Website redesign

[Carm3D]

I spent the weekend making a new look and feel for my website..

Carm3D.net (http://www.carm3d.net)

Later!

[pauland]

Hi,

I thought I'd make a few comments.

The home Says "Character Modelling and Animation", "Logo and Product vizualization","Web Design". I thought I'd be able to click on those, but I couldn't. Your menu system says "Character gallery","Commercial Gallery" and "Architecture Gallery", etc.

There seems to be a mismatch between what you say you do and what you show:

For example, nothing at all about "Logo and product realization", or "web design", and you have an architecture gallery that came from nowhere.

In general, I'd say have one gallery until you have enough to show.

If you do web design, I'd expect to see some reference sites.

If you are doing the other things, I'd like to see some narrative about your work, so that you can convince me that you are the person that I should use.

Overall, I'd suggest you should think about your markets and the kind of people who might use your services. Focus on these markets/people and put narrative and examples on the pages to make them want to use you.

Think hard about colour. I think you'd be better off losing the Red yellow and green, except perhaps as an indicator of the current section.

I mean these comments well. Good luck.

Paul

P.S. "Pay Invoice" made me smile.. ;-)

[Carm3D]

Hi Paul,

You made some good points. I will make all the buttons blue. I am not done "populating" the galleries yet, you will see that it is a good thing that I have more than one gallery when I am done. But I like your point about architecture not belonging with the themes defined... How about if I rename it "Miscellany Gallery?"

[lunarcamel]

Doesn't work in firefox - and I just refuse to open IE hehe ;)

[Carm3D]

Interesting... I had someone look at it in FireFox and it worked. Do you not have the Flash player installed?

[Dark-Whisper]

I also use Firefox.

And only some of the page manages to load.
I have the flash plugin.

[Dark-Whisper]

Here's a screen shot of what i get.

[Carm3D]

Thanks for the screenshot, Dark.. It was very revealing. I have fixed those problems.. -on the index page anyway.. I have to do the same for all the other pages now. -eesh.

In other news.. I have made the list of services actual buttons on the home page.. and I made all the buttons blue.. I also changed the font of the buttons.

Still working at it.

[Dark-Whisper]

Yes much better now.
:)

[Carm3D]

I've added more items to each gallery. More to come...

[lunarcamel]

Yep - whatever you did fixed it :)

[emoboy83]

Looks like a nice start.

Some things i noticed were

- The use of flash isn't really justified, eg. you could do alot more with it than the simple animations.
- I feel the page needs to be centred.
- A pre-loader would be nice for dial-up.
- Your Pay Invoice page doesn't keep the same theme as the rest of the site.
- I found it a bit confussing on the front page because you seem to have two sets of menues. The one that slides in and the static one to the left.
- The click here to send e-mail button is too large and looks tacky.

Anyway I hope that helps with the progress of your site.

Cheers.

[Carm3D]

The use of flash isn't really justified, eg. you could do alot more with it than the simple animations.

Could you explain this in more detail? I'm not sure I follow you.

I feel the page needs to be centred

I cannot center the page as it is designed because the shadows are sliced off at the left.

I found it a bit confussing on the front page because you seem to have two sets of menues. The one that slides in and the static one to the left

This amuses me. :) The thing in the middle wasn't originally a menu, but two people told me they felt like they should be able to click on the items for more info.

The click here to send e-mail button is too large and looks tacky

Yes I agree. It is using the older font I had originally used.. I will be changing it.

Anyway I hope that helps with the progress of your site

Yes thanks. :)

[emoboy83]

cool, what i getting at with the flash comment is that the use of flash means that users have to have flash. so if your going to make it that the user needs flash you should really harness its power. but as more and more people now have flash its becoming a bit of a moot point.

i still feel the two menues on the front page are a problem. not for the fact that they are their but that they are not consistent. i mean certain aspects can only be accessed from the front page. its bad navigation. i really feel that if thee sections are going to be included they should be with the rest of tuff on the nav bar.

another thing i noticed was that the top buttons hot spot includes your little green light things while the ones to the left dont.

by the way i seem to remember in the past that i may have had harsh and non constuctive crits too another site of yours. i hope you will find these crits more usefull.

[Carm3D]

I am still learning about Flash, and when I learn more about ActionScript, then I will incorporate it into the site. At present, while it doesn't seem to "require" flash, it certainly is less load-intensive and more attractive than doing it with GIFs that change the image when the mouse hovers over them. Last I heard 98% of the web users have Flash so I'm not too concerned about who cannot see it.

In the near future, it will be more consistant. I will be making that blank button on the left "Services Offered" or something, and the web dev. button in the center menu will point to a portion of that page.

Yes your feedback is much more constructive this time, I appreciate it. Negative crits only create communication blocks because it puts the recipient on the defensive (or even the offensive).

[lesterfoster]

Your new site looks very good.
I liked your Prosthetic Design video the best. But the Playing With Fire video was quite good as well. How did you make the fire?? :confused: :)

[Carm3D]

Lasterfoster,

Thanks. The fire was made with Powel Olas's (http://www.polas.net/plugins/index.php) Fire & Smoke Generator. It's a particle system specifically taylored for fire, and you use HyperVoxels (or sprites) to render it.

The effect of the particles actually casting light was very tedious. It involved 4 point lights that piggy-backed ontop of particles that F&SG created (using less particles in birthrate, but with the same settings for everythign else).

[pauland]

Carm,

It's looking good. Moved on hugely from when you first launched the thread.

Good work.

Paul

[Carm3D]

Thanks Paul,

I just finished updating the gallery pages. Now everything I have to show is on-line. More cool stuff to come as I make it. :cool: