Renderosity

Infobox Company
company_name = Renderosity
company_
company_type = Online Community & Marketplace
foundation = 1998 | location_city = Nashville, TN
location_country = U.S.
homepage = [http://www.renderosity.com/index.php?AID=136 www.renderosity.com]

Renderosity is an online art community and marketplace for digital artists, with special emphasis on computer-generated 3D graphics, 2D graphics, photography and animation. Originally created as a Poser forum, it now has well over half a million members that use a multitude of different pieces of professional digital design software.

History

The community was founded in December 1998 under the name PoserForum.com, reflecting the group's original focus on use of the Poser software. The name was changed to Renderosity by community vote in October 1999. Over time, as the community grew and matured, so did the need to focus less on being a Poser centric community. Renderosity has since become the community of choice for users of multiple digital applications, both professional and hobbyist.

Content

Renderosity is composed of several different areas including forums, communities, a marketplace, industry related news and interviews. A weekly newsletter is sent out that recaps the top news stories, as well as new and popular items that are for sale within the marketplace.

Membership

Renderosity has well over 500,000 members. Membership is free, and it gives access to the entire computer graphics communitiy. That includes art galleries, tutorials, free downloadable content, discussion forums, artist bio pages, job board, animations, industry news, special interviews and much more. Each of these areas include content for all the popular software programs including Maya, Lightwave, 3DS Max, Softimage, Cinema 4D, Poser, Photoshop, PaintShop Pro, Deep Paint 3D, Rhino 3D, Bryce, Blender, TrueSpace and Terragen.

Contests

Site-wide contests occur a few times each year, with the two largest being the Halloween and Holiday contests. 3D model creators, animators, graphic designers, photographers and even writers are invited to take part in these contests. The winners are normally chosen by member vote, and awarded prizes that were donated by a multitude of sponsors.

Communities

There are many sub-communities within the site that consist of artists' galleries, tutorials, contests (more commonly know as "challenges"), forums and free stuff submitted by members.

Larger Communities

Some of the more popular communities and forums within Renderosity concern the following applications:

Other Communities

In addition to the more popular programs, Renderosity also has communities and forums for many other graphical applications. These include Amapi, ArtMatic/Voyager, Blender, Bryce, Fractal, Mojoworld, Rhino 3D, SOFTIMAGE XSI, Terragen, trueSpace and WorldBuilder software users, 2D artists, photographers and writers.

Marketplace

The Renderosity MarketPlace has one of the largest content libraries online to buy or sell computer generated art. The MarketPlace is open to all Renderosity members and provides a brokerage program for artists interested in selling their digital products. Renderosity's large membership base allows artists access to a huge distribution channel for their products. Professional quality products for popular core software packages: Maya, 3DS Max, Lightwave, Vue, Poser, Bryce, Carrara, Rhino 3D, Softimage, Cinema 4D and others.

Testing

Each product in The MarketPlace undergoes testing before being released and must follow The Marketplace's submission criteria before being offered for sale. The MarketPlace products have been used in a variety of venues from personal artwork to commercial projects.

Recognition

The top selling vendors are rewarded with various awards given out at the end of each year. Initially the only award given out was the Vendor of the Year - which was given to the vendor who had the most sales for the year. This has since been expanded to include the top selling new member that year (Rookie of the Year), the top selling product of the year (Most Valuable Product), and the vendor with the most number of products sold (All Star).

Site Design

Renderosity is owned by Bondware, Inc., and as a result Bondware provides the hosting and basic design of the site. Renderosity is also unique in that it occasionally allows members to choose what the site will actually look like.

"Front End" Design

Every two years, Renderosity holds a contest with its members to redesign the graphics of the website. Applicants submit their entries and the winner is selected by members of the community. The current design was submitted by user "Toxic Angel". Site design changes have occurred in 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2007. Users who are interested in older site designs/logos can usually find apparel with the old designs at Renderosity's CafePress store.

"Back End" Design

The infrastructure of the site is created and managed by Bondware, Inc. The customization and flexibility provided by the "Bondware" software allows Renderosity to easily provide not only a large community setting, but also a robust marketplace management system to easily track and pay vendors on the site.

External links

* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9500E1DB163DF935A15754C0A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all Make Fantasies in Your Spare Time, NY Times article]
* [http://www.renderosity.com/ Renderosity web site]
* [http://www.bondware.com/ Bondware, Inc web site]