I'm thinking of starting a CG blog/website...

[eclark1894]

Doing my research for the volumetric lighting tutorial for Poser and ran across a Reference manual error that's apparently been there since Poser 9. I't's really just a typo, but I was rather amused when I ran across the fact that the object drop down list described in the manual fails to mention that you should also find the Atmosphere option listed.

 

[Jay Versluis]

Hi Earl, I say go for it! And I'd suggest starting with WordPress right away, either on your local system, or with WordPress.com, or sign up with one of the many hosting providers, then use a one-click installer to setup your self-hosted site. I say this because it'll save you the hassle of porting your content over at a later stage.

If you'd like to develop your content before you make it public, that's possible too: just save your posts as "Drafts" or set them to "Private" until you're ready for prime time.

I run several WordPress sites myself, and I find it an ideal way to organise my brain (too many interests you know...). Take a look if you like:

• JAY VERSLUIS - it's about 3D and 2D software, anything to do with DAZ Studio, Blender, Carrara, Photoshop and the likes
• iOS Dev Diary - it's about iOS Development
• The WP Guru - it's about WordPress, web hosting, Linux, PHP and related stuff

I write these as if they were entries in a notebook, and I do this because I don't want to forget things when I find a new tip or trick about this and that. If you have any questions about any aspect of the whole thing, creative to technical, let me know.

And good luck with your project!

 

[Gadget Girl]

I think Miss B is right. I would just put them under the General 3D Content part of the forum, although it might be nice to have a master thread that links to others there, and then sub-threads for individual posts. That way if people had questions or thoughts they could stick together in one sub-post instead of having all our craziness merging together under one massive post.

 

[kobaltkween]

Um, wait. Don't we have blogs here? Has that changed?

 

[eclark1894]

Um, wait. Don't we have blogs here? Has that changed?

We do? I know they were on the old site, but haven't seen one here.

 

[Miss B]

I don't recall if there was a discussion about the blogs on the new forum, but it's possible this new software doesn't support them.

 

[eclark1894]

Hi Earl, I say go for it! And I'd suggest starting with WordPress right away, either on your local system, or with WordPress.com, or sign up with one of the many hosting providers, then use a one-click installer to setup your self-hosted site. I say this because it'll save you the hassle of porting your content over at a later stage.

If you'd like to develop your content before you make it public, that's possible too: just save your posts as "Drafts" or set them to "Private" until you're ready for prime time.

I run several WordPress sites myself, and I find it an ideal way to organise my brain (too many interests you know...). Take a look if you like:

• JAY VERSLUIS - it's about 3D and 2D software, anything to do with DAZ Studio, Blender, Carrara, Photoshop and the likes
• iOS Dev Diary - it's about iOS Development
• The WP Guru - it's about WordPress, web hosting, Linux, PHP and related stuff

I write these as if they were entries in a notebook, and I do this because I don't want to forget things when I find a new tip or trick about this and that. If you have any questions about any aspect of the whole thing, creative to technical, let me know.

And good luck with your project!

With the Poserverse in flux right now, plus some things I'd like to do in the future, starting my own blog seems the way to go. However, for the moment, I think posting my tutorials here on HW, and maybe Rendo, may be the way to go in the short term. Problem is, I can't really depend on either site to permanently archive anything I post, especially Rendo, but sadly, Rendo does have a wider audience reach that HW currently. Also posting items about DAZ and Blender wouldn't be appropriate for the Smith Micro forum, so eventually, my own blog seems inevitable.

 

[Miss B]

Start small, and work your way up. Always a good way to get things done.

 

[Pendraia]

I don't believe that we have blogs at the new site. IIRC it was said that it may be possible at a later date.

 

[eclark1894]

I think Miss B is right. I would just put them under the General 3D Content part of the forum, although it might be nice to have a master thread that links to others there, and then sub-threads for individual posts. That way if people had questions or thoughts they could stick together in one sub-post instead of having all our craziness merging together under one massive post.

So I should start a thread that says something like "Links to Earl's tutorials"?

 

[eclark1894]

So I'm doing a Tutorial for Poser on how to set up Volumetric Atmospherics. I'm writing this one in Microsoft Word. I wanted to see how i was going to get it from Word to the forum. I tried to post copy, but there are pictures inserted into the Word document and they won't copy. I'm thinking now that i may just have to paste the text and import the pictures. A little time consuming, but doable. But then there's still the want and need to keep all the tutorials together.

I'm thinking I could do a PDF file and post it on ShareCG.

 

[eclark1894]

On the other hand, maybe I could just go ahead and create the blog. How often I post would just be a matter of how long it takes me to do a new tutorial for whatever software I'm working in.

 

[Miss B]

One little tidbit you should remember, and this is something I told a client of mine, who's also on a Mac, DON'T copy/paste from Word to the forum or your blog.

Word has formatting attached to every paragraph, and that won't translate well to a web page, either here on the forum, or in WP. What you CAN do, is work in Word, but save the files as "plain text", IOW as a .TXT file. That way there will be absolutely no formatting attached, and then when you copy the text over to WP, the paragraphs will pick up the formatting in the stylesheet you set up, or the one that's part of the theme you decide to use. WP comes with a few themes, and there are sites where you can get themes, both free or reasonably priced.

Needless to say, if you're embedding graphics in the files, that won't work with .TXT files, so you may want to save as a .DOC file as well. That way you can use the plain text file to copy/paste, and use the .DOC file to save your images.

I know there are folks who actually use Word to create web pages, but it is a total mess, and the pages won't validate, which WP is set up to do by default.

 

[eclark1894]

One little tidbit you should remember, and this is something I told a client of mine, who's also on a Mac, DON'T copy/paste from Word to the forum or your blog.

Word has formatting attached to every paragraph, and that won't translate well to a web page, either here on the forum, or in WP. What you CAN do, is work in Word, but save the files as "plain text", IOW as a .TXT file. That way there will be absolutely no formatting attached, and then when you copy the text over to WP, the paragraphs will pick up the formatting in the stylesheet you set up, or the one that's part of the theme you decide to use. WP comes with a few themes, and there are sites where you can get themes, both free or reasonably priced.

Needless to say, if you're embedding graphics in the files, that won't work with .TXT files, so you may want to save as a .DOC file as well. That way you can use the plain text file to copy/paste, and use the .DOC file to save your images.

I know there are folks who actually use Word to create web pages, but it is a total mess, and the pages won't validate, which WP is set up to do by default.

Actually, when I started, I was on my Mac and using TextEdit. But I moved everything over to my PC, and Word opened the file, so I just finished in Word.

 

[eclark1894]

Since I won't be sticking exclusively to Poser for my tutorials, The Poser Guru is out as a name. Plus, there's already a Blender Guru, and I'm not familiar enough with Studio to even bring up the guru title. Anybody have a name suggestion for what I should call my blog?

 

[eclark1894]

Possible blog names:
CG Shop Talk
CG Artist
Sir Render
Render Quest
CG Universe
CG World
Art Works

 

[Miss B]

Actually, when I started, I was on my Mac and using TextEdit. But I moved everything over to my PC, and Word opened the file, so I just finished in Word.

Not a problem as long as you save a copy in plain text format so you can copy from THAT file to the web. Having a Word format file with the images embedded as you write them is fine. I just wouldn't copy from that file to the web, unless you plan to make a PDF copy to upload, which might be a nice "addition" so folks can save for future offline reference. That's not necessary, of course, just a thought I had which you might want to consider.

 

[Miss B]

Possible blog names:
CG Shop Talk
CG Artist
Sir Render
Render Quest
CG Universe
CG World
Art Works

Well, since you're going to be "talking" through your writing, I would go with the first one, CG Shop Talk. The others seem to lean more toward the "artwork", rather than the method(s) of how you accomplish it.

 

[eclark1894]

Still having a little fun with volumetric lights in Poser and doing a little experimenting as well. I decided to add a second light to the scene and switched out Andy with Roxie.

 

[Miss B]

Ohhh, very nice Earl.