Sta.sh
: 
ECARNAGE STYLE COMMISIONS 
= Planning out your Commission.
= Starting Rough Sketch of your Commission.
= Starting Clean Sketch of your Commission.
= Starting Line Art of your Commission.
= Starting Base Coloring of your Commission.
Hi guys! 
As I've mentioned in my last this week in my MC, you may have seen that actually there's a huge project around gallery makeover.
Fractal could be impact and could change now !
For our main gallery actually we have this structure :
Which seems to be OK for me.
But it's my own opinion, and I'm not the community !
So you, what do you think of this ? How would you change it ?What I think is important to keep in mind is the fact that we're trying to be the more generic as possible...
So I think I won't accept suggestion like : "Please give us real sub-category in each category ! Like a Ultra Fractal folder, an Apophysis folder and a Mandelbulb folder"
I support that simply because it's impossible to keep those kind of sub-categories up to date...
Imagine if each time a software is create, you must re-structure each subcat, move all the "misscat" deviations etc...
Also the main aim of this project is to "simplify" our categories to make them even more efficient !
So we're actually deleting and merging many of them. (don't worry actually fractals are not impact)
Now let's take a look at our Resources and Stock images gallery !
Here I think we could make some more efficient changes !
Here's our actual structure :
At first sight the main structure seems OK.
IMO I would love to change the Parameters Pack name to ParametersWhy ? Simply because actually we should not have only PACKS in this gallery.
There's no place where to post fractals with parameters, which make them really hard to be found outside of some specifics groups folders...
How would you change it ? What are your needs in our Resources gallery ?Don't hesitate to ask for something or to tell me your opinions about our category structure.
It's time to create some awesome for you and made by you !
Take care and stay devious
Damien
Suggestions recap:
- Update the Raw fractal category with :
_ 2 Dimensional Fractals.
_ 3 Dimensional Fractals.
- Removing the animation gallery.
- Find a way to include 3D software textures / meshes / palette.
- Rename Parameters Packs for Parameters.
- Allowed more file formats in Parameters.
Indeed, when browsing DeviantArt I always stop at the Fractal Art category; I never browse the subcategories. Perhaps some people find them useful, but I don't. I would be more inclined to have categories "Pure Fractals" and "Fractal Based Art" to contain works that contain only fractal elements and those that combine fractal and non-fractal elements.
There is also an overlap between Fractal Art->Raw Fractals and Fractal Resources->Parameters. I often include parameters just in case anyone is interested in seeing how I did something, but I would still put it in the Fractal Art category; the parameters are just a side benefit. I would only put something in Fractal Resources if I intended it to be a resource (for example, an example of a particular technique, or a (hopefully) useful texture). I hope the descriptions of these categories would accommodate the intent of the work.
- I do agree that parameter packs needs to simply be Parameters.
- Fractal Manipulations could be divided between:
1. RAW fractal Manipulations (for those where outside elements are all brought into UF itself as part of the overall work that is finally rendered as one image)
2. Other Fractal Manipulations (for images where fractals have had other elements added to them in another editing program.
(I wouldn't be too bothered about that personally, but I know some people feel strongly that if they have brought everything into their fractal program and made a single overall render, this is a little more technical to say the least, than taking your fractal into another editing program and adding tubes, or whatever to the image there.)
Looking at the suggestions recap:
* whether a fractal is 2 or 3 dimensional is somewhat open to speculation. Some people say that Ultra-Fractal is a 3 dimensional fractal program, but I never view it that way. Why would we need to add these sub-categories I wonder...
* Nooooo don't remove the animation category - unless people aren't going to do animations any more! I do think they should stay separate because of their very nature.
* 3D software textures/meshes/palette - if for fractals - could surely go under Fractal Resources?
* Yes allow more file formats for parameters, as for example, they don't currently include upr's for example (for UF). They all have to be text (I think).
On a side note on fractals: If anyone has any tutorials for beginners (as in the "fractals for dummies" style) or even advanced ones I'd love to know. I've been wanting to do a feature on fractal tutorials. I have a lot of members that want to learn about them, but they get really confused.
So it would be nice to clean.
Will see what we can make there !
Another category to discuss about is the Application Reference/Apophysis gallery. But I don't think I can say a word about that, since I have no clue what it is about.
But it has a total of 33 deviations, among which most of them are miscats or can fit perfectly in other categories, IMHO.
Speaking of other ideas...I'm fine with the suggestion recap things!