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Homepage opinions
About Truespace Archives
These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
Homepage opinions // Roundtable
Post by 3dfrog // Dec 7, 2007, 7:23am
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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Hi
I need some honest opinions on this design. I did it with ispace and golive. I'm trying to make it look like a fun site. But my friend who is a professional web page designer says it looks kinda low rent :( He is gonna help me out some, but does this design look bad?
http://www.3dfrog.com/wips/testsite/
None of the links go anywhere yet. It is just the basic design.
Thanks |
Post by jamesmc // Dec 7, 2007, 7:36am
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jamesmc
Total Posts: 2566
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The page looks fine to me.
However, I would design the page in the same way you work in 3D or any other application.
How do you like your tools in 3D work? Spread out? Bunched together?
Do you like big icons or little icons?
Does your page need a big graphics header or a small graphic in a corner?
Is there consistency in the Web page or is there a potpourri of visual themes?
What do you want to attract attention to? Yourself or your work?
Web Design is hard and I've been around Web Page Designers, they are the same guys who hang around abstract art in a Museum and sip herb tea. :D |
Post by spacekdet // Dec 7, 2007, 8:02am
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spacekdet
Total Posts: 1360
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You've broken Unwritten Rule # 1: No blinking text. That went out of style in 1996. Come to think of it, I'm not entirely sure it was ever in style.
It's used now only to indicate irony.
It's 'trueSpace', not 'Truespace'. But, you knew that.
The spinny things in the header are distracting and seem unrelated to frog theme. It seems a little too mechanical for a frog... I'm thinking a more naturalistic theme, some indications of greenery, water, or treebark; or a more natural color palette.
It's not easy being green, but it is easy to be cheesy!
Keep working on it. |
Post by TheWickedWitchOfTheWeb // Dec 7, 2007, 8:04am
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TheWickedWitchOfTheWeb
Total Posts: 858
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Honestly? I think it looks blocky and very dated. Plus the colours with the sort of gradient make it look like my monitor's on the blink.
Sorry I can't be positive but you did ask for honesty! |
Post by 3dfrog // Dec 7, 2007, 8:20am
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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Thanks for the honesty. I am no web page designer. That's why I asked. I guess I will work with my friend and see if he can help me. I haven't made a web page since like 2001, that explains the dated look ;) Was there blinking text in there? its not blinking for me. I didn't intend blinking text.
Back to the drawing board :) |
Post by 3dfrog // Dec 7, 2007, 11:08am
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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I gave it another shot, I think it looks better, but does it still look dated? Any advice is helpful. Man, that first one looks so bad now.
http://www.3dfrog.com/wips/test2/index.html |
Post by hemulin // Dec 7, 2007, 11:14am
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hemulin
Total Posts: 1058
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It's better but i'm not sure about that bright green strike around the logo and your name. Have you considered creating your website using a CMS such as Joomla? (http://www.joomla.com) |
Post by parva // Dec 7, 2007, 11:15am
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parva
Total Posts: 822
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Personally I like your original site more :)
The newer ones have a blobby style (round buttons).
The centralized style is better in my eyes but the look... mmh.
Well, just my opinion :) |
Post by Délé // Dec 7, 2007, 11:41am
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Délé
Total Posts: 1374
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As much as I like Caligari, I have to admit that not a fan of iSpace. I think it creates these "dated" looks. Websites these days are more clean and sleek. Not that you have to go for that style though.
I think the cigar shaped buttons are part of the dated look. It also looks like the images are compressed too much. They've lost some quality. I also think that everything is too square and in place. These days you can get more creative and have images blend across tables to create pretty much any kind of look that you want. If you lay it out first in an editor like Adobe Illustrator and splice it up to fit your tables, you're not limited to a boxy design.
Not that I'm a great web designer or anything, but the way that I've always gone about it is to lay it out in Adobe Illustrator first. I would lay it out pretty much as if there were no tables to worry about. Just make it look good, as if it was going to be printed in a brochure or something. Then think about how to cut it up into sections to fit into tables and such.
You might want to scour the internet and find websites that you want to mimic too. Checking out how other people put their sites together can give you ideas for you own.
Like I said though, while I've created a handful of websites, I'm no professional web designer. These are just some ideas of how I would go about it. |
Post by Paul Boland // Dec 7, 2007, 12:07pm
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Paul Boland
Total Posts: 383
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3D Frog, when it comes to website development, the real question is, do YOU like it?
When I opened the KnightTrek Productions website at first I got a lot of input from folks on the site design saying it was too dark, not to use black background with bright text but go the other way. The text was too big, to use small text. The flow was unfriendly with users needing to scroll al the way down to the bottom of each page to get to the site navagation buttons. And so on...
I accepted the point about the site navagation buttons and implemented a frame system to the KnightTrek Productions website which kept the buttons on screen at all time. But I didn't change anything else. I kept the black background and bright text and large fonts.
When I first opened the KnightTrek Productions website, I was getting zero hits a day and it went like that for a couple of years. I tried implementing new sections to the site and they did pull in the visitors but only for a bit and then the site hit counter returned to zero.
Today, I average six hits a day and have been known to go up to over 20 hits in a single day. Sure, there are spider bots hitting my site too, but they aren't all spiders. I have a news letter which goes out to a large number of folks, my games and art section attract interest, I get emails on a fairly regular basis about my sites content and I sell my commerical software from the site.
You'll never make everyone heppy, so the key is to make yourself happy. If you like your website, then others will too. Don't design for others, design for you. Sure, no harm in taking advice and some of it can be good and you'll take it on board, but the key to success is to build for you.
For me, black background with silver text is easy on the eyes for folks surfing my site for a long time. Also, while all the rage may be to use small fonts so you can create neat tidy boxes of text, I perfer large fonts which make it easy to read the site in comfort. The KnightTrek Productions website may not be the hottest website on the net, but it has its fans and it attracts the visitors. The key is to pack the site with content others will find interesting and will attract new comers. The amount of folks who've visited my site and entered the Christmas competition I'm running is mind boggling! LOL!! |
Post by butterpaw // Dec 7, 2007, 12:25pm
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butterpaw
Total Posts: 831
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Good points Paul! Personally, I like the 'retro' lozenge buttons 3dfrog has used (as I've told him) - it seems nice and appropriate that at least some elements of the page reflect the 3d interest which is key part of his own interests.. and so on.. ^_^
I also dumped a lot of ideas on him too.. (since he asked) but in the end.. it's going to be his site and must please him :D |
Post by 3dfrog // Dec 7, 2007, 12:31pm
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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Thanks a lot folks.
I tried the logo without the green stripe around it. You're right, it looks better. I think it looks sleeker. And that green around the box with my name was an accident, I didn't want green there, I fixed it. I tried going back to boxy buttons intead of the blobbies and liked that better so kept it.
Joomla is on the cpanel on my web host, I'll look into that for the future when my site is more advanced. I'm just doing some basic html and players for now.
Yeah Dele, I got ispace like 3 or 4 years ago and a lot of the content in it does look pretty dated now. I guess web design changed a lot since ispace came out. I look at web pages all the time, but I guess I don't really analyze them much, I generally go for content. I am not a web designer or anything. That's a good idea about planning in illustrator, I found a look I like now though. I like it squared off and simple. I am still up for suggestions on improvement though.
Thanks paul. Yeah, I think I am liking the look more now. I looked at pixar and bluesky and they are very simple like this, but there's are nicer as they had real pros do it. When I am more advanced I will probably hire someone to web design for me. I know a few designers.
Thanks for helping me :)
same address:
http://www.3dfrog.com/wips/test2/index.html |
Post by butterpaw // Dec 7, 2007, 1:04pm
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butterpaw
Total Posts: 831
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Hi Dennis.. if this: http://www.3dfrog.com/wips/test2/index.html is the page you're going with now.. I think that's pretty nice ... it's friendly and has personality, the one animation is ok .. not too much.. I like the froggy pic you included too :) |
Post by Délé // Dec 7, 2007, 1:08pm
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Délé
Total Posts: 1374
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It is looking better. I think I like the more square buttons better too. Not sure about that yellow highlight though. I wonder what it would look like with the highlight the same color as your "3dfrog" text above.
That gray bar above the links looks like it has a lot of compression. Instead of a smooth gradient, it's banded. There are some small compression blotches too. It would look cleaner I think with a nice smooth gradient and less compression.
The button text looks kind of jagged and compressed a bit much too. One thing that I always do in Illustrator is to make a copy of the text right on top of itself, add a slight outline so it's a bit thicker, and then adjust it to a 50% transparency. It's kind of like adding anti aliasing by hand. I've been able to achieve much cleaner text for buttons and such that way. Not sure if it would work here though as your text is pretty thick as it is.
I think some kind of background color would help too. Perhaps a slightly darker purple to go with the middle.
Just some suggestions. As Paul said, the most important thing is if you like it. :) |
Post by jayr // Dec 7, 2007, 1:38pm
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jayr
Total Posts: 1074
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i like this one a lot more, not sure about the colour of the background though. |
Post by 3dfrog // Dec 7, 2007, 2:55pm
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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thanks dele. Now its looking much better. Good suggestions. I tried another object instead of the one with the banding, whatever material i put on it it did the same thing. But I like this new one. The words on the buttons were set to bold for some reason when they dont need it. I didnt set bold, well, i think they look a little smoother now. I changed the highlight color, that yellow was just program default, I didnt mess with it yet. Now its set. I made the background darker too. Now its turning into a web page!
http://www.3dfrog.com/wips/test2/index.html |
Post by jamesmc // Dec 7, 2007, 3:48pm
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jamesmc
Total Posts: 2566
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Check out these flash based Websites for inspiration. :)
http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/best-flash-sites.html |
Post by Jack Edwards // Dec 7, 2007, 6:51pm
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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I think the current design is still not very organic. Your best bet would be to sketch out a scene and build the content links into that. Then slice it up to animate specific portions of the image.
A quick fix I think you could do to make the current version better is to use a dark gray for the background, and a slighting less dark gray where you have the purple (which doesn't work at all).
This link might help you with picking out you colors:
http://www.worqx.com/color/index.htm |
Post by Finis // Dec 7, 2007, 9:34pm
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Finis
Total Posts: 386
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It is important to ask, "Does this site design present my content in a way that achieves my goals". The goals of your site appear to be to show your work, sell things, and maybe get a job (resume link).
To me the most important thing for this site's design is that you like it. With your personality expressed in your work, products, and site style, visitors who find the site appealing will be those who find your work and products appealing.
I designed my art site, www.phosphorgallery.com, so that it does not distract from the art, can present any art equally well, and has enough style to establish an identity. The goal is to encourage visitors to look at the art and buy some.
I prefer the test2 look because your pictures look like they belong there and it is more energetic, active, livelier. This is a versatile design which can display various pictures well. However, more 3D/trueSpace elements would highlight the nature of your work. Maybe add some 3D as a bottom bar. I would reuse both the wood texture, which looks good on this page, and the dark blue color behind the white name panel. Just a hint of them somewhere else on the page.
The greenish design is good but seems more appropriate for displaying text. Bright pictures clash with it. I would remove the rotating cubes and extend the button area from the name bar to the bottom bar.
In both of your designs the eye easily finds content and controls. Each link button has an obvious and unique function making navigation easy. |
Post by 3dvisuals dude // Dec 7, 2007, 11:55pm
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3dvisuals dude
Total Posts: 1703
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Yo Dennis,
...life's too short man.... just modify one of these (there's 2080 to pick from and they are all free):
http://www.oswd.org/
:)
- 3dvisuals dude |
Post by Vizu // Dec 8, 2007, 2:03am
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Vizu
Total Posts: 628
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Same here i am not a websitecreator but for my small interests it is enought.
My site is a realy simple site maybe my site can inspire you.
http://www.wire-frame.de
the pages is emprty for now. Will fill up with more text and images in the next time. |
Post by 3dfrog // Dec 8, 2007, 5:57am
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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Thanks everyone. You guys really helped me. My web page is now live. Here's the link:
http://www.3dfrog.com/
I used youtube for my movies for now until I can figure out how to get them so fast on my own. I'm not gonna worry about that right now though. And the stills slideshow is from a free version of a flashplayer software I found, that's why the last slide is a link to their software. You have to pay to remove that. I don't know if I will pay just to remove one slide. I'm pretty happy with it though.
Thanks for that flash link james. I wish I could make nice flash pages like that. I don't even have flash though, I have a flash authoring tool called koolmoves which is cool though.
Thanks Jack, I made the backgrounds grey. I'll look through that color theory site. I took a color course at Pratt in 1989 so don't remember much, and I don't feel we really got into theory in the class, we just did a lot of drawings and paintings and the professor would comment on them color wise. Probably could have used some more instruction on theory I think. I'm not too concerned with making it very organic at this point. I kind of like it squared off. I guess that is a little dated, I'll catch up in time :)
Thanks Finis, as you can see I scrapped the first one and went with test 2. I don't know if I want too many 3d elements though, trying to keep i real simple, maybe i can add some little touches here and there like you say.
Thanks for the link Mark. I used a template for a couple of years, I just find I don't have the control I want. There's a lot of nice one's out there but right now I just feel like doing it myself.
Nice looking layout on your site Vizu. I can see how that style can highlight art very well. Thanks for the link.
Thanks so much everyone. You really helped me. Maybe I have moved from 1997 to early 2000's ;) |
Post by jamesmc // Dec 8, 2007, 6:05am
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jamesmc
Total Posts: 2566
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Works for me Frog.
I have Homer Simpson tastes - beer and dough nuts. :D
Loved the videos.
The shooter scene was superb, looked very much like a 3D game! |
Post by hemulin // Dec 8, 2007, 7:33am
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hemulin
Total Posts: 1058
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I can't access your website 3dfrog. Is your webserver down? |
Post by 3dfrog // Dec 8, 2007, 8:13am
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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server was down for a bit, its back up now. Thanks |
Post by Jack Edwards // Dec 8, 2007, 1:59pm
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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Yeah getting rid of the purple did it. Looks ok now. You could try darker grays, depends on the feel you want though.
I totally understand what you mean. I'm rather old school too. I code my websites in straight HTML. Only javascript I use is for mouse overs... lol. Wysiwyg tools speed things up, but I find I still have to go in and hand edit the code to get exactly what I want. I used to use templates when I was using Dreamweaver, but it turned out to be more pain than it was worth. Simpler just to copy my pages and make the changes I needed. Currently I use Namo Webeditor to do most of my website editing. It's extremely easy to use and inexpensive.
I do need to update my website one of these years, and I suppose eventually I'll get around to learning PHP... |
Post by Délé // Dec 8, 2007, 2:50pm
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Délé
Total Posts: 1374
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Yep, looking better now frog. :) Did you create the froggy shoot out game with FPS creator?
I do need to update my website one of these years, and I suppose eventually I'll get around to learning PHP...Yeah, I need to get my website back up too sometime. I was going to put it back up but someone got my domain name before I could renew it. Now I have to start over. I had to redesign it anyway I guess, but now I don't know what to call it. I've also been checking out PHP lately. Looks pretty much the same as jscript aside from a few differences in syntax, like putting a dollar sign in front of variables.
Here's a link to a good PHP tut:
http://www.tizag.com/phpT/ |
Post by prodigy // Dec 8, 2007, 3:12pm
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prodigy
Total Posts: 3029
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Looking your source code i found some important missing points..
1) Go to your source code and enter between <title> </title> a text like "3DFrog - Illustration and 3D Animation
2) you miss add the keywords.. enter before the </head>...
<meta name="keywords" content=" enter here your keywords separated by comas Example 3d illustration, 3d animator, 3dfrog..... and close ">
Good luck tellme if you need help with php i can give you some tips :) |
Post by 3dfrog // Dec 9, 2007, 4:51am
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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Thanks Jack. I like the lighter greys, I like a light feel to it. I tried darker but it doesn't suit me too well, guess just a matter of taste. I use golive 5 for editing. This is the version from like 2001 which I got then so tells you how long since I stayed updated on web design. It works fine for me. I like the program a lot.
Thanks Dele, yeah the froggy shoot out is fps creator, but I didnt finish it. Game making is too time consuming and I have other interests like making animations.
Thanks Prodigy, I will do those details to the page like title and tags. I forgot about that stuff. Thanks for reminding me.
I don't have the time to learn php now. I am more focused on animating. I wish I could do it all but I learned time is too short to do everything. |
Post by Paul Boland // Dec 9, 2007, 10:24am
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Paul Boland
Total Posts: 383
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Thanks everyone. You guys really helped me. My web page is now live. Here's the link:
http://www.3dfrog.com/
Welcome to your own bit of cyber space :). If you're like me, you'll find yourself constantly looking for ways to add bits and pieces to the site.
One suggestion, I'd create a frame structure and split your site in two horizontally. Then I'd place the title, your name and the buttons on top and the rest of the site on the bottom. At the moment, when scrolling down larger pages, your buttons scroll off the top of the screen and you have to scroll back up to get to them again. It's only a minor niggle though so don't worry too much about it.
If your looking for a free site hits counter, click on the small "i" icon on my websites hub page, it will take you to my site counter. There you can apply for your own free site counter. It's nice to know how many visitors you're getting and from where in the world. |
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