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tsumea

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Feedback for problems, suggestions, and anything else relating to the website

HOTMAIL AND GMAIL: problems registering or recovering password and using those email services?

Forum

Just a note for new members trying to register using a Hotmail or GMail email addresses, and users who had registered with those email services and have tried to recover their password on tsumea but don't receive any email with instructions on how to proceed with that.

Hotmail have our IP address on their block list which means none of the emails that tsumea emails to complete account registration or password recovery will be received. tsumea has never sent mass emails, but the guess is other web developers with the same web host as us are repeat offenders of that, so Hotmail have decided to block a whole range of IP addresses that our web host allocated to their clients.

So, from this point on, no more Hotmail registrations will be accepted, unfortunately - you'll have to use another email service. If you're trying to recover your account and you registered with a Hotmail email address, send me a message via twitter or facebook (links at the bottom of the page) and we'll sort it out.

GMail registrants - I can see in my logs that some of you register and receive your registration email to complete your registrations and log in fine, but I can also see others register and request a new password straight away a few times which tells me that you're not receiving the email to complete registration. Please check your spam folder in the case it may have been moved there, otherwise you'll have to contact me (Facebook or Twitter) and I can sort your account for you. Unfortunately, I cant communicate via email as obviously I use a tsumea email address which your web service is having issues with.

Is it possible to get a news feed of all upcoming job postings specific to your skills?

Forum

The subject title says it.
Basically, can we get emailed about artist jobs (if we're artists) or by another's case, programming jobs, etc.

Is this possible? I have no doubt this would be very helpful to someone trying to keep their head down to add to their portfolio in between job searching.

Warm regards,

Simon.

Submitted by souri on Wed, 10/01/18 - 11:06 AM Permalink

You can get a news feed, but it'll have to be in RSS form. An email subscription method like what you mentioned could be implemented but the RSS way is a much more efficient for the site and still convenient for users (everyone should be using an RSS feed reader to keep an eye out on their favourite sites, devlogs etc!)

The way to get the link to a RSS feed on tsumea should be a lot more obvious, but for the meantime, you get it via the tagging system. So, let's say you open up this job ad for a 3D artist:

http://www.tsumea.com/news/191217/3d-artist-remote-contract-for-boomera…

You'll see a clickable link for the 3D Artist tag under the heading:
Job Position type: 3D Artist

Click on that link and you'll get to a page listing all the latest jobs for 3D Artist. Here's where it gets a bit complicated. You'll have to view the page source to get the rss feed link. Search the html source in that page for "http://www.tsumea.com/taxonomy/term/" and you'll get the link to add to your RSS feed reader. Here's a few examples.

For 3D Artists, the link would be: http://www.tsumea.com/taxonomy/term/283/feed
Unity related jobs: http://www.tsumea.com/taxonomy/term/688/feed
Programmer: http://www.tsumea.com/taxonomy/term/204/feed
Senior Programmer: http://www.tsumea.com/taxonomy/term/336/feed
All Sydney related job ads: http://www.tsumea.com/taxonomy/term/187/feed
All Melbourne related job ads: http://www.tsumea.com/taxonomy/term/192/feed

It should be a whole lot more easier to access the RSS feed link and I'll see about fixing that sometime, but I've just been pretty busy with my own game dev project.

Submitted by Simon Heggie on Wed, 10/01/18 - 1:07 PM Permalink

The effort separates those who want a job, to those who NEED a job :)

Thanks!

Simon.

Error trying to change banner image and change of username does not appear on profile page.

Forum

HI I am very new to this website and I am having a couple of issues.

I uploaded a banner as the wrong size for my profile page but now I have one the correct size. When I try to remove the previous one one i keep getting an error that wont let me remove it. Also when I change my username It doesnt appear as my profile name.

Lastly how do I upload artwork to the page? Sorry for all the questions. I'm a bit of a noob on this site.

Submitted by Spencer Ford on Thu, 08/06/17 - 11:05 AM Permalink

this is the error - An error occurred while attempting to process /file/ajax/profile_main/field_background/und/0/form-atFbHE8VqmG0308rC0quz1gSHYh8gylmawjki04fK6E: $(...).find(...).off(...).popover is not a function

Submitted by souri on Thu, 08/06/17 - 3:11 PM Permalink

I tested removing my banner myself and reuploaded it without a problem. Not sure what happened there in your case. When you change your username, it might take 10 to 30 minutes for you to see the changes the site because of how long the site caches its pages. Same with when you post something or upload an image, it appears on the site within 10-30 minutes usually. I'm guessing all those issues you've encountered have been sorted? I can see your profile is using the new name, profile background, and you're posting images etc

Submitted by souri on Thu, 08/06/17 - 4:45 PM Permalink

I've deleted your profile background image for you, so give the upload another shot. I could see your new username in use whether I was logged in or not, so that's pretty strange. In any case, I just cleared the site's cache, so you should definitely see the changes now.

Submitted by souri on Tue, 13/06/17 - 4:31 PM Permalink

Could you give it another shot? I'm guessing it's to do with the version of jquery I have on the site, so I've dropped down to an older version. Maybe try uploading on another browser too.

tumea site update news

Forum

Ok, I used to regularly post website updates and since I've been working heavily on the site for these past few weeks, I thought I'd continue doing just that in this new thread. For the major updates (such as the upcoming new game section), I'll make a more thorough journal post under my other tsumea account, but here's some things I've completed lately...

The Member's Dashboard
I moved all the member's menus (post jobs, post journals, etc) that were cluttering the main page to a new handy Dashboard page made for members. When you log in, you'll see additional links in the menu on the top of the page to access the dashboard as well as some other common member functions (unread messages count and logging out). The dashboard is really cool, it's got all the links to find all your posts, jobs, favourited work, bookmarks, and private messages. And if you've been following other members on tsumea, you'll get a wall of their latest work, job, and forum posts on your dashboard. If you haven't followed anyone yet, then you'll just see who I'm following. In the very near future, I'll make an rss feed available for your dashboard so that you can hook up your rss reader and see updates from who you're following without needing to log into tsumea.

It would be cool to have another column in there to see what the member's you're following have favourited recently - I'll have to look into how I can implement that.

The Gallery
The member's dashboard wall uses the new gallery framework I've implemented throughout the site which resizes the layout nicely depending on your browser size. It's everywhere now, in the main gallery section, and all the other pages (programmer, 2D artist, 3D artist etc). Members who have more than nine posts with art get their own gallery section which have it as well. Hover over the image in the gallery and you'll get the title and the avatar of the member who uploaded that work which is much nicer than just having their name under the picture, and it makes the gallery more compact this way too. There was some additional work getting the new gallery framework to work with the site (making it update it's layout whenever a new ajax call was made for the next page or section), but that's all sorted now.

The Media Section
The media section is/was a pretty popular section of the site, but as part of our move away from aggregating content from other sites and focussing on the content from our own members, it is going away as well. I have plans to bring it back when members post more of their own media in greater numbers to warrant a media section to replace the old one with. We'll see, it might happen with the new changes coming on the site.

Just some brief words on the new games section - it's pretty much near finished. There was a point where I had to rip out and redo what I had already implemented because I had thought of a much different and better solution (from a usability point of view). It's simply better to get it right from the get go than having to adjust things later around the old implementation. I can't wait to get it completed and start using it myself. There's also something else I have planned to implement for the games section which I'll need to research and see if I can even implement it, but I think it'll be an incredibly useful feature for our members who make games. More about that later.

Submitted by souri on Thu, 20/08/15 - 12:55 PM Permalink

For those who didn't notice, the site looks very different at the moment. I've thrown away all the old CSS I've added and maintained over the years, and I've started again with the purpose of making the site adapt to various screen sizes (from phone and tablets, right up to desktop). The standard way of building web pages has changed drastically over the years to accommodate changing and emerging technologies, and it's very much time to get on board with latest way of doing things.

Back in the 00's, you'd use tables to layout your web pages, then as the rise and benefits of CSS became apparent, you'd use that to layout everything. Then you'd make it a liquid design so that pages would stretch when visitor's screens ranged from the lowest (800 pixels wide) to the largest (1200 to 1400 pixels wide). This was good until after 2007 with the rise of mobiles, tablets, and larger resolutions, so responsive/adaptive design was the solution. tsumea had a liquid design which did fall back to very small screen widths, but it wasn't a completely responsive/adaptive solution. It is now, however.

It's still a work in progress - a whole lot of fine-tuning is needed to make sure it looks perfectly right on smartphones, and I've got to re-add back some of the features I had implemented previously with the old site, but it's getting there slowly! Give it a few weeks of more work and polish, and it'll be great.

Submitted by souri on Thu, 27/08/15 - 11:37 AM Permalink

Currently working on a few things. The new responsive design is still very much a work in progress, and I'm adjusting a few ways in the backend to optimise how the site runs or to make to it a lot more efficient for maintaining and updating, but in between that work, I'm also changing how member's avatars appear on the site.

For members who have been registered on tsumea for more than 2 years, they'll get a coloured ring around their picture, starting off with red. Every two years after, it changes to another colour, so the next would be pink, then orange, yellow, lime, green, and so on right up to blue. So, a quick way to know how long someone's been registered : no colour = under 2 years, and the spectrum from red to blue is 2 to 16+ years. tsumea has been around for 13 years, so no one has blue just yet.

An additional plan is to have some more information on the user as you hover their avatar like amount of pictures they've uploaded to their gallery, how many favourites overall they've had, how many followers etc. The general idea is to give some more information about members at a glance than going to their profile page for it.

Submitted by souri on Thu, 03/09/15 - 9:36 AM Permalink

I've provided members more options when they list themselves as available for projects. Previously, it was a simple checkbox to select when you edit your profile and you'd be listed in the appropriate talent section (2D Artist etc) as available for projects.

But since there are many ways you could be available for projects, like full-time work, freelance / contract, or maybe you want to be listed as available for collaborations instead (commercial ventures or unpaid like game jams)), those options are now available too. Best of all, in the talent sections (2D artists, 3D artists etc), others can find members based on their specific availability. So if I were to find a programmer who was up for a game jam collaboration, that'd be easy to find.

So, since these options are now available, I highly recommend members updating their profiles to list their availabilities more accurately!

Submitted by souri on Wed, 16/09/15 - 2:40 PM Permalink

I've noticed a few people posting their games in the games section, so I thought I'd post a status on things, particularly since it's still heavily in development. Some quick notes:

- Games page look and functionality (slideshow etc) back to where it was before we changed over to the new responsive design. Looks good on mobile screens
- Devlog portion for games is nearly complete. Contains a gallery (sorted by latest, popular etc), journal posts, and latest comments (to be implemented) related to work-in-progress content
- The server had to be updated and a whole bunch of things installed to get webm implemented for journal posts. The purpose of webm videos will be to provide short, low bandwidth but fast loading, quality animation to show off the game in devlogs and the games listing. Was gonna go with gifs, but chose webm instead.

There's a whole bunch of things left to do, including

- listing the games in the games section and the main page in a better way (really haven't touched this yet)
- providing an infograph or a set of instructions on how the games section works. It's pretty straight forward - first, you create a game page with all the relevant details. To get content associated to that game page, you have to make a journal post and select the game in question from the dropdown. Select the checkbox for 'work-in-progress' if you want this to appear in the Devlog portion of the games page, otherwise it will appear in the main game page

Submitted by souri on Thu, 24/09/15 - 11:29 AM Permalink

Ok, apart from a few tiny little things I need to fix and implement here and there, the new games section is complete. You can use it to post your complete or work-in-progress games, have it listed in the games section.If it is a work-in-progress game, you can post devlogs to it for others to follow. The instructions are available on how you do that when you post a journal, but it's all pretty straight forward.

My plan was to promote this new section once it was completed, but having thought more about it, I want to finish two other major features related to the games section that I had in mind before doing so. While that's being worked on, I'm planning to work on some game prototypes and use the new games section myself to iron out anything or discover improvements I can make with it.

Submitted by souri on Sat, 03/10/15 - 11:44 AM Permalink

When you favourite games from the games section, you'll be able to follow all the devlogs associated with that game on your "followed devlogs" page. Just log in, visit your dashboard, and you'll see the link to that page.

Submitted by souri on Tue, 10/11/15 - 2:00 PM Permalink

Some additional site updates. Not sure why it wasn't installed earlier, but the server finally has OPcache installed which greatly improves PHP performance. So, in addition to this, and pages/scripts being gzipped before they're sent, and most images being lazyloaded (they only load when they're in the browser's view), it all means that the site should be blistering fast. I've also done additional design changes on journal pages and on the main page, just tightening up the design a bit.

There were two additional main features related to the games section that I had been working on, but I'm postponing them for the time being. I don't think anyone would use those features until far into development anyway, and not many people are using the devlogs yet and I want to get onto making games myself and using the devlog on here as an example of how they work to encourage others to start using them too.

Site Bug: Profile avatar not working

Forum

In the edit profile page I upload and save my picture and it appears on that page (not at the top though). When I go to my profile page it fails to load the image and on the talent page it uses the default. Strangely my avatar seems to work here in the forums.
How do I contact support for this site?

Submitted by souri on Tue, 14/10/14 - 3:37 PM Permalink

The site caches different kinds of pages for different lengths of times to reduce how often the database is accessed which in turn makes the pages load much faster. So, the reason why you aren't seeing changes instantly is due the website caching its pages.

When you upload your picture, the editor where you upload it in will show it instantly since that's not being cached at all, and logically, there's no need for any form of caching there.

But to see the changes in you've made to your profile page - there's a 6 hour wait before the changes will appear on the site. For the talent page, your picture will show up after 1 hour.

There's a long wait for the changes to appear on profile pages particularly since users don't really change their own pictures/backgrounds that often (other than the first time), so it makes sense to store those pages for long periods. There are also many, many thousands of places where people's pictures are used, so it's wise to cache them stringently.

The talent lists gets updated more frequently since it's a only seven lists, and new people register often and make themselves listed there.. so a shorter caching period there is fine.

I know, it's a bit confusing from a user's point of view. There's a way to improve things slightly so it works how a user would expect things (upload and see results instantly everywhere on the site), but I'm a bit limited on how and where I can apply that with certain things on the site.

Blog animation

Forum

I vaguely recall when I first put an animation in my blog that there was a section for adding one animation, similarly to how you add images.
Now there doesn't seem to be. Is the only way to put up animations by embedding a youtube vid in the post? That seems to do weird things with the blog entry, with a big white square with an x in the corner, which never happened last time.

Submitted by souri on Fri, 02/07/10 - 9:36 PM Permalink

Hi, when you make a journal post, there's a textfield in there (just under where you put in the title of your journal entry) where it says "video1:". Post in your youtube video link there.

Member search?

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Is there anywhere on this site for searching for members? I know that most of my classmates from last year would have created accounts here but I don't know how to find them. The only thing I could think of was giving them a link to my page so they can find and add me.

Job search doesn't work

Forum

Hi, when I try to narrow down the job ads by profession or location I get the following error message:

(a whole lot of sql errors removed)

Submitted by souri on Tue, 16/03/10 - 8:38 AM Permalink

Which particular profession are you selecting to cause that error? I've just checked the job search functionality, and it works fine for me.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 17/03/10 - 6:41 PM Permalink

i have the same probles- ever since tsumea "changed servers" or whatever it did a little while ago which had it offline for a day or so, i can't do a search for "animator" positions. the search for "all" works fine tho

Submitted by souri on Thu, 18/03/10 - 12:23 AM Permalink

Probably spent way much more time figuring this out to find out that it was a specific component causing this mess. I could search fine when I'm logged in, but apparently no one else could, including members.

Anyway, it should be working fine now. Thanks for the report, otherwise I'd be thinking things were fine XD

Commenting on job ads, and why moderation is needed

Forum

To those curious as to why news items concerning jobs advertised on here are / have recently been heavily moderated, then please read on.

For the longest while, comment areas on Sumea/tsumea have been an unmoderated and fairly relaxed part of the site. It was pretty much anything-goes on here. Unfortunately, in a lot of ways it has been detrimental to the site, and particularly for the purpose of job advertisements.

Game developers advertise their jobs directly on tsumea. Every job ad we have had on here for the last 8 or so years has been submitted directly by the developer advertising it. As a result, we are *the best* source for real games related job openings in Australia and New Zealand. Many, many, many people have successfully applied and gained employment from the job ads we've posted, and the jobs that are posted here are far reaching and go beyond the regular visitors of this site.

As I've been lax with comment moderation, with job advertisements over the years we've had in the comment areas such as:

People who aren't interesting in applying, but nonetheless want to complain about:

1. How lame the company is and why no one should apply for it
2. How the company's last game sucks and why no one should apply for the job
3. How the job itself sucks and why no one should apply for it
4. Some passing comment about a bullet point in the job description and why it sucks and why no one should apply for it
5. Question the jobs legitimacy
6. Any other off-hand comment relating to a circumstance or status of the company which they disapprove of

This was becoming so common and even predictable with job advertisements for certain game developers that I knew what was coming right after I posted the ad.

The purpose of job advertisements on the site is for companies to advertise their job openings. It is not the right place to debate about the company or the job ad in question. *Any* negative comment about the game developer in question (including those listed above) is defeating the purpose of the job ad.

If we leave things unmoderated here, it won't be a surprise to anybody that game devs simply won't bother sending their job openings to us anymore. And that would be a damn shame, considering what a great service this site provides for local game dev job seekers.

It's not because I want to censor negative comments, am on a power trip, or any other conspiracy. You are free to create a new thread voicing your concerns. Preserving the great job service here is the main reason why moderation is required.

If you do have a genuine question regarding the job position advertised, then please do post your question - I might even get the HR person from the company to respond to it like I have many times in the past.

If you have something to get off your chest about this matter, it's best to respond to it here or through the contact form on the 'contact' page.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 14/11/10 - 3:28 AM Permalink

While I applaud the intent for clarity and veracity when approaching a job advertisment within these guidelines I do feel that it neglects to address the danger of "positive" reviews of an instituiton. One might view the dichotomy between the two aspects [positive/negative] to translate into the following idea.
Negative comments have no place because they might potentially hurt an undeserving company.
Positive comments have no place because they might potentially mislead a reader to believe lies.

I think that any particular comment, be it negative or positive in regards to the nature of the advertising institution should be moderated while the only valid comments be left at questions regarding the position itself...

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 14/11/10 - 10:18 PM Permalink

to suggest that somebody might want to investigate further before signing with company X in a civil way. Or an example of why someone might want to think twice. Endless immature tolling helps no one.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 15/11/10 - 9:47 AM Permalink

The issue is the immaturity of the vast majority of posters here and the industry in Australia itself.

Healthy competition is one thing but the competition on here is more akin to rabid football supporters aligining themselves with their favorite team and pointing out that every player/coach on an opposition side (read employee or CEO) is absolutely crap at their job and shouldn't be on the park, or worse, those never having been "in the game" (read never had a job in the industry) screaming like toothless Collingwood supporters asking "how does that bloke ever get a game!".

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 15/11/10 - 12:46 PM Permalink

As you mentioned, job postings have contacts listed, legitimate inquiries can be done through those contact points, so although it is a "nice to have", maybe it's best just to remove comments for job postings? Most recruitment sites don't allow people to comment on job listings.

Or... Maybe disable anonymous posting on job posts? Posting anonymously does encourage people to think that everyone wants to hear their rants and opinions. Combine Harvester by the Wurzels is better than anything by Nine Inch Nails. See what I mean?

Granted, there is a certain amount of entertainment to be had from people posting "Wow, you guys really missed out on a great candidate, if only you authored your assets through Sculpt Animate 4d junior, you could have hired me and we could have made sweet, sweet games together. I have 2 months experience in Deluxe Paint, and would have been very willing to share the secrets palette cycling to improve your character, Kratos. Think about it.".

Submitted by souri on Mon, 15/11/10 - 3:48 PM Permalink

The thing is, very rarely do we even *get* positive comments on job postings. If you look at the recent positive comment on the Qantm job ad, which I'm sure is the reason why this issue is being raised, the comment was praising the institution's course structure and would be of interest only to students thinking of applying, whereas the job itself is for a lecturer, so it doesn't even have a bearing or influence for anyone applying for a teaching role anyway.

On the other side of the coin, negative comments and snide remarks on job postings was a very common occurrence (before moderation began). All the types of comments I wrote about in the original post have happened, many, many times each.

Turning off comments for job posts is going to deny those who do have genuine questions about the job, and making logged in visitors being able to post enquiries in job items sounds like a great idea, although I'll have to look up and implement that feature sometime. In the meantime, I'll have to continue moderating the manual way.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 16/11/10 - 10:34 PM Permalink

The constant lambasting must make potential employers wary.

And I agree with the comments made by anonymous in Victoria(or so I assume by his collingwood references)
I acknowledge some serious crap has gone down with the Australian games industry lately, I have personally
been effected. I would love to see some news and positive posts about the Indies around the place, learn a
few more names of people and just generally get a vibe for something other than the usual Krome kick fest.
and maybe remove the ability to post anonymously? tee hee, I'm posting anonymously cause it's easy.
and it makes it even easier to TROLL tee hee. fighting the urge to TROLL right now.

Anon

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 01/02/11 - 9:54 PM Permalink

I've nothing to do with this company, but I do know a few (kick ass) people who work there, but I'd be a bit disappointed seeing comments like the following:

http://www.tsumea.com/australasia/australia/news/121010/qa-analyst-requ…

I'm not saying the people making the comments are wrong (I wouldn't know), but I don't think a job listing is an appropriate forum for this sort of bile. Honestly, once you've got a point of contact for the company, any applicant that is the slightest bit interested in the position would use that contact to ask questions.

I guess it doesn't matter much, but this sort of thing would stop me from wanting my company listing jobs on this site.
If I ever owned a company, there would be bigger problems for the australian games industry, but still :)

Submitted by souri on Tue, 01/02/11 - 10:14 PM Permalink

Thanks for letting me know, I've removed those posts. But yeh, that's exactly what I mean. Things have been fairly good with job comments in recent times, but occasionally something like that does slip through.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 02/02/11 - 1:58 AM Permalink

I know when I was working for certain companies people higher ups were complaining about posting job advertisements on the site due to the high level of immaturity of some of the comments.

Then you got legitimate comment threads where you find out new information about some bad practices going on in the industry. You don't want to discourage that.

Really Digging the new Tsumea site!

Forum

I really like the new site design, it's fast, feels snappy, and looks very good.

Well done Souri (and Others if involved)!

Submitted by souri on Mon, 26/10/09 - 10:55 AM Permalink

Hey, thanks Daemin. :)

I've upgraded our cms system recently which had improved caching and plenty of optimisations. I knew when this design went up, programmers in particular would appreciate it a lot more ;). I know in the past I did a lot more elaborate designs which probably got in the way of readability and accessibility, so keeping it simple and easy to read was the plan.

thickbox broken?

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Hey Souri,
posting here just in case you are not aware of this: clicking links on the home page to images are creating an error. Something to do with thickbox.
---------
Fatal error: Call to undefined function _imagecache_get_presets() in /home/tsumeaco/public_html/sites/all/modules/thickbox/thickbox.module on line 177
---------
I'm browsing with firefox 3.0.10 on a PC.

cheers

John.

Submitted by souri on Tue, 12/05/09 - 1:30 PM Permalink

Argh, damnit, that's not good. I was updating some modules on here and it looks like this one broke. >:( Hopefully it isn't anything too major.

delete my old account please

Forum

hi guys can you please delete my old account details that i registered years ago on SUMEA.com.

my account name was TOMCAT

Thank you

Submitted by souri on Tue, 07/04/09 - 9:25 PM Permalink

You know, I could just rename your old account to your new login name, if you want to keep the (prestigious?) record of being a member for over 6 years..

tsumea has been down

Forum

Sorry folks, the site has been down the past few days. Our webhost has had major issues with their hosted websites and dns clusters not resolving (including their own website). Nothing much I can do other than post support tickets and hoping the site gets back up online.

Submitted by souri on Tue, 17/03/09 - 2:59 AM Permalink

If you want to comment on a news item or anything like that, you'll find a link to a "add comment" to the news story / item which will take you to another page. Usability wise, it sucks, but from a caching point of view, none of our news stories were being cached to most people because of the captcha prompt which needed to be random.

the end for the tsumea challenges

Forum

Hi guys,
So I've posted up the final results for the latest tsumea modeller challenge, a competition that has been a long running tradition for this site. We've been running this thing annually for the last six and a half years and challengers have covered a whole variety of interesting themes. I've seen some tremendous work submitted, and I'm not shy to boast that many challengers have been offered and/or gained employment because of the work they submitted. The direct exposure entrants get to the industry is well worth entering the challenge for.

It's unfortunate that the turnout for the latest challenge was so low, but I think it's a sign that the modeller challenge has really run its course. I'm sure it's time for a change.

Bittman should be applauded for starting the indie project on here, and it's an initiative that would be a worthy replacement for the modeller challenge, particularly since projects can be contributed to and worked on by every talent from the community here as well as provide a real development experience (working in teams, developing usable game content etc). It's something we can push much more with in regards to industry support and mentoring (getting experienced industry talent to provide solid feedback on design documents, assets etc), kits, funding for software licenses, a tsumea online source control, and anything else that the industry and tsumea can do for teams who are serious about getting a realistic product out on the market.

Anyway, we'll see if the community is interested in pursuing this, but it would be great to get a few teams working on various projects, but we'll see.

Submitted by Bittman on Mon, 02/02/09 - 9:51 AM Permalink

Firstly, thanks for the applause, haha.

It would be great to see something like an indie challenge, but getting teams is quite hard. I feel there just aren't as many active members here as there should be, in fact one or two I have in my team have mentioned that I basically lured them out of lurking the sumea boards only for job postings.

So without even expanding on your idea, though I'd love to, the community would need a boost. I find sumea is indeed the best game dev job board for Australia, but a lot of people who are interested in getting into game dev are either unaware of this resource or don't check it that often.

Still, I would deeply love for there to be industry support for game developer hopefuls. I feel, as an applicant and recently finished student, the games industry in Australia doesn't provide enough feedback for students. I know a lot of universities cried about this a little at GCAP to which the professionals tried to reinforce how difficult it is to give what is required given the small size of the industry in Australia, but things like encouraging juniors to build their skillsets should be looked into more. If one tenth of the game dev's scattered across Australia were even remotely interested on providing feedback you couldn't imagine the growth the industry would go through.

I mean, the Skills Forum mentioned a skills shortage in games, but what feedback are us potential juniors getting in the wider community?

Oh man, I just ranted on the industry again. But really, the industry needs more PR and less of an "VIP-entry only" outward appearance.

EDIT: You had other points, but I got stuck on the mentoring. Haha, sorry.
EDIT EDIT: And some people are helping out. GameOn and Game Jam are perfect examples, but more of that is needed. Oh look, I kept ranting, I'll go now.

Submitted by Neffy on Mon, 02/02/09 - 1:46 PM Permalink

Now I'm even more sad I didn't finish on time :( It was my last chance.

It has been fun but I agree there's not many ppl with the time left to enter anymore :(

Submitted by Bittman on Mon, 02/02/09 - 2:34 PM Permalink

Well maybe the next competition will be something for everyone. I mean, if there was a way to produce a challenge artists, programmers and designers of all walks could enter it might have more of a chance to continue.

Breaking into teams for an indie game might strain the low population here, but if an individual project which allows all three areas to participate in may work.

No great ideas for what at the moment though. Best I can think of is a theme based thing:
e.g. "The theme for this challenge is Gravity" and then each field can address something in their own way. Designers could make a concept, write a story, etc. Artists could create concept art or a 3d short, etc. Programmers could work on a simulator or a useful tool, etc.

Submitted by souri on Mon, 02/02/09 - 3:22 PM Permalink

The idea is to do away with the challenges, themes, and competitions and move towards encouraging and supporting small scaled game development. Personally, I think this is the next step up, to get people working on projects that they can then release into the market place. Competitions on here have reached a level where newcomers are getting overcome by the high bar that experienced challengers have set. I think there's much more they could benefit from by taking part in an initiative like this instead.

I'll look into ways where we can provide support, but the aim for the challenges was to provide an incentive for people to work on something to put in their portfolio as well as give industry exposure and feedback, but working on small games would ensure they also get some dev experience as well (and non-modellers can take part too.). Hopefully within time there'd be a good knowledge base and activity in the forums over projects to spur others on.

As for the talent shortfall - there are an extraordinary amount of lurkers on here. Some of the jobs posted are viewed in the thousands, so with a bit of effort in promoting things we could get at least a few teams happening. We'll have to see, but in any case, it doesn't hurt to put in the infrastructure to get things going to see if it sparks any more interest. I wouldn't be surprised to see many devs wanting to take part to, I've talked to a few who were interested in doing something casual game/small related in their spare time.

Submitted by Bittman on Mon, 02/02/09 - 5:39 PM Permalink

Good to see the dev's are interested. I know I won't drop this indie project now its started even if I get a job, and it would be nice to have something to work on a little more casually outside of work itself.

And wow, that's a lot of lurkers.

Submitted by Johnn on Mon, 02/02/09 - 9:31 PM Permalink

The challenges were great to watch and i for one found participating, even only in part, to be a worthy and interesting process. Judging by the enthusiasm in some other parts of the forum collaborative projects looks like a popular idea, I hope it will revive some regular posting in other sections too.

Submitted by Rado on Tue, 03/02/09 - 10:39 AM Permalink

When it comes to the challenge- to be honest guys you somehow shot yourself in the foot. I mean- I am in 3d for... some time now, I always wanted to try to move to your area and when I've read contest description I was all like "wow, that's great, I wanna try it..." and then there was this little note saying that (if I understood it right) it's "regional" contest. Ok- fair enough, it might be designed as a tool for supporting or bringing together certain local community- its reasonable approach, but nature of our industry is such that people do move around a lot so it makes little sense to close it for "outsiders". It's just much more fun if there are more people participating so anything that stops them from taking part in such an event makes little sense... IMHO.

Submitted by codyalday on Tue, 03/02/09 - 12:38 PM Permalink

Thanks souri for all the hard work you have contibuted to this community and helped people getting in the industrie. I know that I have developed so much from this website, and even landing a job from the job page:)Only thing that threw me off a lot was the new website forums, was really painful to follow things and a stage where i couldn't even log on. Like there was two pages on one challenge thread entry, but before that page it didn't show that there were two, very confusion lol. Saying that, the website and the work you have done is top notch.

Submitted by Tejay on Tue, 03/02/09 - 2:46 PM Permalink

Thanks for the hard work organising the comp Souri. It was alot of fun and good practice. Its a shame to be hearing there wont be another.

Submitted by BattleElf on Tue, 03/02/09 - 3:09 PM Permalink

Perhaps an idea could be along the lines of Dave Perry/Acclaim Top Secret project, where some industry vets could step the community through the stages of creating a game. Let anyone who's interested provide game ideas, concept art, modelling and programming etc, with industry people using their experience to give feedback and encouragement and to help move the work forward as the ideas and assets mature enough.

Submitted by souri on Tue, 03/02/09 - 3:23 PM Permalink

Yep, that was where the idea of mentoring would come in. With the modeller challenges, we got the Creative Directors and Leads from the industry to look over the submissions, but with an actual project, we could get some input from all the other fields. It's definitely something I can organise.

Chat

Forum

Will we get it going again? I remember reading somewhere you were looking for something else Souri, did you keep looking or give up?

It would be useful for the indie game project in particular, makes it an open session others can visit. Especially since most of us are students hoping to get into the industry, I can see the team being greatly encouraged if there is the possibility of our meetings being viewed by people who visit this site and potential employers.

Of course, it might sit there completely un-used except for our possible abuse of it, but hey right now it's a pretty dead icon at the top of the page...

Submitted by souri on Wed, 28/01/09 - 10:37 PM Permalink

I will look around for some chat function, but if anyone has suggestions, please feel free to offer them. I'm looking for an elegant and new solution - the java chat application we had before was a bit of a pain to set up and was a simple irc chat. It would be great if there's another chat application that we can embed on the chat page which offered a whole lot more features and wasn't a pain to install.

Submitted by souri on Wed, 04/02/09 - 1:23 AM Permalink

I've been looking around for chat solutions, and there are a heck of fancy solutions out there. unfortunately they cost a lot of money and a dedicated server to run on, but it's amazing to see what's on offer (letting visitors stream mp3's, video, a canvas where many people can draw on etc).

That would probably be overkill for what we'd need, so I've placed back the old java Sumea chat on here. If you ever need to use a simple chat for anything, it's there if you need it.

Submitted by Bittman on Wed, 04/02/09 - 2:04 PM Permalink

I'll sit my butt in this most nights and some days whilst I'm still kick starting the indie game project in case anyone wants to discuss things whether they're in the team or not.

Dunno if we'll hold the meetings there yet, maybe we'll test it this sunday and see how we go.

Submitted by souri on Wed, 04/02/09 - 6:55 PM Permalink

It's there if anyone needs a convenient place to chat. I know some people (well, me personally) don't really use msn much, or doesn't want to be contacted via msn for any reason, then the java chat is a handy solution.

Tsumea Chat: Lively

Forum

Lively has been closed down, you will have to get another chat program..

Submitted by souri on Mon, 05/01/09 - 4:12 PM Permalink

I don't think anyone used it here much anyway, but it's a shame Google shut it down. Got any suggestions for a replacement?

Tsumea Wiki

Forum

Hi. A note to Souri, and any other users that are interested, I have made a better looking main page for the wiki. It is in discussion. I also have some other plans that would involve better categorising of the companies and allow for an easier experience in wiki use.

If you wish I could do all the layout for the wiki and make it more user friendly.

Submitted by souri on Sun, 28/12/08 - 2:42 PM Permalink

Sounds good! I've changed the settings for the main page so that only people with accounts can edit it (it used to be free for all, but the darn spam bots hit it pretty hard). Since you've already made an account there, feel free to improve things!

Oh, and I have to add, the tsumea wiki still needs a tonne of work. I've still got to copy across all the games and many developer's info from our old wiki. http://wiki.sumean.com

There are hundreds of entries to do :(

Submitted by Johnn on Tue, 30/12/08 - 11:39 AM Permalink

layout 2 is easier to interpret and navigate.
Is the intent of layout 1 to have all the information on a long single page? That could get difficult and slow to navigate through with a lot of content.

Submitted by Sabre070 on Tue, 30/12/08 - 11:51 AM Permalink

Thats what I was thinking, and layout 1 was to have all the information on it. I like layout 2 better too.

Submitted by souri on Tue, 30/12/08 - 12:27 PM Permalink

Nice job :) We probably won't be listing upcoming events in the wiki as that'll be available in the 'Whats on' part on the main site anyway (and I'd rather not be updating in the wiki on what's coming up), and you could probably add a link to Biography's which was something I had hoped would take off in the old wiki, but we'll see if any one is interested adding/updating it here.

Submitted by Sabre070 on Tue, 30/12/08 - 2:12 PM Permalink

I've begun transferring some of the pages over from the old... wiki.. thing.. and I have removed some of the links as they are now 404s. I have also made the pages look a bit better.

Submitted by souri on Sun, 04/01/09 - 9:16 PM Permalink

I'm planning to do a tonne of work in bringing the rest of the wiki stuff from the old wiki to here, then I can finally close down sumean.com (damn thing is costing money to keep up). I've been doing a lot of work in encoding and uploading the GCAP video, so once that's all done, I'll be onto it.

Thanks for all your help, btw. It really is appreciated.

warning message, editing posts & readibility problems

Forum

Hey Souri,

I'm getting a warning message in a pink box when I post (I'm using FireFox 2.0.0.12):
* warning: reset() [function.reset]: Passed variable is not an array or object in /home/tsumeaco/public_html/sites/all/modules/og_forum/og_forum.module on line 1142.
* warning: key() [function.key]: Passed variable is not an array or object in /home/tsumeaco/public_html/sites/all/modules/og_forum/og_forum.module on line 1143.
* warning: array_key_exists() [function.array-key-exists]: The first argument should be either a string or an integer in /home/tsumeaco/public_html/sites/all/modules/og_forum/og_forum.module on line 1144.

--------
also are we able to edit posts that we have made? I started a new thread in the 'works in progress' section but can't see if/how to edit my post.

--------
on a readability note, I'm finding the light grey text (visited links) really hard to read, especially on the non-white/patterned backgrounds, couldn't see any other comments regarding this so maybe I need new eyes :(

Submitted by souri on Wed, 26/03/08 - 7:42 PM Permalink

That error seems pretty strange, it shouldn't be showing up for regular forum posts. I will have to look into it.

You should be able to edit your own forum posts now, I previously had it disabled. Whoops!

As for the design - I'm currently reworking the design. I'm hoping to finalise it and build it really soon, so the current problems should only be temporary. Hang in there, guys!

Submitted by Johnn on Wed, 26/03/08 - 11:50 PM Permalink

whoohoo - I can edit my post... although now I can't figure out how to place an image in it! placing the address into tags doesn't seem to work?! Am i doing something wrong or is something else mis-behaving?

Submitted by Johnn on Thu, 27/03/08 - 10:46 AM Permalink

just notice that the rollover and visited states of links are a different colour on my work computer! a subtle but nice shift in tone of blue :)

...so I suspect I might have some crappy local settings on my home computer making the links a difficult to read colour.

private messaging denied!

Forum

when i click 'My Inbox' i get a message saying:

Access denied
You are not authorized to access this page.

also, on this page (Submit Forum topic), there's a pink box under the "Submit Forum topic" title with this in it.

* warning: reset() [function.reset]: Passed variable is not an array or object in /home/tsumeaco/public_html/sites/all/modules/og_forum/og_forum.module on line 1142.
* warning: key() [function.key]: Passed variable is not an array or object in /home/tsumeaco/public_html/sites/all/modules/og_forum/og_forum.module on line 1143.
* warning: array_key_exists() [function.array-key-exists]: The first argument should be either a string or an integer in /home/tsumeaco/public_html/sites/all/modules/og_forum/og_forum.module on line 1144.

im using firefox 2 if that helps :D

Submitted by Thickshake on Sun, 30/03/08 - 4:29 PM Permalink

Yep working now. This forum looks great, what software is this forum made out of? It looks very unique, very unlike standard Vbulletin or PHPBB

RSS

Forum

So, I see there is RSS available for individual forum categories - but is there a feed I can subscribe to for the overall forum (like in the old setup)?

Admittedly I haven't looked too deeply, but I figured I'd ask.

Submitted by souri on Thu, 13/03/08 - 1:47 AM Permalink

Yeh, I don't think there is an rss feed for the entire forum. It looks like it's something that I will have to implement though, so give me a day or two.

Having a look at your profile - if you want to get listed in the Creative members section, you need to fill out the State / Province text field, and you must put down your state like the following e.g Wa, Sa, VIC, NSW, QLD etc

You could just type in the first letter of your state and it should auto fill it in. I'll be making a post so that everyone knows about that.

I'm just about to close the old forum and redirect the traffic to here, btw.

Submitted by souri on Thu, 13/03/08 - 3:13 AM Permalink

Ok, that was relatively painless. The rss forum feed (which will show every forum post) is at:

http://www.tsumea.com/aggregator/rss/2

You'll notice that the posts from the old forum show up a bit messily in the current feed, but as new posts arrive, they'll get pushed off. I will make an icon for it for the forum for others interested in subscribing.

Submitted by Nightro on Sat, 15/03/08 - 11:37 AM Permalink

Awesome news about re-directing the traffic, looking forward to it!

You may want to check up on the personal details page, for some reason my birthdate was 15/03/08 which makes me think I wasn't asked for it on registration!

Also what is the creative members section? Sounds like my kind of deal!

Anthony

Submitted by souri on Sat, 15/03/08 - 5:22 PM Permalink

Thanks for the report. We're going to be having small things like this crop up with the new system, so I appreciate any bug reports so I can fix them promptly. Otherwise, I'd never have even noticed!

Submitted by Nightro on Sat, 15/03/08 - 8:46 PM Permalink

Hi Souri,

Just another quick heads up. My RSS aggregator got a few items with "n/a" for the content, with the titles being things like "tsumea forum Australia & New Zealand jobs: n".

I'm assuming this is because nothing has been posted to these forums? Not sure.

Anyway it's a heads up!

Submitted by souri on Mon, 17/03/08 - 6:27 PM Permalink

Yeh, the n/a items are because there aren't any new posts in those forums, and the old posts aren't getting picked up by the rss feed for some reason. It's not a big deal though as more new posts will push those n/a's out.

Submitted by souri on Mon, 17/03/08 - 6:31 PM Permalink

The creative section is a page that will list all our members and what field and state they're in. It's also going to show some of the activities we're going to have, and I'm planning to have a monthly profile on a member and they're work + interview, so it'll show all that stuff in that section too!

And yeh, that birthday thing is a bit of a bug. If you edit your personal details, you need to enter your birthdat (it doesn't give you an option to put nothing there). If nothing is there, it will automatically put the current date there :/ . Yeh, it's odd, and I'm hoping that the people who wrote that application get a fix on it :)

Submitted by Nightro on Mon, 17/03/08 - 9:28 PM Permalink

Hi Souri,

Something else to note about the RSS was that in the old aggregator it would have something like:

Sumea Forum
Post Subject

In the new one it has:

Tsumea Aggregator
"tsumea forum " + subject

I might be being a little picky, but I preferred the old way!

Submitted by Nightro on Wed, 13/08/08 - 1:00 PM Permalink

Hi Souri - well the website has become even sexier since I was last here (I could be imagining it) - great work.

I've been reading the posts via RSS, but I came here today and noticed that it doesn't seem to be notifying me of all posts. If you check out the feed atm it only has one post in it, when I had about 6 or 7 new on logging in. Among them the stuff in the programmer challenge - stuff I'm keen to know about!

http://www.tsumea.com/aggregator/rss/2

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 15/08/08 - 5:43 PM Permalink

Is there an RSS feed for the most recent comments across all posts? Essentially the blue box from the home page. That's the bit I always go to first. Would be really good to have this, if possible, please :)

Submitted by souri on Fri, 05/09/08 - 2:05 AM Permalink

Sorry for the late response. Here's an RSS feed for all comments on tsumea, including the news and forum.

http://www.tsumea.com/australasia_comments_rss

I've tried isolating it so it's just the news, but it's just too much of a hassle at the moment so you can use this instead. It sorta solves the other problem with the forum feed not working (which I think I have fixed, but we'll see if it gets updated correctly this time)

member add news, option programmer not avaliable

Forum

ok, lets try this again, this time with no special character in the subject?



not a big problem, but....



http://www.sumea.com.au/sumeaadmin/membernews.asp

only have access to sections 'gaming''modeller''2d artist'... use to have access to programmers? can not see anything in profile to control this.



Submitted by souri on Mon, 20/08/07 - 3:30 PM Permalink

Yeh, you have to be listed as a programmer to have that option there. I'm not sure why you weren't, but I've changed that, so it all should be fine now.

Submitted by davidcoen on Sun, 26/08/07 - 5:45 PM Permalink

thanks souri, take care and hope things are going better for you

Sumea membership

Forum

Hi,

I applied for a Sumea account a few days ago and was wondering how my application went. I would love to be a part of Sumea and show some of my work off and to enter the God of War modeling comp. I previously had an account that I now realise must have been terminated because I didn't put any of my work in my journal!  Another chance would be great and I promise i'll post some of my art promptly.

Cheers,

James

Submitted by souri on Wed, 08/08/07 - 7:32 AM Permalink

I just checked my logs, and I don't think I received it. If you registered with a hotmail or yahoo account, I probably just ignored it. Can you register again, please?

Cant Update my profile ?

Forum

Hey Souri,

I get an error message popping up saying I dont have access / privilages to change my profile.

Any ideas ? I could screencapture unless its something easy im missing? Ive disabled all firewalls, and enabled all cookies in browser - still the same.

Any ideas??

Submitted by Kalescent on Thu, 03/05/07 - 2:20 PM Permalink

Just Figured out its when i attempt to change the birthdate....

Submitted by Malus on Thu, 03/05/07 - 2:52 PM Permalink

There are better ways to feel younger mate. ;)Malus2007-05-03 04:52:47

Submitted by souri on Mon, 07/05/07 - 12:53 AM Permalink

Yeh, there've been a few niggles with with this forum software discovered since it was implemented a while ago. Some people have problems registering for some reason as well. If you have problems registering or changing your birthdate, feel free to PM me with your desired changes, or send me a message via the Sumea contact form if you can't register. Make sure you write your desired login and password.

Submitted by Killa Dee on Mon, 21/05/07 - 8:28 AM Permalink

I sometimes get that error msg when I'm trying to haxzor my profile. I would like to De-cap my user name is that possible? dam sh*ty caps!

Submitted by souri on Mon, 21/05/07 - 8:47 AM Permalink

I've changed it for you. Sorry for the forum problems, hopefully it'll be sorted out soon.

News Comments

Forum

This may not be a popular suggestion, but I think it has to be said.

The news comments have become a waste of space. More often than not they degrade into a trail of bitching, insults, racial slurs and often comments that completely irrelevant to the topic.

Refer to this latest thread as an example:
http://www.sumea.com.au/snews.asp?news=2630

There are two reasons for this:

1. They are not as moderated as the forum (or tat least they don?t appear to be), and

2. they allow anonymous posters (Anonymous Coward)

So I suggest that news comments be scrapped, and replaced with a new system whereby posters are directed to the forum to voice their opinion. I have seen some sites that do this via a ?comments? link that automatically creates a new forum topic for the first poster, and afterwards directs subsequent posters to that thread.

The functionality would be almost identical to how it works now, but users would be required to post under their forum name, and threads can be easier moderated.LiveWire2007-02-22 02:58:07

Submitted by Mdobele on Thu, 22/02/07 - 2:02 PM Permalink

/signed

In my eyes news comments should be used for two reasons.

1) To add additional relevant information to the news post.

2) To intelligently debate the content of the original news post.

I'm sick of seeing the anonymous news comments be used for things like:

Krome suxorz, they is lam3. Or Ps3 is da sh*tz it's so much bettrr then Wii.

Submitted by GuyBrave on Fri, 23/02/07 - 1:09 AM Permalink

I think this would be a great idea

Submitted by souri on Fri, 23/02/07 - 2:46 AM Permalink

Yeh, we've had this discussion before about Sumea comments and we've come to the conclusion that more moderation is needed. I don't want to remove Sumea comments because it's very much integrated into the site, and I've invested a lot of time developing on it (it's all xml based, I can remove posts easily via the admin area, and there's functionality such as voting etc which will be used much more later on). There's also a wealth of great threads on news items, and it would be a shame to just remove them all and replace it with the forum.

I do realize that there is a problem with anonymous posting, but it probably needs more diligent moderation on my part. Feel free to click the "report comment abuse" button to lock threads if you see any that are turning to crap. I check news comments abuse reports every day.