Website portfolio

I'm working on a website portfolio for myself at the moment, and would
appreciate any feedback you guys might have. Some of you have seen
earlier versions of this in IRC, so comments on whether its better or
worse than before are welcome also. Obviously there isn't much in the
way of content there (unless you LOVE thumbnails with no larger
versions) but your thoughts on the layout and style would be great.

http://www.snarkpit.net/pits/reno/index.html

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Looks pretty cool, I like the layout.

The style and color theme look great. I'm loving that logo. :biggrin:

I like the style, to some extend though. Some things don't fit well
with each other, mainly the circular logo and the pixelated title.

The art is quickly accessible and the menu is easy to navigate. You may
want to put your best work more up so it's immediatly visible which
would make a better first impression. Stuff lower on a page get less
hits usually, for my portfolio the top images get about 4 times more
hits.

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

Looks good, so far. I like the images. The thumbs look
sexy. I kind of wish there were more pages though.
Interested to see more text etc.

Good point Captain. At the moment I'm just sorting by date really,
which makes it nice and easy to update by perhaps isn't going to be
showing off my best stuff if the new stuff is heavily WIP. I'll
consider a reshuffle :smile:

Your point about the icon clashing with the title font is noted, I'll see if I can find something more fitting.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

The colours arent you at all ReNo.

That bright orange at the top just doesnt seem to work. I'd see
you in more of a Snarkpit greenish colour rather than that
orange. I tend to dislike bright flashy websites, which is why I
love the layout of Snarkpit.

Level design is all about inspiration and creativity. Your
website should reflect this. Just about every website on the
planet follows the scheme you're using. Main menu at the very
top, and contents on the bottom. Why not try frames?
Perhaps the menu on the right hand side.

For each of your maps, its good how you've devided them and given them
their own little space. However, I'd try to make that space blend
in a little more with the background of the website. Like I said,
the orange doesnt work. Your maps are all dark and gloomy, your
website should be the same, IMO.

So to recap, blend in the aspects of your page a little more, and try
to get some more "ReNo" colours. Light and dark brown, dark
green, dark red, hints of dark blue...

Makes me jelous that I cant seem to make any decent maps when compared
to your work. Especially with HL2 upon us. Im still stuck
in the good ol days of Worldcraft and HL1.

I disagree. The goal is to present your work effectively, not reinvent
web-design paradigms. Plus, I don't think a gloomy, muted website would
really interest a potential employer... Only real problem I have is
with this "uppercase" style for everything - it really screws up
readability.

But I really like the thumbnail sizes though - don't change those no
matter what. It's a lot better than those "artsy" thumbnails that some
people do, where they crop it to a random piece of the map and you have
no idea what you're clicking on.

They say when you can sum it up pretty quickly, that you did it right..

So Yeah man it looks damn nice, simple, sleek and to the point. Good work reno.

Clickable Images would be nice, with more info or more images of that map or aea on the page.

Looks great. Nice and clean design with colours that don't clash :smile: Now get the rest finished!

And Wildcard...those colours are more ReNo than you would think....way back in the day, ReNo had a mapping website called 'Evolution' which used the same colour scheme :smile:

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You Got To Get Through What You've Got To Go Through To Get What You Want But You Got To Know What You Want To Get Through What You Got To Go Through

Yea I remember Evolution. I guess it is just me. But I
would have rather seen a website layout that represents his works in
the site's design.

Try to compact the entire thing. Use the space better without cluttering, not that it's cluttered now, but that's because everything is so spread out. The upper title picture nav thing is far too big.

The colors are pretty ugly, but that's just my opinion, I don't think it looks bad though. Does that make sense?

As CJ said, don't use small caps. Please.

The only thing is. I don't want to be offensive or anything, but that general design, which I noticed on your watermarked screen shots too, is fairly generic. I've seen it so many times, I've lost count.
I really think you should invest some time into finding a new 'design' technique. Not that it should change much, just something that seems a little more unique.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Surprised you remember that site design Adam, I barely do myself :biggrin: As
Adam said, orange is actually very much me. My desktop wallpaper is
orange, my mobile phone wallpaper is orange, and two of my maps feature
nothing BUT bright colours :razz: I can see why you would think a more
grungy style would suit given most of my maps however :smile:

Uppercase map comments are gone in favour of more traditional tahoma or
verdana standard fonts. Thumbnails will be linked up with full sized
images as soon as I've added my watermark to them all. I also have
those "info" buttons that will probably take you to a page with more
specific info on each map. Initially I was using images alone on the
portfolio page, but if I don't have more than one image of a map, it
just looks silly :razz: Obviously there is also a significant lack of
content (ie. more than one page), but I wanted to get your thoughts on
the design before I committed to bulking up content.

Wild Card, while I do hear your comments about being a bit more
creative with the design (and my first layout idea was definately
unorthodox!) I've been following this article about creating a good
portfolio site...

http://www.mapcore.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3433

I suggest anybody interested in creating their own portfolios check it
out, as it certainly made me rethink how I present my work.

Thanks for your comments guys.

EDIT: The title stuff is only 150 pixels Crono :razz: I'll have a shot at
making it take up less space, but don't hold your breath :smile: I had a
play with a more subdued tone in place of the orange (#8A9ABB if you
are curious) but I ddn't feel it suited as well. I dunno where else I
can really use the space better (have you SEEN the intense thumbnail
gallery? I couldn't squeeze more in if tried :biggrin: ) without losing the
segmentation that I have going...unless that is what you are suggesting
of course. On the issue of uniqueness of design, I was playing with the
idea of circles but doing so often leads to rather contrived page
layouts with lots of cut up images and what have you.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Updated a little - new title image ("new" meaning a new icon and
slightly different text spacing) and a new font for the text content.
IE screws up the page layout a bit, been trying to fix it for a long
time without success :sad:

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

The only thing different in IE is the indent.gif image right hand side gets overwritten somehow.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Couple of other minor issues - the links at the top and the copyright
thing at the bottom both sit too high, and for some reason the bottom
bar's background is repeated a bit. No idea what's causing these issues

• it's WORKED fine in IE, and all the code seems acceptable to me. If

anybody looks at the source and sees the problem, I'd appreciate it if
you let me know :smile:

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

The one thing I know that is always moronic about the difference between the browsers is that IE has an extra pixel count on the vertical (not sure about horizontal)

So, that can annoyingly misalign things.

It count's percentages differently.

There's some other stuff.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Reno, I was looking at the gray layout behind... and while I usually
like simple things... it seems a little too simple. Maybe it
would look nicer with a little bit more color variation... like subtle
color changes (like a little darker gray with lighter gray highlights?).

I don't know... it seems a little flat now that I look it over again.

I like the color-scheme. It makes everything look very clear and concise, and the format presents your work well.

However, I think each thumbnail deserves some succinct text description. You might be getting to that later anyway, but I want to mention it just in case.

You're one of the most creative mappers out there, and your portfolio shows.

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"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge

i was surprised at the colors but i wouldn't say it's bad. I like how you make a miscelaneous section for your older work (which is equally beautiful btw), but i would do more then just link those tumbnails to their lager version, i would link them to map info etc (If you can't be bothered to make seperate sections for them, maybe link them to their snarkpit profile?)

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These words are my diaries screaming out loud

Nice site man, i like the layout, but hey, why dont you make your title something like this..

Original size :

http://img429.imageshack.us/img429/7817/reno1ee.jpg

Is it possible for you to add your custom layout ?

Maybe change the layout to blend with it or something ??

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.::Dark|Masta::. - One name. One legend.

Nice site man, i like the layout, but hey, why dont you make your title something like this..

Original size :

http://img429.imageshack.us/img429/7817/reno1ee.jpg

Is it possible for you to add your custom layout ?

Maybe change the layout to blend with it or something ??

Add a little dark, red and blue, and thats the kind of design I could have seen for you ReNo. Again, I know orange is your thing,
but apart from abstract mapping, orange doesnt work :biggrin:

I added orange because in his profile he had the title orange, so i added some orange stuff :biggrin:

And dude, its just an idea, if he really wants me to do him one, i should do one with his specifications, not mine :smile:

But who knows, maybe he doesnt want any abstract\grunge\tech layouts, maybe he just likes it the way it is :biggrin:

and i dont mind that :smile:

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.::Dark|Masta::. - One name. One legend.

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<div class="quote"><div class="quotetext">

http://img429.imageshack.us/img429/7817/reno1ee.jpg</div></div>

</div></div>

Yeow! That gave me a seizure. Too loaded IMHO.

Pretty cool Dark, but not my style I'm afraid. I like to keep things
clean and simple - that design is too "busy" for me. While my header
could possibly do with some changes, I'd like to keep everything done
by myself. Doesn't really say much about a person in this field if they
have somebody else do all their portfolio after all :biggrin:

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

I love the site, Reno. Reminds me of KFS's new site. (button-something dot net)

Keep it clean and simple, I try to do that myself, too.

I will link you right away.

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:: Forceflow.be :: Nuclear Dawn developer

masher

I like it, dont do anything drastic to it, it's suited to being not over-complicated. just get it updated mate.

finally online on my new pc btw :biggrin:

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My Pit

Welcome back KornFlakes :biggrin:

And hey reno, i understand what you mean by "I like to keep things
clean and simple" :wink:

Great site, i love your maps too !!!

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.::Dark|Masta::. - One name. One legend.

I didn't mean make it complicated or anything. Clean, simple, is the way to go. It just seems like there's a lot of space that can be utilized more. It would probably impeed on the navigational functionality of the site.

Keep working on it, I guess. Eventually, it should be more compact, but not cluttered, and still simple. Yet, full of content.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Just an observation.

I assume that you are testing it within your pit, you will not be hosting it from that location, right?

I ask, because Snarkpit has a bad habit of freezing periodically. We all know this so the timetable will be off a bit.

That page, the front one with all the thumbs, it took over 3 minutes to load fully on my 56k connection. I assume also that other with 56k will be able to confirm this however 3 minutes is extremely long.

I also will assume that anyone important to you will be on broadband so their times will be significantly lower. However, that many thumbs all in one location is never good IMO. Even for those on broadband.

I suggest, for what its worth, do not make your level design page your front page or the one that loads first.

Give potential clients/employers the option of going to that page. Do not force it upon them.

Some people actually like to look for things. I know many whom would be offended to have to look at all those thumbs.

Sorry if I offended. Its just my take on this.

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There is no history until something happens, then there is.

No offence taken mate, I asked for feedback remember :smile: The page up at
the moment is the "level design" page, but I've named it index for the
time being as thats what most browsers look for as a default page. I
will get around to making an about page of sorts that will load to
begin with, probably with info such as my name, age, location, career
plans, and so on. The reason I've bombarded the current page with
thumbnails is because an article about making good internet portfolios
suggested that overly complex layering (eg. home -> portfolio ->
level design -> dm_echo -> dm_echo1_thumb.jpg -> dm_echo1.jpg)
is a waste of time and a big annoyance for people trawling through
dozens of portfolios a day. For my design I tried to keep it quite
"flat" to limit the number of clicks the user has to make before they
get to the actual purpose of the site - presenting my work.

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

Well, I am not an authority on web pages. I just thought that I'd comment about what I saw. The fact I was off base, or on the mark was not a concern since ultimately you are the one whom has to deal with the outcome.

I like the colors and such. Very soothing on the eyes.

Good luck.

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There is no history until something happens, then there is.

ReNo said:
I've been following this article about creating a good portfolio site...
http://www.mapcore.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3433

Thanks for the link, interesting read.

Re: your site; couple of comments, hopefully they'll prove useful...

• It's not obvious what app or game the screens are from. ie, dm_cavern could be rendered in Max/Maya/whatever, from a multitude of different games, and so on.

• http://www.snarkpit.net/pits/reno/ - maybe it's more impressive to have your own domain name?

Yeah, I'll probably pick up something like "www.reno-vation.net" or
something to that effect and some webspace, but for now I'm throwing it
up there as its handy.

As for marking what engine things are from, I've kinda got a few options...

The initial idea was to use the "info" buttons to bring up a popup
window showing information about the map, including what engine it is
for, date it was built, and the like. It does seem like thats keeping
the info somewhat hidden from people unless they search, but whether or
not that is a bad thing is debatable really.

Another option would be to just put in some simple title bit under each
map saying the map's name and engine. This would only really be
necessary in the misc section, given the other maps have an area for a
description.

The final option is to change the map title parts (ie. the bars with
things like "dm_cavern" on them) to the engine used, then group all the
maps together. So the current "Miscellaneous" section would be marked
"Half-Life Engine", and the other maps would be grouped into "Source
Engine". I would then perhaps use a checkerboard pattern for the
screenshots, and the empty spaces beside them could be used to put in
some basic info such as map name, mod it is for, date built, and design
objectives. This is probably my favoured idea, but I've not tested it
out yet to see how it looks.

Thanks for the comments :smile:

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net