to be problems with some of your textures with regard to mapping and tiling, but an analysis of that goes way beyond what I know about procedural textures in Bryce, particularly since the DTE is involved in a number of those textures.

By the way, since you seem to be very fond of Bryce, and mat mad as well , you may find the following link of interest (it's not for the Material Editor, but the DTE). It's one of the best DTE tutorials in English I know of.

http://users.pandora.be/walter.vandijck/DTEtutorial1.htm

If you'd like to find out more about how the Material Editor (and everything else in Bryce) works, I recommend a book that should still be available. It's "Real World Bryce 4" by Susan Kitchens. Although there have been no updates for newer versions of Bryce, this book still applies to many aspects of current Bryce versions, in particular with respect to the Material Editor and the DTE. Some of the things I mentioned above are, as a matter of fact, things I have learned from that book. It is well worth the money, you won't find anything that compares to it because it explores the very depths of Bryce like no other documentation.

Sorry 'bout my lengthy monologue... I'm quite a big Bryce fan myself, although I have to admit that meanwhile I prefer programs like Vue for landscaping, and I've never really learned to use Bryce properly... but I'm still playing around with it from time to time.

LOL you're welcome :)

I agree about the lack of comments, is why I suggested doing your checks for interest elsewhere. But congrats on getting a comment that made you feel good :)

Hi Luchare ,

it would be interesting to know for sure if that's due to bugs. I've never really played around with the mat editor a lot, so I can't say anything useful in that respect.

It is indeed not that simple to copy or analyze the more complex stuff... It takes more than some basic knowledge about the interaction of the different settings and possibilities in the Material Editor to know what does what exactly. And in the DTE it gets really difficult...

Writing down stuff you find out is very useful in the long run, I do that all the time because it often happens that I don't know what the hell I did It's a lot of additional work sometimes, but it usually pays off sooner or later, so I would certainly encourage your idea to take some notes (or make screenshots even)...

And yes, it's true that many people here don't say very much. ShareCG currently is more a download database than a 3D meeting place full of life and communication, but maybe this will change with time. It would be great to get to know people here a little better and I'm sure we could learn a lot more from each other than just the number of hits someone gets for their uploads...

I'd just like to make one comment, If you are worried about if your stuff is good enough for a freebie, it probably is. the ones people have been complaining about were obviously uploaded from those who don't care wheather they are good enough. If you care about your work it will show regardless of your skill level. I have MANY things on my computer that I will probably never show anyone let alone release. I almost didn't release anything.

I guess thats more than one 

Review Dyald's post and don't worry about the nay sayers.

This is a learning venue for most of us and the elitists should go get a paying job.

Most of the comments about "junk" were directed at the site abusers anyway. You do not fit that category.

I hope to see more uploads from you soon.

Speaking of the elitists...where are their uploads now that the money has dried up? Seems to have died out regardless of which side of the fence they claim to be on, for share or for greed.

Good question, LACEnterprises. LOL

I'm waiting to see the changes, taking a break, getting around to playing with the content I got over the holidays, goofing off with vector animals like a poodle for a poodle skirt. I got burned out a bit from my last upload & need to relax.

Pfft Terri (tessalynne), you do great stuff! Upload away!! :D

about the people worrying if their stuff is crap.....

i dont think the issue most people were having was with beginners uploading things. in fact i dont think i even once saw anyone say that they were tired of people who were just learning uploading crappy stuff.i dont think anyone on this site has a problem with people who want to learn (and possibly click on a tutorial)....i think it was more about the people who were uploading bull rather than just crap if you will.lol i hate to point fingers,but,for what seems to be a popular example of bull was multiplane cyclorama backgrounds. pages and pages and pages were uploaded at a time for that and people were getting angry about it because it was bull.in another thread EmporeR mentioned that the spamming had stopped so i did a search for mulitplane cyclorama and all it could show me was a total of 255 results! so it was clear that those uploads that are now gone were uploaded for the sole purpose of getting page views and not for the quality of making something and helping someone with a freebie.which would equal to bull.lol i hope i explained this the right way.sounded good in my head. me get my point across.  oh and one more thing...making textures,even if it the only thing someone does,is just fine. i dont have a modeling program either but i do own photoshop and i make textures and brushes and stuff like that. these things are just as important as the models themselves because without textures everything would be the same color and thats just no good. lmao i was censored durring this thread so i was forced to use the words crap and bull.if thats a new rule im glad to see they are sticking to it.

Edited by angelaandreoli on 01/14/08 12:18 AM.

Would be nice if textures were considered just as important...but have a look at the "Award" section of ShareCG, only one texture out of 4,000+ got one. :/ Really encouraging....NOT! LOL.

So, how's this for mediocre? Poodle dress!

Why is there no size thingy on here??? ROFL!!! 

ROFL - crap bull and heck!

i think i understand this now, same thing when i buy stuff, i want 5000 of them in one package rather than 1 at a time.

Well....I've hit a creative snag.....but like everyone has said....its not the beginners who are honestly trying to learn and do better that bother people.  I personally think my capabilities have grown since joining sharecg....espcially with Kimber's killer textures!

 btw......I LOVE that poodle skirt!