What would you like to have ?

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
1

Hey, I need some suggetions for my site and the Blender Integration Effort. I need to know what it is exactly you all would like to have.

This is what I know I’m going to set up:
info, forums, downloads (scripts, plugins, textures, etc…), tutorials and docs, gallery, …maybe a few I’m forgetting.
Some things I’m think of implementing are:
personal pages, @iptic e-mail for blender users, competition set-up between personal pages, area specifically for CG in video…
I could really use some more suggestions, the personals are doable now, stephen2002 is already set up there. Some issues I’m currently working on are a web based e-mail interface, web based control panel for mail and web pages, and a system through a control panel that you can log in and setup your statistics and reporting, and also have them generated in a language of your choice.

I’m going to start implementing the main things tonight, but I need to know what else is in demand before I spend many hours working on it. The infrastructure of software is basically there, I just need to work on the interfaces and security (which usually takes the longest and most trial-and-error). The nice thing about this, is I’m going to customize it for a graphics and animation type setup. The personal spaces would probably be around 50Mb each, with no file size limitations (I can moderate the bandwidth used, so it shouldn’t go sky high, but plenty fast enough). I also might consider looking into a public animation display system for larger animations, since geocities and such seem to be a pain to deal with.

The way it would work is, the whole setup would be free to those actively involved in the Blender community (blenderheads). ie: those I’ve seen in forums actively participating, anyone who has contributed tutorials or documentation, really anyone who is active and interested in perserving a future for Blender. Why is it free ? I don’t know, many reason I guess. I’m learning as I do all this, so the experience and knowledge is worth the bandwidth and rackspace, it’s just currently sitting there doing nothing much, I have a few small commercial sites that help pay some of the bill.

Just leave a reply, vote in the poll, or send me an IM with ideas and suggestions. Thanks for the help.

Adam Casto (acasto)

2

is it possible to have an own domain name or will it be a subfolder?

HH

3

If you have a domain or get one I can easily set it up for that. All you would have to do is have it pointed to the IP of the server and let me know what the name is. If you don’t have one or arn’t getting one, I can set up a mysite.iptic.com/‘your-name’ type name.

I’m currently trying to decide if I want to keep that mysite.iptic.com system as a subfolder system or it’s own virtual severs with document roots in the mysite folder.
I think it will all depend on how my log system works out. If I have to write all kinds of filters to filter the idividuals out of one big log, I might just make seperate virtual servers with their own logs. But this should be transparent to the end user. It is regular FTP access, and I’m currently working on the email system right now. The only thing is I don’t think I’m going to go automated on the website creation (there will be a web based email access/control center though) yet. Because my resources arn’t infinite ( I can probably support around 100-150 personal sites) I’m probably going to set it up my site with a form, in which you fill out your desired name, password, etc… and submit it, then I’ll reply asap with the name, password, and access info. If it was automated I think it could get out of control, and since I’ll have a job in a month, I don’t want to get a hudge automated system going, then have a big spammer or porn site or something take over.

4

I reckon what us Blenderheads really need is the ability to host our artwork somewhere for all to see. I’ve been trying to set up my own site for several weeks now to do just that, but it’s a pain (I hate HTML), and it murder to get right. Then, just as you finish, you find out it’s too large to host, or you get huge adds plastered across your artwork…it’s so degrading.

So I just suggest that there should maybe be some sort of ability to post your artwork to an online gallery of some sort?

LethalSideParting

5

I like the art gallery idea. Much like what BlenderMania used to be. So, Elysiun could be for finish quality galleries, while iptic could have the work in progress and the other various art (a beginners who wants to show us a pic he did, or someone who wants to shows a .blend and ask for help, things like this).

I think that art galleries would be more practical than personnal sites. User profiles accompagning the galleries would be great too.

Martin

6

That’s basically what the personal sites would be, just 50Mb of space for you to do whatever with. Stephen2002 is using his to hold his animations to link to from elysiun forums. Then in the public gallery I will have a main gallery, and links to users galleries in their spaces. The space could have a little html page(s) on it, or just pictures and animations to link to.

I would just like to get it like a little package for blender users. Where you would get a space, an email addess, then from there you can set up your own galleries, resume, personal site, etc… The only thing I probably won’t allow is a commerical site. I mean, sure if want to sell some work or something, but just not like running a full fledged business off it. I hope to eventually have it to where if anyone wants to sell something, we can have a unified store front through which users can sell their stuff.

I do need to talk to Kib a little about some things, (I’ll send you an email Kib :wink: ) The time difference is freaking me out…plus I usually don’t go to bed till about 5am, but I’m going to try and fix that soon enough and go to bed at a normal time. I only see the sun for a few hours a day as it is… :smiley:

7

Know about the 5am-rythm-no-sun-for-a-while, it’s app 0525 her in Adelaide now. What would determine the ability to post work exactly? Would there be any form of submitting art for decision, or …?

By the way, a great effort :smiley:

8

I don’t know if I complete understand what you mean. Post work where, personal space or public gallery ? Maybe this will help, this is what I had in mind.

A blender users who would like some space would either email, IM, or fill out the form that’s gonna be on the site. It would be great if they could include info like how long they’ve been using blender, for what, and maybe a link to work or something. But it’s not required. I would then create their space and email, and send an email back with the necessary info for login, ftp, email, etc… Then they would be free to use their space however. For displaying work, I may provide an HTML template or so for a gallery, which you can place in your personal space for your work or just link strait to from the forums here. Then if the user desires, I will link from the main gallery to their personal gallery. Based on a system yet to come (… :smiley: I’m still trying to decide) individuals work will then be posted in the main gallery system.

I don’t know if this clear anything up or not, if not let me know… :wink:

9

It is 0727 here now, and I am on my 22nd hour (must get some sleep)
But I just have to see the finished rendering of my animation, funny how I can watch all those frames being rendered with MBLUR, but blender mesmerizes me like that…

Anyway, to the point, I’ve been up for quite a long while now, and I really do not seem to make much sense out of the question I asked a while ago…my apologies :-?

Thanx for further good info though.

10

Well acasto this proposition is COOKIN’
maybe don’t spoil us with 50mg and animation space straight away.
Just An Idea
To win that space maybe have various goals for members, OK if you have contributed already with Tuts, scripts, advice, etc I understand the site would benefit from having such people as full members straight away. For the rest of us, using the offer of space in return for contributing a tute, or models, set of textures, script or poem or what ever. Maybe have a voting/scoring system for contributions.
Would this feed the wealth of the community?
I would be proud to win a website some how, and it could help keep things 100% Blender real. I don’t know though, might be a headache.

who’s a lucky boy.

Oh i just noticed the poll sorry looks like you have already covered this idea.

11

It would be nice if you could provide an HTML upload page, since FTP access could be impossible to some of us (from work, for example or for people with tight security like me).

I agree with Luckybreak’s point, nobody really needs 50 megs to post pictures or animations, so maybe you could put a lower limit and gradually augment it depending on how long that user has been using the ressource at his disposal.

Martin

12

I like all the ideas, but my opinion is that you should lose the frames. I don’t know much about HTML and stuff, but I think you’re using frames. They are all right except you can’t give anyone a direct link. that’s kinda sorry.
my opinion, but it’s your site, do what you want. Nice job with the site though.:slight_smile:

13

Except that I’m setting the frames up with javascript that will dynamically rebuild the main frameset if you happen to link to an individual frame… 8) The only thing I’m considering is the buttons, right now their flash buttons, which has it’s advantages because I only need one file, and the effects and links are already setup in them. (Plus they were pre-made… :smiley: ), but I don’t know about how people feel about flash. Of course I will have text based backups, and I’m even working on setting up browser and plugin detection to fix any problems if they arrise. So basically what it comes down to, it should work for every body period. I’m looking at different languages, differently platforms, and definitely different screen sizes. Before I upload I test on windows98, windows 2000, linux and on the browsers IE5-6, netsacpe 4, netscape 6.x, mozilla, konqueror, galeon, links and lynx (text browsers) and at resolutions 600x800, 1024x768, and 1280x1024. So it should usually work.

Oh ya, by the way, the site that is there now is my business that went under, but the color theme is generally going to stay the same. But once I get everything workig and uploaded it will be 100% Blender & Linux.

As for the size of spaces, I have to weigh size of space versus bandwidth. At 50mb per site/space, I will be able to host 150+ sites. That’s quite a bit. I’m afraid that would be pushing the bandwidth which I currently throttled at 65kbs but I think I might bump it up to around 100kbs. That’s thoughput, not data transfer. I currently have 128kbs burstable to 100Mbs, but I’m going to have all those script and plugin downloads available, so I need to keep a little margin. What is does, is divy up the bandwidth per download, so if it is throttled at 100kbs, and 1 person is downloading, it will download at 100kbs, if two people download, they will each dowload at 50kbs, etc… There is 9Gb of space, not including e-mail space (2.2Gb) So if I was to do more space at smaller size, then the bandwidth would suffer, so I think I will go with fewer sites, maybe around 100, but higher quality for everybody.

14

Oh ya, I forgot something. About competing and winning space, what I was think was, that there would be a competition system between all of the personal pages/spaces, then every month a different one would be featured in the main gallery, and maybe linked from the front. So there will be (hopefully) a desire by competition to have the best gallery/space/page whatever you have. The plan would be, to provide the locations (space and email), the Blender Intergration Effort would provide tools and information, then just try to promote creativity and imaginatio. After all, IPTIC does stand for Infinite Possibilities Through Imagination and Creativity. I know most people have e-mail already, but this will be set up for graphics and animation, so that you won’t be limited by a tiny e-mail box.

@Theeth, I’m looking at an HTML uploader right now to put into the web based control panel :smiley:

15

If you need a cgi-bin Perl based file uploader just ask.

Stefano

16

whoa are u saying yer gonna give away free webspace to blenderers to setup personal blender pages? if thats what yer sayin, its sounds like an awesome idea…and i like luckybreaks idea that we gotta earn the space by contributing work, models, or tutorials…

i think ever since nan went overboard, the blender community has gotten alot closer and that rocks alot

17

Ya, that’s basically what it is. I’m thinking I’m not gonna make it a requirement to send in tutorials, models, etc… just a request to contribute something to the Blender Integration Effort.

If anyone don’t know what the BIE is, it’s a project I’m starting to help make Blender more accepted in the current market by providing support and tools for it. I have talked to Ton and basically what’s gonna happen for now, until the future of NaN is known, I would like to collect all the currently available scripts, tutorials, documentation, etc… I can that currently applies to and is helpful for Blender. I know that some aspects of Blender isn’t fully developed, but this is how I think about it. People are currently exporting to ray tracers and other programs. But many don’t know how, and the scripts and programs can be difficult fo find and setup and use. So the BIE is basically gonna be a centralized data/support center.

Sorry I’m running a couple of days behind schedule, I just want this to be good, so I’ve stripped down every necesarry program (mail, apache, perl, php, cgi apps, etc…) then updated and/or compiled all of them from up-to-date source to work specifically with what I’m trying to do. (I tried the new Apache2, it’s really nice, but it’s so new it lacks a lot of support and modules.) I just got the FTP application back up tonight, I went from a basic (wu-ftpd) to a much more configurable one (proFTPd). The mail and control panels should be finished tommorow. Then I’ll just have to set up some system policies and contingencies, and get the site up and running and we should be ready to go.

For tutorials and such that people wanna contribute, and for whomever wants a site and email, I’m gonna set up a form mail on the site in which you can send in the request, and upload whatever. (@ S68, if you wanna send that Perl script over, I would be grateful… :smiley: , I would like to see how it runs) One thing I could use some help on, is getting the permissions to post the tutorials and scripts from people so that I don’t get in trouble for copyright violations.

Well, I’m gonna head to bed, so I can get up and get back to work tommorow (…today I guess…it’s 4am) 8) later

18

Pretty simple stuff, I’ve written a couple some times ago, I’ll send you an example soon but to have it work the accounting mechanism of your site must be defined first (username/passwords, where are they stored, In which format, with which encryption, haw do you validate an user?)

Stefano

19

Right now I’m using PAM for the ftp program…my head’s gone tonight…really I can set up whatever I have to. Currently for the control, I’m just using usermin from webmin. I have webmin running over SSL and usermin on regular http. The usermin has modules for accessing email, setting up mail forwarding, changing password, and I have a module for file browsing and access, but I need to check to see if there’s possibly a way to chroot it or something.

My email is [email protected]

thanks :smiley:

20

Mmmm

never knew of an ‘usermin’ stuff… but I’ve made a search and found it :slight_smile:

They says it is written in Perl, so there should be no probs.

I’ll download, install and try to understand.

Tonight

Now I’m working …herm…

Stefano