Tim Nikias wrote:
> Yeah, "do it yourself" is something I enjoy as well. It's just that
> when you put a lot of effort into creating a system stable and
> versatile enough so that others might benefit, it's kinda sad to see
> that no one seems to use em. :-( Then again, Povers are often all
> about "do it yourself", so maybe I'm just aiming at the wrong market.
> :-P

I know that feeling...

Anyway, about the popularity and Google ranking, here's a few points to 
consider:

- Showcase the system's usefulness, not its technical capabilities. For your 
first particle system, I remember you spent a lot of time creating 
animations with rainbow-colored bouncing balls and other things, and while 
it's great eye-candy, it won't convince people that your system is useful 
for their particular scene, since people rarely need lots of bouncing balls 
and things like that. Cater to their needs and make it easy for them to see 
that your system does exactly what they want for their scene.

- Making it easy to see that it is useful isn't enough either. Make it easy 
to use too. I notice that your I/O particle system comes with only one 
example animation which does take quite long to render and parse. I think a 
lot of the popularity of my system is due to the fact that it includes no 
less than 9 well documented example animations, all showcasing various 
things that are often requested, and several of them are quick to parse and 
render. They are even the same animations that are used to showcase the 
system on the web page, so the users are shown exactly how to make 
animations like those that attracted their attention in the first place.

- Make your system very visible on your website! Dedicating a page to the 
system really makes it easier to notice, and to link to too! Your I/O 
particle system is currently showcased in a small section at the bottom of 
your download page and represented with two animations on your animations 
page. It's rather easy to miss it, even when looking for it.

All three points will likely make more people use your system and link to it 
if you are aggressive about it, while the last point will also make it more 
attractive for Google. You can even have the word "particle" in the title of 
the page then!

One thing to notice is that all this is a huge amount of work! I think I 
spent 50% time on developing the features of the system and the other 50% 
just on making it attractive and easy to use. It really requires effort. And 
as you hinted, all this effort sometimes doesn't feel worth it in a 
community where everyone prefers to reinvent the wheel anyway. For me, I'm 
glad I put the effort into it, because it was a great learning experience to 
not only develop but also "market" a system effectively, but I probably 
wouldn't do it again to that extent for a POV-Ray include file.

Rune
-- 
http://runevision.com

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