that was a feature to set up

This Gallery-at-a-Glance page is the ideal thing for finding that few-year-old masterpiece I occasionally go back to.



But I have one suggestion, not for the gallery page, but for the comments page... Why doesn't it have a link back to the homepage?!



Heh, keep up the good work! Can't wait to see your next one!

Great idea. Makes things so much easier.

Ive been coming to DB since close to the beginning. I cant believe its over 10 years now. I was just looking through some of your work pre 2000. Im just amazed at the variety of images youve done over the years. Its also strange to see that each you seem to be creating fewer and fewer images each year. Would you say this is because you are concerned more with quality(not that the older images are bad) or is it because the images are more complex and take longer to render? Keep up the great work!

Yeah, I think it would be cool to have an easy way to download all your wallpapers of a certain resolution- possibly in one file so only one big download is needed. I would really like that since my family just bought a new computer, and the monitor we have now is bigger, but a different resolution than our previous one. Now all the wallpapers I had saved won't fit this monitor. Is there any way to set this up? It would really save a lot of time if I didn't have to go through and save them all one by one.



Even a "gallery at a glance" type page where you could check any wallpapers you want to download and then hit a "Download" button at the bottom would be nice.



Can't wait for the new wallpaper, and I really like the Gallery at a Glance- it makes it a lot easier to find a particular wallpaper if you don't know the name.

Thank you for the Gallery at a Glance. This makes it easy to review.

I like the new year based thumbnail pages. I actually thought that that was how it would be done the first time but never bothered to mention it. I guess I should voice my thoughts from now on.

i was wondering if you could put a link to a zip file that allowed you to get the size that you wanted of all the pictures so i can get them all real easy :)

nice idea, how about adding a page such as "works in progress" where you give us updates and what your next render or two may be like....

Nice work with the gallery! Very handy.



I would like to second (or is it third or fourth at this point) the suggestion for mouseover's showing enlarged thumbnails. It should be fairly simple to do and would make viewing them easier from the main G@aG page w/o having to click on a year.



My $0.02.

Much easier to see now.

Just wanted to say I finally became a member after using your free images since 2000ish.



Love what you are doing and have to say like an artist, you open up the imagination of those willing to see!



thanks again!



Jeremy

I, too, prefer fewer higher quality images to lots of mediocre ones. Plus, the old galleries had way too many abstracts, which I didn't find particularly interesting, since anyone can do abstracts. Exceptions are, of course, Fluorescence, Anemones and a few other wonderful abstracts.



Another trend is the noticeable decrease in the proportion of images with "magic" themes. We don't see skeletons, sorcerers or portals anymore. Maybe that has to do with Ryan's recent aversion of using figures, but it could also have to do with the fact that our artist is now a settled married man and a father of two, and no longer a geek in his 20s.



Hehe, something to think about ;)

Cheers

Excellent addition to the site.



Keep up the beautiful work.

Great Idea, I really like it.

I've been a member of your site for, probably, five years or so. I love your work and really enjoy watching you better yourself as an artist. The new thumbnail gallery is fantastic. I love being able to go back to the beginning and access images I couldn't find or just didn't have the time to search out. Thanks for sharing yourself with us. It's been a honor and I can't wait to see more...

YEs, I would love if you did the thumbnails view for the pickle jar! It takes a me while to go through the links to find stuff in there. I lost one of my favorite wallpapers, Water Test LightWave, (I love the sky in that one!) and had to go and re-download it and almost couldn't find it.

This is what Ive wanted for the pickle Jar!!!

this is an awesome start....

can you do it for the pickle jar????

I'm not one that leaves many comments, because it takes me about a year to express what I see. I just want to say that the gallery loads way much faster than my own that I setup with the images I've collected from you over the years.



Also, when I'm in a hurry for something to put my mood to desktop... bam! I just look at the gallery and poof! Image goes on desktop. Arrrr! Ok, here's some rum to you!

Being one of the newer members, it is nice to know the site is continually updated. The gallery is a perfect idea! It allowed me to see more of the images that are on the site. Making things easier is a good thing. There are so many amazing things on this site, and it seems many more to come.

That new at-a-glance page makes me feel old, because I remember when so many of those first came out and which of my past computers they were graced on. :)

Exactly what I wanted. Thanks for listening! :)

Love the gallery. I found many great images that I had not previously seen.

This is a really handy tool; I do have one suggestion. I don't know how good you are at Java, but you might want to try creating a Java interface where the thumbnails expand a bit when moused over. If not, then the existing menu is very practical and functional.



It's nice to see a tiled representation of your artwork all grouped together by year. Good stuff, Ryan!

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Now I can find things when I want to show off your work to friends and families.

I'd like to say nice job on the Gallery at A Glance. It's awesome to see everything you've done on a single page (even if with our slow New Zealand internet it takes 2 minutes to load...).



What I would really like, is a random image feature. For example, you click a button and it pops up with say 10 random images. I think this would be excellent, particularly with the size and scope of your gallery now. I'm sure there are a few gems floating around that I haven't seen yet.





Anyway, thanks for all your work, looking forward to the next image!

Mark

This is very nice. I wish you'd have done this back when I spent about an hour trying to hunt down "Gazebo". :-)



Thank you very much.

I LOVE THAT!!!



Thank you!!!

I'd say the pictures could be about 25-30% bigger and spaced out a little bit.



I LOVE the idea of this. It makes it easier to browse and lessens the need to download everything to our hard drives (which I've done anyway).

Hmmm... large number of lower quality pics, or smaller number of... oh forget it. Quality is why I am a lifetime member. Quantity I can get anywhere.



I only have 2 requests, 1) I agree with the idea of a voting system for an older image to be updated, and 2) More images from different places on the same world... like that moon of Thetis. Are there any cities there?



I prefer images that cannot be anywhere on Earth. However I have fully enjoyed everything I see.

Great feature, thank you Ryan.



Interesting to see how output has varied year to year. Will you ever have another year like 1998? :) Of course, there are many more resolutions and options offered in 2008 than there were 10 years ago, and I for one appreciate having all those variations.

Awesome! :)

Love it! Thanks!

No one else mentioned, but the one thing the gallery page lets you see (aside from less wallpapers every year) is just how much imagination one guy can have ;)



I've looked through every gallery at this site several times in the past and was always impressed with the amount of different themes you came up with over the years. It's lucky for us you never seem to run out of great ideas! :D

Someone mentioned a night version might not work with this image and suggested to maybe do the scene with a season change but I think this could look good as a night image. I'm picturing the scene at dusk with lightning bugs over the water (similar to Summerwood) and I think that could look cool :)



Also, I loved someone else's idea of taking a vote on which older wallpapers we'd like to see re-done. There've been dozens from the past where I thought how the subject of the scene was so cool but it was too bad the software wasn't as good back then as it is now. At least the top three of my favorites which I had always hoped to see updated version of are: "Twilight Harbor", "Passage" and "Creation".



As for suggestions for current stuff.. well, in the past, I loved when you'd put up a wallpaper with a magic theme like "White Magic", "The Summoning" or "Pyre" or a wallpaper with some cool-looking temple that looked like something from ancient Egypt or a cool casle like in the Castle Avalon wallpapers. You don't seem to have done anything with that sort of theme in a while.



In general, I've been really impressed with the work you've been doing lately. The quality is amazing and most of my favorites are stuff you've done in the past three years. "Lone Tree", "Circum Polar" and "Reverie" are my top three recent favorites. I don't usually like abstract stuff but I really loved "Dispersion" too.



Thanks for all the really great work!! :)

I also noticed there have been updates less often than in previous years but I think that is due to the increasing complexity of the software used to create the wallpapers. The render times do take hours/days. However, I am very pleased with the increasing quality of the artwork as the software got better and better. Ryan always had great ideas, it's only now they can be better realized with the latests software. I really enjoy whenever he goes back to make a new version of an older wallpaper that I had thought was cool. Most of the time the updated version is even better, like with Haiku or The Gardner, although I still prefer the original version of Song of the Sky.

Yes, this does make it more helpful for searching for a certain wallpaper but honestly, I always wondered why you just didn't have the gallery searchable by keywords. I don't always remember the name of a certain wallpaper even if I remember the subject of the wallpaper.

This ia great. I love the idea and it makes it so easy to find what your looking for. Thank you very much.

quality not quantity lol

Wow, look at all the pictures Ryan created in 1998, 1999, 2000



What happened the last few years?

His productivity has been low. Wonder if that has anything to do with moving across country and having 2 kids? :)



Careful Ryan, I may want a pro-rated refund from my lifetime subscription. Or maybe anything less than 30 wallpapers a year and you have to add 1 more year to my account.



I do like the new page... can't believe you created all those picts

Perfect! This is a great feature. It's now so much easier to quickly find a wallpaper for a rapid shift in mood, color, brightness... whatever. It might just make me change it up more often.

This is actually really helpful and cool to see. It kind of sums up at a glance how your work has grown. I had never actually seen some of the oldest wallpapers you've done, but they're also really neat.



I'd love to see some of the old wallpapers re-done or at least with more modern screen size ratios. There are some really cool ones in there.

Well done - I really like it and it makes your page much easier to navigate. Thanks!

I like the proposed Pictures-At-A-Glance page. You can easily find the image you are looking for and the page loads quickly (for me).

I love the latest. I keep getting comments about it on my work computer, my co-workers can't believe it was done on a computer. Great work Ryan!

I love the new at a glance gallery page. One great addition would be something that when you hover an image it fetches a larger version and pops up a little preview window, AJAX style.



Also as far as new material goes I also would love to see some differnt sorts of wallpapers. A new planetscape would be GREAT!

Just by glancing at the thumbnails I can tell if I've seen the image before or not... I just found 3 that are new to me.

Thank you for doing this! I LOVE IT!

Just looking at the page and seeing more tiny boxes doesn't actually show you the full picture.



Ryan's quality has *definitely* gone up the past few years. Part of it is that the technology is starting to catch up with his imagination, and part of it is that he has a lot of skill.



Looking back at the first few years, yes, there are a lot of little thumbnails. However, for me at least, a good 50% of them are ones that I simply don't care for.



Looking at the past couple years, there are a lot fewer little thumbnails. However, for me again, a good 90% of them are ones that I *DO* care for.



I prefer the slower process that Ryan has adapted because it has produced stunning, high quality pieces that I enjoy as my desk top for weeks or even months at a time.



I love having night and day images of the scenery. I love having different color choices. I love that he sees the feedback and tries to tweak the image a bit in order to come closer to a product he is proud of.



Quality is obviously not something that is able to be produced 3 times a week.



The membership is $25 for the first year and $15 after that. If I spend $40 for two years and get 40-50 new wallpapers for my computer that I can *download* and keep forever......... Then I've paid less than $1 per image.



Considering the hundreds of images that he has produced in the past 10 years.... that we are all able to download even if our membership lapses.... We don't have much to complain about. :)



Sorry for the rant!

I love the thumbnails!!

Looking at your "Gallery at a glance" page, it seems like every year you make fewer and fewer images.



What is the reason for that?

oh thank you thank you thank you!



I love your work and this feature has just made it even more enjoyable to visit!

Oh, thank you! So often, I am "in the mood" for a particular image,but I do not recall the name or the year. This makes it so much easier for me to find the particular work of art that I need on my computer gallery that day.

Very nice... been hoping for this for quite awhile now...

Ryan,



In lieu of some constructive and not so constructive criticism just remember this old quote:



"You can't please everybody...and if you try to your an idiot"



-Jerry Lewis



Just keep doing your thing buddy!

The reason your projects are taking you much longer on average lately is because they are mainly scenery images.. I think these take you longer to complete than abstracts and planetscapes due to their complexity.. In addition, you make night and day versions of almost all your scenery images, which also adds to the length of the project



As a result, we may have more options with the available scenery images, but we see fewer original scenery images and fewer abstracts and planetscapes (personally my favourite)



I think it would be wise to stick with a night or a day version of a scenery image and then move on to a new project, so that we may see more original works!

Ryan,



I love the Gallery! Thank you for adding it!



pat----

This is truly one of your best ideas!

Thank you!!! I dont know how many times its taken me going through almost your whole collection looking for cretin ones. This makes things so much easier and looks really good. Good job with the update good sir.

I love this idea, thanks for implementing it!!!

I love this, it is cool! This will make looking over old images so much easier.



My first suggestion is that I'd like to see a few pixels of space between the thumbnails like someone else also suggested.



Also, if it's not too much work, it might be nice to have the thumbnails just slightly bigger, maybe increase the width from 45 pixels to 55 or 60, just to get a bit more clarity. Some of the images are really hard to see. It will increase the scroll length of the page, but probably not by too much. It would probably add just 1 or 2 rows to each section.

I noticed in your thumbnails you recently posted that you have a trend sorta. minus the first year, you've been making less and less backgrounds per year every year since then.







BREAK THE TREND! I have faith in you! I trust you can do this for us members.







make our membership super awesome by spoiling us with more backgrounds and break that unhealthy trend! eventually you'll be doing like 8 a year.







keep it up keep it up!!!! :-D!

Another thought. If you feeling ambitious, an idea would be to have a page dedicated all to abstracts, nature, planetscapes, etc. I usually wind up frustrated when all i can find is the top 10 of each when i'd prefer to go though the whole lot of them. Whether page by page or at a glance, it would be a worthy and appreciated addition to your page.

This pretty much just made my day. Its a wonderful feeling to know that one voice can be heard and inspire something as awesome as this. I'm really happy you created this gallery, especially because it's an idea i've been pulling for for a long while, and it turned out splendidly.



There is one small thing i would really enjoy seeing added/modified onto this. The fact that we can see all your works put on one page is wonderful. What I'd like to see is that when one selects a year of wallpaper's they'd like to see further, have it go to another at a glance page with just that specific year's wallpapers, preferably with about 1" thumbnails, or at least something a little larger and more visible.



Thanks for keeping your loyal followers in mind.

I agree with Russ- it would be really cool to see some of your older wallpapers redone with newer technology and software. There are a ton of great ideas in those old '98 and '99 pics, and the only thing holding them back is (relatively) poor graphics (compared to your newer wallpapers).



I'll go ahead and put in a vote for "Castle II" (1997 Scenery). :)



"Fortress" (1997 Scenery) would be cool too.

I like the Gallery at a Glance, but would love to have slightly larger thumbnails. These are so small that's it's hard to see the image content. I know that it's a bandwidth/screen real estate/quality trade-off, though, so I really can't complain. Thanks for all the great work!

Ryan,



While we are on the topic of ideas for increasing the happiness of your patrons/visitors I had another suggestion.



I viewed the galleries at a glance and went back and looked at some of your early works that I haven't viewed in years. The difference is astounding between what you are creating now and what you created in years past. I would assume that you have always been talented but some of your olders works were limited in detail due to the limitations of your software/computer. I look at some works and think how great they could be if you were able to render them with today's abilities. So I have a suggestion.



Make a link to a voting area where members can pick three of your "older" works to be revisited/revamped. Then every 6 to 8 weeks, or whenever you get bored, maybe you could "touch up" the top vote getter. I don't see anything wrong with taking a classic and improving upon it.



Lastly, you would have to name this new part of the DB website. I would like to throw out "Ryan Remastered" as a possible name.



Whatever you do remeber "Quality over Quantity"!

Love the idea for gallery at a glance!

I particularly enjoy when you re-work scenes with different lighting or for a different season. If you're looking for feedback, suggestions or inspiration, I think an orange/yellow fall version with morning or evening light would be brilliant. The grass and lily pads would still be green, but the leaves would be turning. The effect of the contrast could between the green and gold might be stunning.



I don't think a night version would work very well unless it were in the winter when there's a lot less foliage blocking the light. The scene is so lush and dense as it stands now. Night scenes would just be too muted in the spring or summer.



Whatever you decide to do, don't force it. You've clearly got great intuition for this stuff.

I think it's interesting to see how your annual output has changed. I suspect it correlates with marriage and fatherhood, eh?

that is a thing of beauty

I love the gallery at a glance.

"Wow!"



That was my first thought. It really works well, and my only suggestion would be to add a bit of a spacing between each image for clarity. Just as thin as a few pixels even. I know the table command can do this really easy with invisible cell borders having a thin border; but other than that, its an awesome idea!



ALSO

Still looking forward to some triple 1920x1200 renderings.

Thats awesome. Great feature!!

Good work! Definitely makes DigitalBlasphemy much easier to navigate (esp. for those still on dial-up, haha)

Great idea! That will save me lots of time looking for one of your older posts. Thanks!