PDA

View Full Version : So the work is starting



ZERO
07-26-2008, 03:01 PM
I have told a few of you that I was planning on building a new website for the home page, ect. of IBIS Gaming. Well today I finished my first step, new brushes! With over 1700+ brushes I can now make some really cool looking graphics. I plan to make the nav non flash but the site will have some flash usage. In addition to visual improvements, I plan to preform major content overhauls on the site. I already have 2 large papers typed up that I plan to put on the site and I will be working on other small ones. I also want to start a system that will allow users to submit articles to be published on the site. Who knows, maybe in the future I will start a system where you can get a free reserved slot for X time if you write some popular articles.

In addition to a new site layout and design I plan to release a series of art work and other multimedia items to promote IBIS Gaming. Things such as: in game sprays, forum signatures, desktop backgrounds, screen savers, counterstrike menu mods, and backgrounds, boot screens, and maybe even login screens. All of which will be themed around the new site. You may even see some additional changes to the forums graphics, however the overall theme of the forums will remain the same.

I do a lot of work on the servers but keeping everything up on the web end is important to. I want the great community of IBIS to have the website it deserves. This is why I want to make a new one from the ground up! I have learned a lot over the last year and although I am not studying HTML, AJAX, JAVA, PHP, SQL, or FLASH in school I still think that the things that I have learned on my own over the last year will greatly help me to improve this site and give us one of the best looking and laid out designs on the internet :assault:

Thank you all for your support of IBIS! Without all of you none of this would be possible. I am only one man, and one man can only accomplish so much. But with the support of a great community it is much easier to push yourself to new heights. I thank you all once again from the bottom of my heart. It is you who make IBIS GREAT :wtg:

deprodigy
07-26-2008, 03:55 PM
nice, when do you think you'll get to the index? this sounds like a 6 month job here.
I like your idea on articles... but they don't have to be all on whips do they?!

ZERO
07-26-2008, 05:58 PM
No this is for IBISGaming.com not ibis street syndicate

What will take the longest is creating the graphics and theme. After that it usually only takes me about 2 hours to code a 10 page site by hand.

vicious
07-26-2008, 06:25 PM
Ah that's cool, i need a new screen saver for sure lol.

Btw zero, your avatar is creeping me out.

Stamp
07-27-2008, 12:18 AM
Ah that's cool, i need a new screen saver for sure lol.

Btw zero, your avatar is creeping me out.

Glad I'm not the only one...lol

Almost looks like his avatar is... beatin it... if you catch my drift.

New site sounds cool, Zero. Also sounds like you've got a lot of work on your desktop but you're more than motivated to challenge yourself into doing it.

I don't mind the $2 a month, though, although it is a good incentive for people to remain active not only in the servers but in the forums/on the site. Plus I enjoy the IBIS servers, Zombie Mod especially, so the $2 isn't all that hard to part with.

ZERO
07-27-2008, 12:58 AM
So tonight I started playing with some of the new brushes that I added and tried getting a feel for gimp 2.4

This stuff was just messing around having some fun but you can see some of the effects that I can do now. I am off to bed tonight but now I have a better idea how some of the brushes work.

ZERO
07-27-2008, 05:53 PM
Ok so here is my first attempt at making a new banner.

What do you all think?

The second one is without canvas.

+Project.S+
07-27-2008, 06:07 PM
i like it :wtg:

ZERO
07-27-2008, 06:11 PM
For those who want a cool IBIS Gaming ZM spray or just want one that is awesome:

ZERO
07-27-2008, 06:13 PM
Anyone want a sig:

Dual
07-27-2008, 06:15 PM
Yeah pretty nice, just alittle dark, I think.

D-Monic
07-27-2008, 06:47 PM
So tonight I started playing with some of the new brushes that I added and tried getting a feel for gimp 2.4

This stuff was just messing around having some fun but you can see some of the effects that I can do now. I am off to bed tonight but now I have a better idea how some of the brushes work.

i really like that red/yellow/blue image. it's cool

ZERO
07-27-2008, 07:46 PM
Yea I thought the same thing, but I do really like how the test ended up after I added the drips and stuff. I think the spray is really cool

dublin
07-28-2008, 06:34 PM
wow sounds pretty sweet :D

Stamp
07-28-2008, 09:47 PM
Lookin' good Zero. Looks as though that motivation has been kickin' in, eh?


Hell, worse comes to worse, at least you changed that avatar, lol.

ZERO
08-13-2008, 01:52 AM
So today I made some major progress with the layout that I want. I have really been thinking about what would be most functional for the type of content while looking good and being easy to manage. I decided to go with a 3 panel layout like the one I have now except the two panels will be reversed. The layout will be more simular to bit-tech.net (http://www.bit-tech.net)except that the center panel is going to be wider to accommodate different shaped modules that will be wider than the ones I use now. I do plan to use the same heading system that they use so that the headers are more centered on the screen. In addition to that the text for the left panel will be on the left side with the image to the right just like it is on that site. This is to prevent a content overflow in the center. I also plan to write the article listing in php code that reads the data off of an xml file so that I can easily update it and so that the very same xml file can be read by you all as the actual head line feed. I might even program the same thing to handle the articles themselves.

Originally I was going to use a content management system, but then I saw that it was going to be too hard to learn their language and code to make a template that looked really good on my own. So instead I have basically decided to make my own content system by using php scripts and xml code. This will probably be better in the long run as I can re make the grafix in the site easier and the site it's self will not be reliant on databases. In laymens terms the site will be really fast and not have any chance of producing errors while at the same time be very dynamic and 100% hard coded by me. :wtg:

The.Beast.13.
08-13-2008, 02:40 PM
Sounds great!! keep the good work!!! much appreciate!!

Peace

ZERO
08-17-2008, 06:00 PM
I wanted to let you all know that I think that I am going to divide the new site into two versions to decrease release time. Version 1 will be the new website looking the exact way I want it too except that it will be 100% hand updated with raw code. Version 2 will replace the content part of the site with dynamic html generation. There should be no noticeable difference between the two versions for you. The second version will just be much much faster to update and regulate.

A main reason for this is that I currently already have a lot of new content waiting for the new site that is not yet available to you. Another reason is that I want to be able to deliver fresh content to you as soon as possible in the short and long term. (not just in the long term) Therefor the separation of this project into two parts has become apparent. I should also note that doing it this way will make it easier for me to simply hire a more skilled php programmer if I am unable to make the dynamic content generation part on my own.

I thank you all again for you continued support of IBIS Gaming and I just want to let you all know that I am doing all of this so that you all can have a great site with great content in the shortest time frame possible. Why, well because you deserve it! :wtg:

ManBearPig <ibis>
08-17-2008, 06:18 PM
http://homerderby.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/were-not-worthy.jpg

WERE NOT WORTHY!

D-Monic
08-18-2008, 10:29 AM
cant wait to see it zero:wtg:

Steamer
08-18-2008, 03:22 PM
Me either. Forums work very well now and cant wait to see the new site counterpart.

Squalus
08-20-2008, 01:19 PM
Can't wait to see the new site design. I have recently been working on a Server Status module for another site (built in Flash) that you are more than welcome to use.

You can see a demo here --> http://groovetoast.com/ibiszombie/

Let me know if your interested and we can modify it to better suit the new site design.

**Edit** Just to show you how it can be modified, here is the one I am creating for another site: http://www.groovetoast.com/server_query.html . Once complete it will replace the GameTracker modules on the frontpage of http://www.mistresshaven.com .

ZERO
08-21-2008, 04:11 PM
So here is a new test logo I made what do you guys think. I want to do more to bring out the text in the center but all I can think of so far would be to put an explosion in the middle and then have the text over that.

Steamer
08-21-2008, 04:38 PM
I like it alot better than whats there now. Yea, replacing the black splatter in the center with a grenade explosion would look pretty cool.

ZERO
08-22-2008, 12:28 AM
I am not too good with explosions i tried a few times and they were really bad. If anyone could make a cool one that you think would match I could try it. :wtg: