I was bored and hungover the other day so I figured why not update my long neglected website - the last one had thumbnails that didn't link anywhere and placeholder text all over the place :smile: Any thoughts? What do you think on the design of it? Good/bad colours, spacing etc...? How about the amount of text? Number of screenshots per section - is 6 a good max number do you think, or would 9 or 3 be better? I'm also thinking of collapsing all of the HL1 maps (which currently I haven't got screenshots of) into that "misc HL1 engine work" section, with maybe the best 6 or 9 screenshots from all those maps. Good idea? Thanks for any feedback :smile:

http://www.reno-vation.net

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

You could categorize the maps into Source maps and HL1 engine maps, so that you can choose which category to view.

Overall I think it looks good. 6 screenshots per map looks good. You could add a "details" link for each map, with more screenshots and maybe a download link.

Incredible maps btw. :smile:

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What the Snarkpitters listen to!

More concise descriptions, with less text. A bullet point format might work better and be easier to skim over, assuming your portfolio is for potential employers and not to show off your gorgeous maps :razz:

Good thumbnail size though! Some people crop their thumbs to weird sizes in misguided efforts to be "artsy" or something. :smile:

OtZman said:
You could categorize the maps into Source maps and HL1 engine maps, so that you can choose which category to view.
Overall I think it looks good. 6 screenshots per map looks good. You could add a "details" link for each map, with more screenshots and maybe a download link.
Incredible maps btw. :smile:

Fair suggestions, but my intention was always to keep the actual content (the screenshots, given this is a portfolio site) readily available from the get-go. I don't want to have any sort of navigation system to make viewing the pictures more hassle than it needs to be. I don't think I've got so much content that it makes a single page design too unbearable :smile:

Campaignjunkie said:
More concise descriptions, with less text. A bullet point format might work better and be easier to skim over, assuming your portfolio is for potential employers and not to show off your gorgeous maps :razz:

Good thumbnail size though! Some people crop their thumbs to weird sizes in misguided efforts to be "artsy" or something. :smile:

Ok, more concise descriptions are in place. Are they short enough? I just stripped out most of the spiel about design issues or thoughts, and left brief descriptions of what the map actually is. Anyway, updated version can be seen at the same address. Any more feedback and suggestions are welcome :smile:

http://www.reno-vation.net

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

The one thing that stands out as an eyesore is the page's background. Maybe try a solid dark color that would match the content color scheme more? (dark-gray-blue-ish-ry?)

There's a bunch of other things I could suggest, but they're all rather complex and probably not what you're looking for.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Damn, everybody who commented before seemed to like the colour scheme, but the last two people seem to hate the background :sad: I'll consider changing it and try a few other, less in your face colours, but personally I quite like it.

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

I agree, the background is the only thing that rubs me the wrong way. maybe nix the gradient and use a solid color. The orange could be a nice contrast - temperature might need a slight adjustment. Everything else seemed fine; straightforward and easy to view - that's all you really want.

I thought that the orange of the background didn't help with highlighting most of the thumbs, which also seem a bit orangy. I agree with the darker b'g suggestions.

A back button would also be good to have on the big linked screenshots, because muppets like me always close the image window, then wonder where the site went. Having the pics open in a new window would be another solution to my lack of internet skillz.

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i eat paint

It's kind of lacking in Spamvertisements. Perhaps some context
sensitive amazon links? And after viewing your portfolio, I'd
probably like to visit Casino-on-net. Oh, and perhaps perhaps
perhaps my computer is sending out an IP that could let people know
where my computer is. Maybe a pop-up to warn me about this?

Looks better with the new background, I must say. And with screenshots for all the maps, and less text in each description, it's much easier to get a good overview of the page.

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What the Snarkpitters listen to!

Yeah, I still want to keep the gradient but I decided to try out a more subdued coffee sort of colour. I dunno quite how I feel about it yet as I quite liked the bright, fresh orange I had originally, but it certain is less "abrasive" which some people felt it was before.

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

It does look better. Sorry.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Oh you're no fun anymore. I did like the orange sort of, it was
distinct, but the soft brown does look slicker and more
professional.

Use lime green, neon pink, and pukey greenish brown, you can't go wrong.

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o

I like the The Ship maps. Really. I should steal an old lady's purse to buy it.

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:: Forceflow.be :: Nuclear Dawn developer

The brown looks better. The text on the banner ReNo vation .net looks hideous, however. Use something with more penache.. like er, Verdana, and get some smoothing effects on it!

Verdana, more panache?! Verdana's about as standard a font as you get IMO :razz: Lovely for body text but not too hot for headings. I agree that the banner text didn't look too great but I think the use of that font through the rest of the website for headings works really nicely, and for the sake of consistency I stuck it on the banner too. I've put up a different banner using yawn standard banner fare "impact", stretched lengthways as normally it's a bit too stunted in that direction. I also put a bit of a motion blur thing behind it. Better? The text still looks really blocky, but it does have AA on it in photoshop. Any way to get it looking better that I don't know about?

http://www.reno-vation.net

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

It's very nice. Some great content on it. My only concern is the images should open up a new window instead of taking the user away from the main site. Perhaps having one of those 'click pic' to close.

I did consider that, but those sort of things deny me the ability to use a few of the features I like when browsing. Like opening a load of pictures up at once in different tabs, for example, or using my "imagezoom" firefox addon to scale up or down pictures (those windows are normally fixed size, which undermines the use of the tool). Whether or not I should judge my own browsing habits as typical of other users is debatable though.

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

It's do-able in JavaScript. You could actually have the window resize with an image, for example (I'm sure).

I think the title looked better before. (No need to change it back. Just see how many people think the same way, I guess).

The TrueType format uses B?zier curves (for curves) ... my best guess is that it's in the conversion to PNG that the aliasing is happening, since it's being converted from vectors to a listing of pixels. Perhaps, find a 3^rd party exportation tool for photoshop? Or, look up AA in PS, I'm not sure if it applies to exported images or just within the program it self.

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

There's nothing you could do to not make the maps look awesome, but the banner has too many Photoshop effects. Black outline + gradient + different, overlapping font sizes + shadow + motion-blur thingy + desaturated background.

If you go for plain text only, I wouldn't decorate it so much but just write it in simple HTML instead. I would make the first paragraph more prominent also. It's swallowed by the rest of the site because it's the same font as the little map descriptions.

This might be a more personal thing, but I'm not a big fan of gradients in general. I kinda like the trend of using simple, small patterns for the site-background, maybe you can try something like that.

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Why snark works.

ReNo said:
I did consider that, but those sort of things deny me the ability to use a few of the features I like when browsing. Like opening a load of pictures up at once in different tabs, for example, or using my "imagezoom" firefox addon to scale up or down pictures (those windows are normally fixed size, which undermines the use of the tool). Whether or not I should judge my own browsing habits as typical of other users is debatable though.

FWIW, I also like to be able to load more than one picture at a time in multiple tabs. You could, as someone suggested previously, make the pictures load in a new window by default when someone clicks it. Then you'll still be able to use the middle mouse button to open pics in new tabs without losing focus of the main page.

And I agree with reaper about the first paragraph. Make it stick out some way.

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What the Snarkpitters listen to!

I've toned down the photoshop effects on the banner - I think you guys were right, it was looking a bit too effect heavy, hopefully less so now - and made screenshots open in a new window/tab by default. I'll try and think of a way to make the intro paragraph stand out a bit as I agree it does seem a little lost as it stands.

Crono - the aliasing is noticeable while in Photoshop working on the image as a PSD as well, so it isn't during exportation to PNG. I had a read in the help files and it seems to make out that it stores them as vectors and they remain clear independent of the resolution, which makes sense to me as to do a lot of filters and effects you've got to rasterize the text layers first (losing the ability to treat them as text). That said, they just tend to look pretty badly aliased anyway, no matter what anti-aliasing setting I apply in photoshop to those text layers.

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

Nice site.

Some great maps in there too. Only it's a pity that you didn't pick the corridor shot with the trimming as one of the 3 for Selfless, it's one of the things that got me into mapping! :wink:

Oii reno, or should I say Duncan Blair, I like the website. It is very professinal looking. The brownish background colour looks awsome. Some nice maps in there to.

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Aaron's Stuff

It's looking great now. I don't see much room for improvement so my last idea is you add the typical 'copyright' content right at the bottom in a nice dark brown.

lol, are you from twhl?

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Aaron's Stuff

I am not from anywhere. I'm just a loyal Snarkpitter as I am a TWHL'er or an Interloper.

Anyway just out of curiousity are you planning to work in the gaming industry mr Reno?

He kinda already is....

See The Ship.

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Dark_Kilauea
DVS Administration
http://www.dvstudio-production.com/

He's our game-industry shooting star!

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Why snark works.

Hey all, been a while. I wasn't even sure if the site would still be going :razz:

I think the current version of your portfolio is looking pretty good Duncan, the darker colour in the background looks much better.

I ended up going for a light on dark approach with my current portfolio, though its more of a CD only portfolio so I haven't got it online to demonstrate. I ended up taking the shotgun approach. Packing in as much work as I could get away with and blasting prospective employers with it in the hopes it would overwhelm and stop them from looking too closely :biggrin: . It seems its an approach that works too, though more on that at a later date.

Oh, and awesome work on that mini HL2DM map. Classic Reno at its finest.

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Ham and Jam Contributor
http://www.hamandjam.org

'Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!'