I'm just wondering what the file sizes will be like on these animated wallpapers. Anyone have ideas on these ? Thanks.



Louie



Boston, MA

I know what you are saying about when you mention "noise" in the animation. A common "solution" is to disable any jitter.

As the jitter add some random static noise, it help in stills, to make things look smoother, but does just the oposite in animations as that noise change from frame to frame..

You don't have to use javascript for the menus. If you google "css flyout menu" you will find lots of links to menus that act the same as a javascript menu, with just the css. Less buggy, not reliant on javascript being enabled and much easier to maintain.



One example (the top one from google)"http://www.cssplay.co.uk/menus/flyoutt.html"

The new menu system is fine as far as it goes, but I'm not overly fond of any menu of that type for two reasons. The first is that I have my screen resolution and mouse resolution both rather high, and it can be a bit touchy mousing over a small target easily. I'll often get just a bit to the left of where I want to be while scrolling down a menu, and as soon as I hit a different category off to the left that window pops up instead and I have to go back up. Its not painfully hard, just occasionally annoying.



The second problem is just that I tend to browse most sites with javascript disabled (noscript plugin for Firefox), which makes it completely impossible to browse the site since there doesn't seem to be any alternate method to browse the site. Its hard to really fault you for this and it's easy enough just to re-enable javascript, but I do tend to prefer sites that don't force people to use javascript (or, god forbid, flash).



To fix both problems, I'd suggest making the main categories in the menu (the "newest", "top 10", "2008", etc.) link to a page relating to that catagory/year, with further links on that page to the subcategories. Even without javascript, I can still get to the newest page, because that is linked directly without a menu attached. For the top 10, making it a redundant link to "top 10->all images" should be easy, and the subcategories are already there at the top of that page for further refinement. It looks like the most work would be in making a similar "all images" page for each year.



This might also give people a workaround if their browser is causing problems with the menu code.

adding to what Theo said about finding wallpapers quickly, it's be really cool if you could put tags on each wallpaper so you can search for them by keyword - an even faster way to find the wallpaper you want instead of browsing through a bunch of thumbnails and possibly missing it because your eyes are like "OMG colors!"



anyways, yeah - that'd be a great expansion to the site, to make it more user-friendly. :)

The menu's are looking really cool and work just fine for me. Fine addition to your page and make manuvering very simple.



On another note, something I have always wanted from your page is an easy way to find the perfect wallpaper you happen to be looking for at any given time. Recently enough, I scoured this entire site looking for one wallpaper that I had admired in years past. It was a day scene with japanese houses built into a hill i believe, or something to that effect. But it became frustrating because I had no idea of the title of the piece nor any knowledge of the year it was created.



What I'm proposing is that if there was any way possible, you could make another page on here that would effectively be "Wallpaper at a Glance". Something as simple as a huge page of wallpaper thumbnails similar to the ones used on the main page while not logged in. This compilation would be a marvelous addition to your site, a better way to show off your work quickly, and actually helps people like me who enjoy changing their background multiple times a week to fit their mood or thoughts. Just something to consider while you're updating the site :)

Man i had trouble finding the login link for 2 days since you changed the link layout lol.... i feel stupid.. but maybe you could put the login link on the front page??... just a thought.. Cheers

I love that you are starting to do some dreamscenes. That is pretty much all I use any more. I to would love to see a haiku dreamscene. Dispersion wasn't my favorite wallpaper, but I suppose when you finish I will give the animated version a try.

Why do you bother with them at all?



The number of people who can even USE DreamScenes are pretty small, as it is limited to Vista Ultimate and nothing else. On the other hand, pretty much anybody can enjoy a standard wallpaper. :)

In light of another poster's comment about making a Dreamscene which changes from daylight to night. Another interesting possibility would be taking your Seasonal Forest image (Autumnwood, Winterwood) and have a Dreamscene where it morphs between the four over a time period but not necessarily 24 hours.

I like the new link menus, but I would prefer a new link to everything from the year, rather than being limited to the Top 10 and the categories.



I look forward to seeing this new Dreamscape.

While you're at it, you may want to



* merge posters, shirts and gift certificates under "shop DB"; security and privacy; faq and support; rss, email updates, my yahoo and my aol; free site and user gallery under "free galleries"; and maybe even put galleries, collections and pickle jar into one expandable.



* disable Renew Membership for lifetime members, or put it inside account info.

I am using IE 6 and I was having some trouble with the menus the first day, but it is fine now.



The only problem is the 1997 Scenery. The correct page name is s1.shtml but the menu goes to ds1.shtml. I get a "Page Cannot Be Found" error.

Dispersion is it? Interesting, I'm looking forward to that one.



Here's an optimistic suggestion for a Dreamscene - animate a wallpaper that had good enough feedback to get both night and day versions. If it's possible, slow the frame rate down so the changes are subtle and have the playback loop last 24 hrs. I guess you'd have to start the scene at noon, and that rendering the different light sources in different positions would probably be a nightmare, so I don't anticipate seeing this any time soon - maybe something for the render farm to handle while you're on vacation sometime. Looking forward to it none the less.

I love the new menu's. As I'm a pilot, simplicity of navigation is something I love. I'm glad you reduced the clutter.



Regarding the Dreamscene stuff I'm SO glad your starting to do this, Since I've upgraded my laptop, and since it shiped with vista - i've been using dreamscenes, but none that vista gave by default ;p



I'm SO glad your dabbling in this area because your work imo blows away the competition :) I agree with a few other cementers, any chance we could get a still of what you were working on?



Also, as a request, any chance you could do a dreamscene for Haiku (2007)?? I think that would make an excellent scene.

Menus seem like a great idea, but they don't appear to be working in my version of Safari. 3.1.1(5525.18).

It too was not working for me, but a quick trip into Software Update with the updates for both Java and Safari installed, it now works perfectly. Thanks Ryan!

Ryan, any chance of posting a single frame form the Dreamscene so we know what we're waiting for? I'm looking forward to this!

Ryan, the menus are rockin'! It's very nice to not have to scroll forever to get to the link that you want. Kudos.



Also, as for the Dreamscene, I think that quality trumps all. Looking forward to seeing it, even if I don't have Dreamscene to use it. :)

Great idea consolidating the menus like you did. Cant wait till next week and that new wallpaper!

LOVE the new menus! Great idea!

I love the new design and menus. Sadly they don't work right with Safari 3 on Mac (Leopard). I can use Firefox ok though, so not a huge issue.

Take you're time with that animation stuff... sounds like the animated wallpaper will be worth waiting for!



And I love the new menus, it's so painless to get what you want to now :)



Thanks

The links under the year 2000 point to items in 2001!, only the top 10 is correct.

They cleaned up the side area a lot! Hope you had fun messing around with the animation and can't wait for your next still.