www.artist-reference.com

The CG Channel is an online magazine that pays homage to the industry that made watching animated movies cool – Visual Effects and Computer Graphics. A part of the Gnomon group of industries, the website itself is also updated everyday which means that it provides visitors with everything that is happening in the world of special effects as it comes.

Like the Gnomon Workshop, CG Channel’s purpose is to “inspire” artists and designers that will ultimately have a hand in taking the world of graphics design to the next level. Their claim to fame owes to the fact that they have access to some of Hollywood’s “best artists and studios for unique, insightful content.”

As far as the layout of the website is concerned, I was a bit disappointed to find that all the homepage included was stuff they had for sale. I kind of expected the homepage to have text that at the very least gave me an idea of what the website is all about without me having to click every single tab to find out. I mean I know that it isn’t exactly a B2C website, but that doesn’t mean that they do not mention anything about themselves from the start. In fact, their About page had all this and a bag of chips so I was surprised that it wasn’t the first thing I saw when I visited the website.

Other than that, cgchannel.com is a fairly well made website. It includes a standard search bar at the top of the page if you get lost. Besides that their tabs include topics such as Features, Galleries, Community, Training, Competitions and info about their online store. What the Training tab offers speaks for itself. It includes training videos that you can purchase and also has their prices on display. The videos are tutorials from professional graphics designers and artists so that explains the hefty price tags. I was glad to see that the website also offered free online tutorials. They might not be as extensive as the ones that are actually up for sale, however, watching them would still be useful if you want to get an idea about the quality of their tutorials and whether buying their other videos would actually be worth it. Chalk one up for authenticity!

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Summary

+    Free online video tutorials give good examples of their work and also help in determining whether the quality of their training sessions is really something worth spending your money over.  Plus a lot of interesting information from the field of CG graphics.

-     No information about the website on the home page.

Popularity: 14% [?]

You know you have an engaging website on your hands when you can’t keep your eyes off of it. The gnomongallery.com website is such a place.  Basically, The Gnomon Gallery is as they say “Hollywood’s premier art gallery for the entertainment industry.” It was initially created by Alex Alvarez, who is also the CEO and founder of The Gnomon School of Visual Effects as well as The Gnomon Workshop Website. The purpose of The Gnomon Gallery in particular is to provide info about Gnomon exhibitions held in Hollywood. These exhibitions broadcast the works of different artists in the field of animation (both 3D and otherwise), graphics design and special effects. They are free so anyone can join in. The artwork ranges from genres such as sci-fi fantasy, props, vehicles, sketches, environment and sculptures. Needless to say, the Gnomon websites, like gnomongallery.com, are a great place for anyone that wants to break into the world of special effects and game design.

The website itself goes right into the lowdown on their latest exhibitions. This will be great for someone that follows the shows or just wants to know when the next Gnomon art exhibition will take place. One can find for example info on future shows as well as the names of the artists that will put their works on display. This way, graphics design hopefuls can keep up on when their favorite artists will be making an appearance. There is also a tab that displays the shows archives, which refers to all the shows that have been held in the current year as well as the year before. I was blown away by whom they had invited to give live demonstrations! Some of them were also none other than the artists that worked in commercially successful game franchises like the famous “God of War” series as well as  “Transformers: War for Cybertron.”

However, there is not much more, except links to other Gnomon websites like thegnomonworkshop.com and gnomonschool.com. All in all, it is a fairly simple website whose only purpose seems to be to provide visitors with information about Gnomon art exhibitions, names of artist that will be expected to make appearances there, the venue, date of the exhibitions and the duration. It’s a pity that there is not much more offered by the website.  I would have expected the people behind it to include something that would allow visitors from other cities to share the “Gnomon experience.” It would be great and I am convinced that many people would appreciate it, if there were shown some pictures of the exhibitions, or works themselves, for people who have no chance to visit the ongoing exhibition (for example foreigners).

Also I did wish that the website had more info about how it was related to the Gnomon group. A paragraph or two would have been good for people that might be visiting the website for the first time. Nevertheless, gnomongallery.com is still a great place for anyone who wants to know where they might go to have a front seat to what the latest in the special effects industry has to offer.

Summary

+ Simplicity at its best and a great place for anyone that wants information on interesting and valuable exhibitions.

- No textual description about the Gnomon group in general which might confuse a new visitor who has no knowledge about who they are. Plus visitors from other cities or countries lose out on a chance to actually see what is featured since exhibited works are accessible for seeing only to those that might be fortunate enough to live in or near Hollywood.

Popularity: 17% [?]

As we have been focused on Gnomon group’s websites, here we come with another one equally interesting and inspiring as the other discussed – sketchtheatre.com. As their profile says, the aim of Sketch Theatre is to expose “young” minds to opportunities that might be a great stepping stone for them when it comes to a career in digital art design. In other words, it is a place for young talents that aspire to make a career in the special effects industry in the future. Basically Sketch Theatre is a place for amateur artists to display their own works whether their art is based on comic book design, animation, films, entertainment design (like creatures, sets and props) and even music.

Let´s move to the description of what sketchtheatre.com include. The home page of Sketchbook Theatre has a standard search bar at the top as well as videos in which different artists display their own works. The best part about these videos of this website is the fact that artists actually give a sort of play by play of how they created their sketches. These “demonstrations” are also followed up by background music of the artist’s own choose. Also, the website includes instructional videos that feature sketching demonstrations from professionals in the field of character design, illustration, comics and more. Come to think of it, I did find one similarity between the gnomonworkshop.com and this one. Both sites have a forums page where artists can discuss topics related to their interests as well as competitions. However, that’s where the similarity ends.

The “Interviews” section includes, well, interviews with some of Sketch Theatre’s most talented artists, and not just any artists. The website interviews the artists who have had the pleasure of working in big budget box office hits. For example, one of the featured interviews includes that of Aaron Sims, a special effects artist that has worked on “some of the most popular, defining movies of the 1990’s” like Gremlins 2, Mighty Joe Young, Men in Black, Batman Forever and Nutty Professor too.

Besides that, sketchtheatre.com offers the latest news about industry and artists who made their mark in their respected fields. As a digital art enthusiast, I would like to keep myself updated on what is new in the world of visual effects so such information was a definite plus for me. The “Store” section also caught my attention – with sketch pieces and T-shirts on offer. Some of them went for about 29 USD. However, there were also specialized ones, like the Cameron Davis limited edition sketch T-shirts, that go for a whopping 45 USD per a piece. One thing is for sure – the quality of the sketch designs on these items means that you are getting your money’s worth.

Another thing I found interesting was a competition in which amateur sketch artists could pit their skills against each other. Winners could get their hands on exclusive Gnomon DVDs (tutorials) as well as other products offered by the gnomonworkshop.com.  Items such as these would definitely come in handy for an aspiring 3D artist so the competition is also a definite plus.

However, to tell you the truth, the News and Interviews section did not seem very different from each other, as both are featuring works of different artists via videos. I was also annoyed that I had to go to the actual website of the artist whose video demonstration I wanted to watch in the News section. As for the navigation aspect, there is nothing much to maneuver through since the site doesn’t have that much to offer, but this might have more to do with the site’s elementary theme than anything else. Overall, this site is a great place for budding artists to see what other aspirants that are gunning for a place in the 3D industry are doing.

Summary

+ This website provides a great place for budding artists to showcase their sketching talents via video demonstrations.

- One has to go to other links if  wanted to view the profiles of famous artists in the News section which is annoying.

Popularity: 22% [?]

Drawing is a type of visual expression and one of the major forms within the visual arts. There are sub categories of drawing like figure drawing, sketching, doodle drawing, thumbnail drawing and many others. Being an artist, figure drawing has always been my hobby. As I pursued figure drawing online, I found many website on the internet giving guidance on the subject but the one I really liked was figuredrawings.com. In following lines I’ll share my experience of this artistic website to help artists and CG experts to better utilize this source.

Official name of the website, as it appears on the site, is “Figure Drawings and Portraits”. It is an online marketplace of literature on making human figures, portraits and sketches. This website is spread over two platforms which are a website and a blog (figure-drawings.blogspot.com). Being more active, the blog contains latest activities and offers, which normally include newly added ebooks. In my opinion, it’s one of the most detailed website on human figure drawing and contains knowledge which is hardly available elsewhere. Ebooks are mostly placed on Amazon but some are available on Google book store as well. A short intro of all online publications is available also on the website. This website covers drawing of each and every part of human body. Moreover, it is not a place offering just tips and tricks or a re-gathered data from the internet to draw a better human figure. On figuredrawings.com you get great ways to draw high quality drawings, however most of the instructions are completely understandable only to artists because often they are written in professional style and could be bit difficult for a layman. As the drawing of human figure is concerned exclusively with human body so this website contains lots of nudism which is present in shape of nude male/female model’s images. Hundreds of real life photos from the lives of artists are present on the site to give a real insight of figure drawing as a profession.

However, figuredrawing.com is not a website meant to give you an eye-soothing effect on first glance. It is a website with plenty of text and links with not good looking buttons, navigation menus, slideshows and flash animations. It does not even contain a sidebar! There is a cream colored background which is extensively cluttered with brown text and typical blue color links. If we compare this site with similar sites of the same niche, it may take a lead in terms of stuff it offers but when we talk about layout of the content, it is highly disappointing. There is no concept of arranging similar stuff under some category or tag. Finding something on figuredrawings.com is extremely difficult except that you find your desired stuff right on the start of homepage. By merely having a look on a link you do not get any hint about where the given link is going to direct you. It is also stuffed with Google and Amazon ads which make the layout even more messy and difficult to navigate. Even if one keeps browsing this site for hours, there’s no chance to get the idea of how to find something directly.

After heavy criticism on the site’s design and organization aspects, now let’s move towards some unbeatable areas of figuredrawings.com. Forms of visual arts which are covered in never ending details include figure drawing, portrait, life drawing, sketch making, paintings and academic drawings. The knowledge which is available on this website is sufficient to become a world-class professional artist. In addition, links to various art directories, galleries and drawing sites are provided to explore more stuff online. ‘How to’ guides collection is of very good quality and every concept is illustrated by supporting images, making it easy to comprehend. There is a sense of liveliness and freshness throughout the website’s content which has been brought by number of real life professionals who are connected to this site in one or other way. I have no hesitation in stating that figuredrawings.com is one of the most authenticated places for getting know-how on figure drawings. The major advantage is that you get almost everything in one place. These are some of the major reasons for this website being famous and also the reason I have decided to review this site.

When it comes to price, figuredrawings.com offers valuable and practical literature for a nominal price. No package or membership is offered, if you want to purchase something from this site you have the option to either buy from the site directly or purchase it from Amazon and Google ebook store. Price varies from 4 USD to 60 USD per item. Three payment methods (Paypal, Google checkout and credit card) are available in case of purchasing. However, no money back guarantee scheme is provided so one should be careful while selecting the appropriate product. Ebooks are in normal ´.pdf´ format. Majority of them are very well written, however, you may find some with old and clumsy looking scanned copies of old books. To grab something really useful, it is better to get a printed version.

People who just require some literature from this website for their daily work maybe wouldn’t much complain in general, but people like me who spend hours in writing reviews will not let figuredrawings.com escape so easily. Despite of the fact, that this website should be meant for 18+ visitors who are mature enough to realize the meaning and context in which the nudism is shown here, one can find dozens of nude photos right on the homepage, without any warning or restrictions. Also no ‘about us’ page is available, making history and other details undiscoverable. These weak areas together with poor website design, lack of navigation menus, plenty of advertisement and very roughly organized content, have significantly reduced quality of the website and its content.

To briefly conclude, I would like to say that figuredrawings.com can be a leading online platform to get actual knowledge of drawing human figure but only if they get their weak areas worked on. Right now one may find stuff of his choice but would be probably annoyed while reaching his target.

Summary:

+ Highly technical approach to teaching human figure drawings with easy-to-comprehend images and guidelines.

- Poorly designed and chaotically organized website with high percentage of nude stuff freely available and spread all over the website.

Popularity: 29% [?]

What do you get when you take state of the art animation, 3D effects and a school that can provide you with all that? The Gnomon School of course! This website is just one of the few that the Gnomon group has to offer besides gnomongallery.com, sketchtheatre.com, cgchannel.com as well as thegnomonworkshop.com which I have reviewed earlier. Let´s have a closer look on the gnomonschool.com website.

The website has all that you need to know if you are one of the many hopefuls that hope to make it big in the world of 3D animation and graphics design. Basically, The Gnomon School of Visual Effects is an institute where professionals from the special effects industry come to share their expertise and to instruct those that are either already in it or are aspiring to be. As the website says, “we know that it is not technology that drives the results, but the artist.”

The website itself had my undivided attention the moment I clicked on it. It went right into what The Gnomon School of Visual Effects had on offer. As they say, their courses are for anyone that is interested in the film, game and broadcast industry. The Gnomon School offers several options to choose from – programs or individual courses and on-campus or online training. ´Entertainment Design´, ´Digital Production for Entertainment´ and ´Entertainment Design and Digital Production´ are provided as long term programs consisting of several courses. There is also Maya Fast track program which in particular is designed for those who are already adept at 3D concepts and are now striving to refine their skills on Maya even more. Needless to say, this program is not for people that are new to 3D graphics.

Other than that, training courses can be divided into digital and traditional. One can choose from many courses like Character Modeling and Sculpting, Animation and Visual Effects or Drawing for Film to name a few. Every of them usually lasts 10 weeks and prices range on average from 552 to 1695 USD. Their training options include also an online training courses which allows you to take classes at home. Besides this, their online training program includes Masters Classes that consists of a total of 12 two-hour training sessions. The website has a lot of info on all options (Program and Training Options Comparison; Course Schedule) as well as how you can register for classes.

However, the website was lacking a Home page when I accessed it. Instead, it had a substituted the standard Home Tab with a customized page ´The Gnomon Experience´. But I did like the fact that the people behind the website had chosen to broadcast the latest news in the special effects industry on the first page. Who wouldn’t want to see a play by play of how Pixar’s 3D animated movie “Tangled” was made?

I have to admit, the website has been very clear and intuitive as well as impressive, speaking about design. I also liked the fact that it has assigned a separate section for displaying the work of Gnomon students. It kind of gave me an idea about the level of sophistication and skill that The Gnomon School promises to train its students at when it comes to state-of-the-art 3D graphics design. The ´Best of Term´ section is place where some of their student’s best 3D works were put on display. Regularly, there are winners at the end of each term, who win shopping vouchers to Gnomon store. Here are some latest best works.

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There is no doubt that the Gnomon School of Visual Effects is one of the best training institutes in the field of visual graphics and special effects. The gnomonschool.com will not only tell you what the ´Gnomon Experience´ is, but will also give visitors step by step instructions on how they can be a part of it. The 93% placement rate speaks for itself. And the fact, that the website gives aspirants a means to collaborate with and builds on their own expertise, becomes another feather in its cap.

Summary

+ An excellent website when it comes to informing people about all that the Gnomon School of Visual Effects has to offer.

- You will have to look for information on their profile on other tabs since it is not on the first page.

Popularity: 6% [?]

3D graphics design has truly taken the world of animation to the next (lets hope not ultimate) level. Thegnomonworkshop.com in particular, has gotten this concept down to a tee. Since 2000 this website has provided the resources that make one of the cornerstones of the entertainment industry – 3D graphics design. Needless to say, if you could describe this website in one word, it would be “fabulous”.

The Gnomon School of Visual Arts is a famous school in California for training some of the hottest talents that are responsible for refining the movie and gaming industry with state of the art concept designs that made us fall in love with it. Thegnomonworkshop.com makes for a handy online tutorial website for those that cannot attend actual classes or who travel a lot and cannot attend regular training sessions. Working experts use this website to create and teach artist the best concept art, effects animation and more.

The website, thegnomonworkshop.com, includes instructional DVDs and tutorials that are up for purchase. In other words, this website gives its members a chance to make it big in a booming graphics industry by giving them access to all their training videos. The idea of a free membership was to provide people a chance to utilize all that The Gnomon School had to offer without actually having to join the school itself and pay for classes. Beats having to pay for tuition fees, I would say. What impressed me the most was that the tutorials and DVDs on this website have also been utilized by media giants like NBC, Disney and even DreamWorks!

As far as the pricing system is concerned, The Gnomon Workshop offers its members up to 3 different pricing systems. They are divided into 3 “plans”. The first package, Plan 1, allows users to purchase every Gnomon tutorial for sale for 499 USD on an annual basis. If you want specific tutorials you can also opt for Plan 2 or 3. Plan 2 in particular consists of tutorials that are within the subject of visual effects for film and games, while Plan 3 includes tutorials in the field of design, illustration and sculpting. Registered members can opt for these packages for yearly tutorial updates.

Other than that the membership process is also free and easy. All you have to do is to follow standard procedure (email and accepting their policies) and you are home free. The subscriptions are the only things that you have to pay for if you want to use them. You can also make single purchases even if you are not a registered member. All you have to do is to toss your desired purchase into your “cart” and the website will take it from there. You will, however, have to register as a paying customer. This still beats having to specifically subscribe for whole sets of tutorials and being stuck with more than you know what to do with.  I was also surprised to find out that I could purchase the tutorial videos either as DVDs or as QuickTime downloads. The prices for both formats are the same, so it is best that you stick to the downloadable versions if you do not particularly like to wait for them to be delivered to your doorstep.

The subscription page seemed to be lacking something though. I would have preferred if the video tabs had a couple of screenshots or summaries that told me what they were about. For example, you will have to go out of a specific DVD’s web page in order to view its video details. The content for each page is distributed on various tabs which were a bit confusing as well. Nevertheless, I found that I could easily navigate myself through the website without coming across any digital dead ends.

I don’t know about you, but buying DVDs on the internet has never been my cup of tea. This website has changed all that. The content and the layout are very professional. However, you need to already know the basics before you even think of watching the DVDs. I lost my train of thought on more than one occasion on a DVD (“Production FX Workflows”) that showed “Brandon” talk about VFXanimation. I have had no VFX training whatsoever but I loved the way he showed how everything comes together so I wasn’t complaining. The DVD also included links and files so I had no problem with finding where I needed to go which was very helpful. Other than that, it consisted of basic tasks, terminology and file layouts.

Thegnomonworkshop.com is also a fairly user friendly website. At least, it was to me. In order to preview the content of each page, visitors generally have to browse their way through it via the content navigator. This will let them know what the website has up for offer in each section. One of the best things I realized was that the website allowed me to search for my preferred item by “Subject”, “Software tools” or by “Instructor”. Chalk one up for usability! It also offers “freebies” like free tutorials and desktop wallpapers for registered members. However, what really got me hooked was the discussion by “subject” tab. That, in my opinion, is where the real action is. This tab allowed users to pay particular attention to digital paraphernalia of every type imaginable. For example, I really liked what they had to offer in their Games and Visual Effects section. It included tutorials on Character Animation, Cinematography, Compositing and Effects Animation to name a few. Other “subjects” like Industrial Design, Illustration and Industrial Design were just as extensive. The pictures and art on display were up to 800 to about a 3000 pixels. Other than that the subscription DVDs themselves offer a ton of quality content for purchase. The “Galleries” also had artwork from the institute’s art directors. Each staff member had his own gallery page that displayed their profiles and their accolades. The gallery also displayed some samples of their art work.

Would you want to use this website? Absolutely! Will it help you get a step closer into breaking into art of movies and games? You said it! One of the best things about this website (besides the awesome layout) is the fact that it offers online tutorials that will instruct you on almost everything you will need to know in order to take your CGI aspirations to the next level. The creators and professionals offer great tips on topics like portraits as well as drawing hands and feet. How they are done is taught by professionals and at affordable rates to boot! In other words, if you are on the lookout for a website that brings together both quality and affordability, thegnomonworkshop.com is the place to be.

Summary:

+ A good navigation system and excellent 3D graphics design software and tutorials make this site unique. Other than that the fact that this website offers a great alternative to attending actual classes by providing members online 3D design tutorials is another selling point.

- Too many tabs for a single video description made looking for a particular tutorial annoying.

Popularity: 23% [?]

Today the main intentions of business communities are focused on minimizing the cost effects of whatsoever they are doing. Same is the case with media industry, which most commonly includes film making, gaming, TV commercials, presentations, simulations and interactive websites. To simulate real life scenarios there are two options – either hire real people on real places and capture it using cameras or make everything using computer graphics. Later one proved to be more useful because of less limitations and practical problems of real world, as well as currently being more economical. Flat Pyramid is a company addressing the above mentioned issue. In following lines we will analyze Flat Pyramid from every possible angle with the aim to provide complete details to artists and all others concerned with computer graphics industry.

This was all about the industry and the concept, now I will deliberate in detail on Flat Pyramid as a company. The official name of company is “FLAT PYRAMID” and was founded in 2005 in Los Angeles, CA. It is one of the biggest provider and online distributor of 3D content and interactive graphics which includes 3D models, photo renders, 3D tutorials, textures and 3D software along with various plugins. It is an online marketplace stuffed with non-exclusive and royalty-free digital graphics. Flat Pyramid is brought into existence with primary aim to reduce production costs in computer graphics industry. Hiring specialized graphic designers and experts for a single project is very expensive and can raise the financial costs. Even if specialized people are not hired still getting custom 3D models and graphics prepared from a provider is an expensive job. Flat Pyramid has provided a way out of these problems by making available lots of 3D models, textures, rendered photos and many other interactive graphics.

Flat Pyramid is mainly divided into 5 categories which are 3D models, photo renders, textures, 3D tutorials and 3D software and programs. 3D models, photo renders and textures, all are further divided into 15-25 different categories, which are very well tailored. Few examples of these sub categories are architecture, food, animals, computers and technology, business and communication, sports, weapon and many others. 3D tutorials section is divided with respect to the program to which it relates (e.g. cinema4D, maya, 3Dmax) or with respect to the technique/process used (3D modeling, 3D rendering and animations etc.). Though everything is listed in its respective category, filtering the list with different filters is also possible.

There is also section called “Custom 3D Graphics” which does not contain any stuff but is there to meet your requirements. At Flat Pyramid, it is possible to let customize 3D models or photo renders accordingly to your wishes. They even offer 3D animation service that includes whole set of works concerning with pre-production, production and post-production. These kinds of services are quite unique among this type of websites. Also, Flat Pyramid is not just a seller of interactive graphics and related products, it provides the opportunity for designers to place their stuff and sell it, too. In short, customers can do both buy and sell products. To sell products, one just needs to sign up for a free account with the option to become seller. Flat Pyramid pays 55% of the proceeds from sales to the artist. In this way, the company provides an excellent platform to expose your talent by making it public. Plus it is good opportunity to earn some money, too.

Let’s have a look on technical aspects, like file format and sizes. All types of models or textures are already searchable as per their format, however, if you buy anything from Flat Pyramid, you are likely to get many formats. For example in case of 3D models you get about 4 to 10 different formats depending upon the availability. The most famous formats are .3ds, .fbx, .max, .obj, .dxf, .psd etc. for 3D models, JPEG, PNG for photo renders and JPEG only for textures. File formats of 3D models give designers the independence of using these models in any program of their choice. Each purchased photo render or texture comes in various sizes (from low resolution to high resolution images), too.

Speaking about pricing, Flat Pyramid possesses a simple and straightforward payment system. You simply pay for what you buy. The price of 3D models varies from 40 to 650 USD per item (according to complexity and details), whereas photo renders are available for 10 to 70 USD per photo. No matter how many items you buy, the price would remain the same. The concept of membership is not introduced on Flat Pyramid. The price of custom 3D work also depends on the detail included in the model and the deadline before which it is required. It usually cost more than a regular item but for this price they adjust it according to your wishes and needs. The time which it takes to deliver the custom order is around 6 weeks, but it is possible to agree to shorter delivery time. Flat Pyramid even helps its clients in using the purchased stuff in their projects. You need not to pay any extra fees for obtaining pictures in different sizes or formats.

There is no doubt that Flat Pyramid is made with a very good concept and clear principles. Initially taken a slow and steady pace, the database is now growing quite rapidly. The most common advantages of being a customer of Flat Pyramid includes reduction in production costs, ease in buying items, ease in navigating through different categories, the availability of various file formats and sizes and opportunity to sell one´s works. Other than this, the custom modeling and design facility is really a unique feature. It helps designers in fulfilling those needs of their clients which they are not capable of. It is like a machine full of expertise and ready to output anything. In addition to above mentioned features, Flat Pyramid is made in a very decent and professional look.

Graphics designing is a field full of complexities, new challenges and changing technologies, hence being perfect in this industry is almost impossible. In accordance with this fact, Flat Pyramid also has some disadvantages or weak areas. The main problem is the lack of content. Though it’s increasing with a good pace but right now Flat Pyramid is not a place where you can find everything. In photo renders section, many categories do not contain any file at all. That can leave a very bad impression in visitor’s mind. The prices are also quite high if considering buying in bulk. Reasonable solution would be to offer some discounts or membership plans in these cases. Also, only one file format is available for textures and hardly two are available for photo renders section. Till now the 3D modeling has been the main focus which left textures and photo renders section in dark.

In my concluding remarks I would appreciate the efforts of designers and complete team of Flat Pyramid. They have managed to build a good platform which is likely to grow very fast in days to come. Even the stuff which is being offered by the company today – there is no doubt it is of very good quality and can be very handy to all professionals in the field of graphic designing. With efficiency and better skills, Flat Pyramid has started its journey towards earning a good repute.

Summary:

+ 3D models are of very good quality and designed with perfection. They are compatible with all leading software of the graphic designing industry. In addition, opportunities to let customize 3D models or photo renders for you or even earn money by selling your own, make this website unique.

-    The website lacks the volume of stuff. There´s no content in some categories so complete reliance on Flat Pyramid is somehow not possible. Also, it is needed to mention, that I haven´t got any reply on my e-mail I sent them in order to ask for some samples.

Popularity: 34% [?]

After focusing on textures, props and scenes in our first review on PoserWorld, now it is time to also depict the core section of the website formed by human models and clothing. PoserWorld is one website of its kinds, which offers such wide range of human designs and clothing.

At this point it is needless to repeat the fact that the site boasts of its collection of almost 2000 downloadable products and that the company has been operating since 1999. Although the basic information like membership details, downloading charges, licensing details and information about general image resolution have been discussed in detail in our previous review, in order to provide you better overview and for those of you, who haven´t read the first part of PoserWorld review yet, let´s summarize in short some of the most relevant information you should know about this site.

PoserWorld updates and keeps adding new designs on a regular weekly basis. The site offers 3 types of membership, namely 3 month membership for 20 USD, 12 month membership for 50 USD and lifetime membership for 500 USD. If you choose to become a lifetime member, you also get a set of 5 DVDs offered by PoserWorld free along with lifetime access to website’s whole collection of designs. If you choose to not becoming a member of the site, you can download the images of your choice at an average rate of 3 USD per image. The image sizes range from 512×3000 pixels to 3000×3000 pixels. All the images and textures offered by the website are royalty free for personal and commercial use (if derivated), but for more info be sure to check its Terms of Use or rather contact somebody from PoserWorld if you’re expecting specific usage.

One interesting thing that would grab a viewer’s attention is the fact that they have developed different categories of clothing and designs as per human models. Different models like Aiko, Laura, Luke, Michael, etc. display eye-catching themed clothing. Especially certain characters such as Koshini, Manchu Emperor and Milbaby are quite peculiar and unique. For example the set of Manchu Emperor showing his rich cultural heritage contains images of its traditional clothing (casual and formal), slippers and hair, while set of Giselle, an interesting Alien character, shows off interesting vector designs of hair and body texture. These types of figures are quite unique and can be used for different purposes. I personally downloaded some for my presentation – David and Royal Canadian Mountain Police outfit for him consisting of hat, red jacket and black pants. As remarkable I found also Digital Seamless Royal Period Fabric 1 & 2, each having up to 15 rough woven textures that could be used as robes, tapestry, garments, floor coverings etc. Though the seamless fabric textures are of 512×512 pixel sizes, they could be very useful. There are some real fabric textures with finished seams and edges as well. PoserWorld also offers several DVDs containing huge collection of designs and other items provided by the website with single page menu to navigate easily through the DVD content. The DVD’s prices range from 15 USD to 45 USD for the content of 160 – 1000 items in one DVD. There is also ´3D clothes texturing tutorial video DVD´ for 19.95 USD. It is a 31 minute tutorial video which helps you to create a detailed clothing texture using Photoshop or any other image editing program.

The thing I really liked about the site is that it maintains the high quality of the designs. They are quite versatile and one can use them in almost any work. Though, one thing which could be improved is the website’s search engine. Of course, a smart search engine in a website with this heavy load of designs and textures is a must! As the website contains huge collection of images, despite of using a good search query, you might end up with a long list of images to search through. The search engine also displays the list of DVDs which contains the searched images. One more thing that I did not like much about this site is that even if you wish to download the whole set of textures, you get to see only one sample texture and based on that you have to rely and pray that the whole lot of designs are as good as the sample.

Although I wouldn’t say that I found all the collection I needed, I would like to mention that the quality of images I found here was truly worth appreciating. The site provides a great variety of human attire from casual to business. I must admit that I have never come across such a huge collection of men’s and women’s clothing in any website before, except the times when I had been visiting a mall .

Summary:

+     Good range of unique collection full of models in various themed clothing. Good resolution and flexibility of using the images anywhere as they are developed in vector style to suit all resolutions and sizes.

-     Sometimes it seems clumsy to find the right image from such a heavy load of human designs and clothing textures. Pages are unnecessarily overloaded by lot of same information in headers and footers, which is a little bit distracting.

Popularity: 48% [?]

My dream to be in complete knowledge of my field that is architecture and designing keeps forcing me to search for more and more quality stuff. While I was searching for some pictures of particular trees, Google brought me to imagecels.com whose variety of content convinced me to share a few words about it. Before I take your eyes towards the review of this excellent imagery website, I must make it clear that this review is written after carrying out a depth analysis which was stretched over a week. I have tried to bring all aspects of the under discussion site in limelight.

The company name is Realworld Imagery Inc and it is the leading producer of high quality photorealistic imagery for architectural and design visualization professionals worldwide, since 1988. In more simple words, Realworld Imagery hosts thousands of high resolution photos of trees, shrubs, people, vehicles, seamless textures of different building materials and landscaping, rendering backgrounds and lot more. Photos of people and vehicles are available in aerial and elevation views. Unlike a normal wallpaper or photo website, this one offers alpha channel mask with every photo. These soft edge masks make imageries very practical and easy to use with most 3D and 2D software programs. Architectural and design professionals can use Realworld Imagery content in their routine work to create richness and a sense of reality. Just by having a look around a few pages of this wonderful website one can estimate the quality and authenticity of content.

All imageries are placed with respect to their category and are grouped in sets of about 50-100 images each. There is no option of ordering individual images. The smallest unit which can be bought is a complete set which price ranges between 99 USD and 299 USD. In order to give clients the desired details, there is attached a list of additional details to every set, providing complete nomenclature, detailed description and information about image size. Also, one can find particular plant species by going through Master Plant list, which gives information about botanical name, common name, filename, size and name of set containing the desired plant. All stuff hosted by Realworld Imagery is available for direct download from the site, whereas one may ask for a CD as well, which will be shipped within one business day without any extra charges besides shipping costs.

Images are 2D and in “.TIF” (LZW compressed) file format with embedded alpha channel masks. They are placed against a black background. Textures are also in “.TIF” file format, seamless and tileable. Resolution varies from 900×1400 to 4000×4800 pixels but mostly the images are in resolution around 1200×1600 pixels. Even the photos are not in a very high resolution they provide notable results when used with most 2D/3D software. The reason for this excellent compatibility is their internal alpha channel mask.

No annual/monthly/weekly or any other kind of membership is offered by this site. Customers can simply purchase the required stuff on direct payment, however, up to 40% discount is offered on buying more sets/CDs. About 15 images are available to download for free as samples. In terms of license policy, they distinguish carefully between single user and multiple users, so customer should think of his intentions before buying.

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When I try to count the good areas of this website, first comes its simple design with easy navigation. No animations or flash slides and still having a decent look and feel. Variety and quality of all stuff regarding “people” and “trees” is exceptional and seems to be very authentic. Almost every species and category has been covered in ample detail, so it seems that many professional opinions have been incorporated in this website. Lots of extra information is provided about type of trees and their hardiness zones which makes it very easy for an architectural expert to find appropriate vegetation. A good FAQ section which provides depth and easy to understand information on all aspects like image specifications, compatibility issues, payment options and about browsing site. Excellent compatibility with all external 2D and 3D platforms. Moreover, all legal documents like privacy policy and terms of use are very well defined.

As nothing is perfect in the world so the website under discussion also has some grey areas. For example no membership plan is offered which makes it very expensive for long term usage. Photos are not in the best resolution and very little categories are offered as compared to other similar sites. Although site’s name appears on Google’s first page, while searching for images one can hardly find any stuff from this site which means the content is not fully optimized for search engines.

In short it’s a very good and resourceful place for all professionals to get useful stuff. Before relying on other content one must visit this site. It is ideal for those professionals in field of architecture, who work around designing of landscapes and places with vegetation like parks and even for the professionals who have some link with film making and gaming.

Summary:

+ Variety and quality of all content regarding people and trees plus detailed information provided to every set make this website exceptional.

- The only prominent problem is the absence of membership plan option, what hinders the way to long term relationship.

Popularity: 17% [?]

With more and more websites showing off their vibrant collection of textures and 3D images, it becomes increasingly important for artist to read over genuine reviews of these websites in order to find if a particular one is perfect for him. Here we shall talk about PoserWorld, a website which boosts of excellent quality, large variety and ready to use content.

The first thing you’ll notice after loading the homepage of PoserWorld is the website claiming to have a large variety of over 1900 items with excellent quality 3D content. Though the website shows off more content on human models and clothing, it also includes seamless textures of varied categories. Due to the diversity of website´s content, we thought it would be better to publish 2 separate reviews – one on textures and one on human models. Here we shall discuss all it has to offer in terms of textures.

The one thing about searching for good textures online is that you see the same kinds of textures as you move from one site to the other over the web. This does not happen here, though. Uniqueness is one of the main qualities you’ll find here. I would like to put light upon the fact that this site has a huge number of seamless and digital textures, props and scenes to offer. The texture collection ranges from

seamless Jet and Sky Photo Background added in July 2007 to the latest seamless metal photo texture set added on April 2011. They offer a huge variety of textures, having different sets of seamless fabric photo textures like gold embroidered fabric and variety of plaid and stripped fabric textures, which are quite unique. The Scenes section has a lot to offer to the user, too. For example beautiful textures like Pool Scene that shows off breathtaking pool view with the lawn by the side. Also there are textures like Cityblock which offers beautiful architectural views of the city blocks, generally not to find elsewhere. With ready to use exterior scenes like Bob’s Dinner, Park center and interior scenes like Kitchen, Sauna etc., one can easily and quickly incorporate it in his project. Moreover, different parts of scenes can be moved so the basic scene can be modified accordingly to your needs.  This section is worth taking a look and the site itself is surely a must-visit for an artist who is in search for some unique well finished scenes and textures with good resolution.

The sizes of these textures range from 512 to 3000 pixels but majority of them is 3000×3000 pixels. The site updates and keeps adding various new textures on a regular weekly basis. One thing that is not so satisfactory is that at times it displays only one picture of the textures collection. The viewer has to rely on one sample picture before downloading the whole section of images. For example ‘By the River’ set shows off one beautiful picture of bridge over river to sell off whole collection of 19 photographs of Newcastle Keyside section. Also, at times the viewer has to rely on lower pixel size samples of textures before he buys the textures in higher resolution. Speaking about website´s weaknesses, it seems a little clumsy with the heavy header, footer and right panel being repeated on each page.

Though PoserWorld has huge number of designs and textures, unlike sites like environment-texture.com, the viewers have to do a laborious searching through lots of data and lists to find the perfect texture to suit their needs. This is due to the fact that there is no division into categories on the site. Tough it has search engine which works fine, but again whereas there is a huge number of images loaded in it, even the search results might show up in huge number. One thing that could be improved is the way how the search engine works. By typing ´red brick´ the search engine lists all the textures and images with ´red´, ´brick´ as well as ´red brick´ so one will get more results than wanted, which means another tedious searching for the right image among the others. Very disappointing I find the fact that although there is a free sample section, there is just one free item, which changes “from time to time” (as they write). This is surprising because free samples are already the must-have of this kind of websites.

The downloading charges of the site are fair and reasonable. One can download a texture or any other design at a price of about 3 USD. This is the average price of the designs. Also the site offers memberships which when paid for, it grants full access to all the textures of the site. The memberships offered by the site are 20 USD for a three month membership, 50 USD for a 12 month membership and for a full lifetime membership one has to pay 500 USD. The lifetime membership grants the user full access to all of the features of the site for lifetime, plus 5 DVDs full of textures, 3D models and several tutorial videos. A good thing over here is that by providing option of single item purchase as well as subscriptions option, they have covered all the possible demands of individual as well as corporate users. All the images and textures offered are royalty free for personal and commercial use (if derivated), but for more information I would contact website´s owners. For all those who would like to learn how to create clothing textures on their own, there are also 3D clothes texturing tutorial video DVD for 19.95 USD and 3D photo texture DVD with over 1362 textures for 19.95 USD.

With all these information we can easily conclude the following summary for texture section of PoserWorld:

+     A commendable collection of 3D textures, with unique categories makes it stand apart from the rest.  Reasonable prices of membership – for example at 50 USD per year, one gets access to all of content for a full year, for the price of about 16 individual item purchases.

- At times it becomes clumsy to move through all the heavy panels of headers, footers and right hand panels. Search engine should be made more intelligent with added features to enhance the user’s experience over searching varied textures and designs. Disappointing Free Samples section with just one free item.

We couldn´t show you any sample textures, because as we already mentioned there aren´t free samples for download on the website. Although we sent PoserWorld a couple of e-mails asking for some samples, no reply received.

Popularity: 23% [?]