SceneCaster's Most Versatile Object?

It has appeared in almost 1500 scenes and counting – It gets used a lot for its intended purpose, don’t get me wrong. But it seems to be building a reputation as the foundation of many a great scene where you wouldn’t even recognize it.

Like here:



And here:



And here:



Here too:



Even here (yikes):



Any guesses?

Let’s just say I find it very a-MOOO-sing that so many of you have re-adapted the humble Cow Hide Rug to represent any number of amorphous, blob-like shapes. In the images above it has been called into action as a desert island, beach (twice), ocean and the infamous bloodstain under poor Jonathan.

Which brings me to my point: you do know that you can ASK for things, don’t you? Don’t leave this up to me; if I had my way we’d just keep adding to the interior design categories. Plus, look at how long it took me to figure out that you needed some oddly-shaped thingies to make your crazy scenes out of (they’re in the works, by the way). I’ve never been one to pick up on the subtler things.

So…what do you want? Flying saucers? Cheese and crackers? Miniature Army Men? A legion of monkey butlers in tuxedos (or is that just me?) Put a post on the Designer’s Den wall. I promise everything gets read and we really like keeping the modelers busy.

New Catalog Content

We're continually adding to our growing catalog of 3D content to help you create a greater variety of scenes. We'll soon be adding a Catalog Spotlight to our home page, so you can check for updates every time you visit SceneCaster. So...what's new?

"Thine Scene is Royally Awesome, Methinkest"
'Medieval Era' - 19 objects (including 8 nasty-looking weapons) so you can declare yourself King/Queen of your your own virtual kingdom and rule with your very own spiky-clubby thing...does anyone know the proper name for that?



Speaking of Weapons...
Under 'Themes > Cartoon Props' you'll find everything you need to play all of those horrible tricks you always dream about, but never do. Unleash your inner prankster:



In the Mood for Some Retail Therapy?
Check the Object Catalog under 'Interior Products > Retail' for 13 new store fixtures and clothing items: dress them up, dress them down, or even just tacky!



"Don't, stop! Don't stop!"
The 'Alphabet' category is now called 'Text' and we've added 'Punctuation and Symbols' to help you express yourself more clearly...which is pretty important:



Introducing Farrah
The latest addition to our '3D People' category. She's a bit of a drama queen, but you didn't hear that from me. She apparently doesn't like having her picture taken either:



Sick Of All That Glorious Fresh Air?
We've got 2 new cityscapes in the 'Textures & Art' catalog under 'Panormas': New York and Hong Kong. Thanks to SceneCaster Michael Jiang for his great suggestion; our real estate values have already tripled!

MixMaster 2008 Update

For those of you who haven't yet noticed the glaring yellow 'Contest' tab on the SceneCaster pages:

1 - Call your eye doctor immediately.
2 - Newsflash: we're having a contest! Create the scene that gets remixed the most times between now and May 9, 2008 and you'll win a 32GB iPod Touch from Apple! We'll even post the winning scene to our Templates page to inspire other budding SceneMasters.

So, what's a remix? A Remix is any scene which you create, which then gets saved by another SceneCaster user. Some early front runners have employed some great strategic maneuvres to get their scenes remixed. Among the brightest and most notable:

Help Me, I'm Wounded
Our current leader 'Pimpin House' sent out a request for assistance because his floor disappeared. Legions of altruistic SceneCasters immediately rushed to his aid to fix his scene.

Or how about 'I need help'? This SceneCaster published the floorplan of her new condo and asked for help decorating it. I liked this one so much I published it to the Scene Spotlight and spent the next 2 hours decorating it like the big design geek that I am.



Healing the World One Scene at a Time
Our current Queen of Scenes, Lesley Bergen came up with the ingenious 'Friendship Quilt' scene: 16 discreet minirooms, each begging to be completed. Easy, fast and fun with a great karmic aftertaste.



Subtle Like a Hand Grenade
SceneCaster's Version of J.K. Rowling, Diroshi Raja posted a link to her 'L'room with loft' scene on the Designer's Den wall and asked us to remix it...so I did. Obvious: maybe, effective: definitely!



We've still got 17 days of remixin' left and no clear cut winner yet, so grab a coffee, get comfortable and keep Remixing!

Scene Spotlight: Lessons in Being Famous

I know you're out there - every day thousands of you are checking the SceneCaster site: watching your ratings, reading your comments, hoping you're being remixed. And I know that in your secret heart you're hoping that today will be the day your scene gets chosen for the Scene Spotlight. It's a great honor to be sure: you'd be joining the ranks of some extremely large talent. Your scene views can go up by as much as 2500%, you'll make new facebook friends and you'll succeed in earning the respect of, well: me. So, what does it take to earn this position of respect? Some advice from the judging panel (again: me):

Camera Angle
Enough with the top down camera views, already! They're about as interesting as dryer lint. Before you hit that 'Save' button for the last time, choose a camera angle that draws the viewer into your scene:

Not like this:


More like this:


A Great Title/Description
Sorry, but 'My Scene 1a - incomplete' doesn't exactly cry out to be explored. Try to come up with something provocative, challenging even. Check out this beauty; the title was so good I gave a pass on rule number 1.

Links-a-Lot
Please, don't make us make this button any uglier: . Do we have to put a siren on top of it? It's there to help you enrich the experience of your audience. You can add links to any object AND you can link to any other scene. Observe a master SceneWeaver at work here:



That's it! 3 simple steps and you're ready for your close up. Think you've got the chops to impress us (and by 'us' I mean 'me')? Post the link to your scene on the Designer's Den wall. I promise I'll take a look and offer you my personal advice on how to steal the spotlight.

A SceneCaster Fairytale

Quite possibly the best Scene published since SceneCaster launched, A Fairytale is a 3D virtual storybook that follows the adventures of 3 characters on a mythic journey after being "vacuumed into the computer" while playing a game.



I've been in communication with the author, Diroshi Raja, creator of some of my personal favorite scenes. She reported to me that this story was inspired by the prompting of her young daughter who, after viewing her scene 'Dressing Up' "wanted to see the rest of this cartoon." I can't think of a better source of inspiration, or a better gift for your children. Please, please take a moment to view this great scene, share it with the children in your life and let it inspire you to do the same.

New and Improved SceneCaster

We've just posted a new release of SceneCaster which will require you all to update to our latest version the next time you launch the SceneCaster app. Like any software, we've done this for two reasons: more features and more fixes.

Features
Most importantly - we've added a contest tab to our site. Make sure to check out MixMaster 2008 to find out how you can use your SceneCasting skills to win an Apple iPod Touch...more to come on this in coming posts.
We've also added 'Related Scenes' to your Scene Details page which searches SC for scenes you might be interested in.

Fixes
Those of you who've reported that you've lost your scenes, they should be restored now. Also those of you who've had problems installing the app. because they've gotten stuck in an install loop, please try again now and report back to us.

As always, we want to hear from you: post your feedback to the wall on Designers Den or click on the 'Problems? Let us know' link under the search bar to let us know how you're doing.

Learning Your A-B-Scenes

They're kind of like refrigerator magnets: they're fun & colorful - you stick 'em up & spell stuff. You really seem to like them too, because they're pretty well buried in our Object Catalog, but they're still some of the most popular objects we've got. So, just to make your life a lot easier, I've posted them to the top level category in the catalog and now you can message to your heart's content. Just remember we haven't yet perfected spell check:

New Catalog Content - Japan & Turbosquid

We're continually adding to our growing catalog of 3D content to help you create a greater variety of scenes. Our latest additions include SceneCaster Japan Theme: a collection of 25 Japanese-inspired objects including samurai warriors, furnishings, artwork and more. We're keeping these objects in the top level of the Object Catalog for easy access.



Also, make sure to check out new content from our partner: Turbo Squid, the world's largest library of 3D products for sale in the world. You'll find 10 new models in the Object Catalog under Branded Products > Turbo Squid, including this handsome fella:



Anybody up for a battle for intergalactic supremacy?

The Return of the Ratings Widget

For those of you who have been lamenting the fact that the Scene Ratings feature is unavailable, you can lament no more. We did an update of our app yesterday that brought back this much-loved, yet somehow cutthroat widget (I'm still smarting from some 3-star ratings on some of my favorite scenes - ouch!)

So for those of you who've never done this before: from the Scene Details page for any scene (except your own), just click on the star rating you think appropriate. Like so:



Just remember that Karma is a wheel and you get back what you put out, so you might want to back up your ratings with a bit of friendly advice to the author by posting your comments to their scene as well.