Over the last few months I was thinking how and especially what i will change in my routine to be able to work on 3D-Sphere and finally release new tutorials and write some new articles and reviews. The truth is that my reasons for „pausing“ the work here was more than objectively, I became a father :). Now, if you are a parent you will understand that from this moment you have time only for your child and your try to use all of your free time to be with her or him and enjoy it. Hence, I decided to take a little break from here and focus on what is more important. Of course I came here from time to time, did some minor work, and so on but it really wasn’t anything which would bring new content here. As the time was passing and with it grew my child I decided to get back and restart the work here. Hmmm, the first try I made didn’t end up as I planned from the point of tutorials but at least I did a major upgrade to the site with a new design, new core at lots of improvements to make it faster, more attractive and light.
Even though my time is still limited I decided to give the Sphere another shot and try to do as much as I can to keep this site alive and with new content. I started, silently, working on the site few weeks ago, quite actively to be honest, and did again some changes to the core, fixed some bugs in the HTML / PHP code and adjusted the CSS. Yes, I know what you thinking, fixing the code by Joomla? It’s not about the CMS, it’s about the modules and components you use. You would be surprised what “miracles” are in the code and what everything you can improve. Those changes aren’t anything major but if you fix some bugs, you are getting closer to your goal. I also cleaned the forum from spam, lots of spam, tons of spam…. and started to work on new things. How and how long my positive attitude will stay, iam not sure but so far iam quite positive :).
What are the features and enhancements of 3D-Sphere 3.0?
As I mentioned above, while upgrading to 3D-Sphere 3.0 I decided to completely change the design of the website and also optimize the overall user experience. Therefore I have not only decided to completely change the appearance but also get rid of not crucial modules, JavaScript and components. All this together was determine by upgrading the core of the website, which as is usually went horrible wrong. The site was completely broken and the only thing I had was a backup of the database (of course the site) and bunch of folders and files which weren’t working. In this moment I got a brilliant idea, install a new instance of the core, transfer just the database and start over, and I did so. 3D-Sphere is now featuring a very lightweight and responsive template with the advantages of Twitter Bootstrap 3, enhanced module options, advanced microdata settings and lots more. The page index is absolutely renewed and gives the user all information he needs straight from the index. It’s also without any advertisement, which I decided to reduce even though it would be nice to finally get some payment from them :). The index should be representative and be the gate where the user explores your content, not a bunch of ads and banners at one place. New typography, smooth menus and modules, Bootstrap effects, tabs, and much more is what’s visually new on 3D-Sphere. The CSS files, JavaScript, API calls and overall size was reduce as well and I kept huge attention to make it as small as possible.
What features are planned?
There is always room for improvements. If are the changes small or big it doesn’t matter, the final result matters and on this I will focus also in the feature. One of, let’s say major, features iam planning is at last creating the download section I mentioned in the past many times. What will be the final content at the end, iam not sure but it will definitely include a material section with single material files for 3ds max and the option for users to create and upload they own content. You will have to register first, but it will be fun :). At this moment I changing the styles and appearance of the component for the section and as soon as it will be ready I will publish this section even without any content, just to make sure it would be published. I believe that some options, features, enhancement and changes would be even not noticeable for most of the users, but I would have a nice feeling that I did something good.
What is necessary to do?
While I updated the template its necessary to adjust also the visual appearance of some images which were adjusted for the old “dark” design. This is something which doesn’t affect the performance but you have to do it just to make the appearance nicer. Also, there would be always some background work which is necessary to do but it shouldn’t affect the website and you will not even notice it.
When a new tutorial will be released?
Now this is a good question. I have one tutorial ready for release about some Photoshop “magic” and plan to publish it within the next few weeks. After that I need to create new tutorials and even though I have nice ideas iam not sure how it will be going. I also decided to not only record tutorials but also write few, a written tutorial has several advantages and one huge for me, and I can write it also on the way. Hence, I believe that new tutorials would be coming.
How can you help?
Mostly I would like to finally publish a tutorial made by someone else not just by me. I really thought that this would happen from time to time but since the first website I never published a tutorial made by someone else expect the one “making of”. This is a bit sad :) but ok, you can’t have everything :). You can of course also donate, click on the ads just to generate some income which will pay for the hosting and stuff like this, give some feedback and ideas for improvements and similar things. There is lots of stuff which you could help with and iam open to everything.
