Today I am writing a review of Arteria3D.com, I purchased a lifetime membership a few months ago from Steve, owner of Arteria. I have to say that Arteria is by far the BEST place to buy your art assets. The models he sells there are very well optimized with the lowest poly count, but a great look. The textures of the models are very life-like and give the illusion that there is more polys than there really is. Customer service is great and you can expect a response very quick, and thats why I really like Arteria. If you ever need an Epic scene, go to Arteria. I highly recommend it. Also, with the lifetime membership you get a membership to ArteriaMusic.com which is amazing as well. The music is incredible. Not only do you get the great models and sounds on the websites, but Steve also offers custom work. Go to his site and check it out! Thanks!
The content seems decent enough, though the music samples I listened to were nothing special.
But…
What possible advantage could there be for me to sign up to a one year membership for a single artist’s site when I get Unity Asset Store for free with Unity? I can’t afford to sign up for multiple sites, and most artists tend to specialise in a particular type or style of output, so I’d have an inherently limited selection. Syndication and aggregation make far more sense for this market.
Both the graphics and music sites are riddled with errors in design, spelling and grammar. Examples of the design issues include the Flash MP3 player which animates its “equaliser” graphics regardless of whether any sound is even being played, and which has a ‘close’ button on it that does nothing except stop the track playing, and the misplaced “Animated Characters” link on the graphics site.
Spelling and grammar problems are legion. (As a writer, I’m trained to spot these from a hundred paces, so I appreciate that this may seem like nit-picking, but to me, each error feels like slamming into a brick wall. It makes the text hard to read.)
Running text through a spellchecker takes seconds, and it would have easily highlighted the various typos, including the rather obvious one on the main page of the graphics site.
Examples:
“Monastery”, not “Monastry”. (Graphics site, home page.) This mistake was literally the first thing that caught my eye!
The music site’s front page has four errors in the first paragraph alone. (It’s “thank you”—two words; “soundtrack”—one word; “sci-fi”—two hyphenated terms, appears twice, and “genre”, not “gentre”.)
If you’re selling stuff online, your web presence is your shop window. The above issues strongly suggest a lack of attention to detail. This is not an impression I’d want to give to potential customers.
In summary: good content, poor presentation.
(And I’m not sure it makes sense to add yet more asset e-shops to the ever-increasing number already available. The market isn’t that big!)
I signed up when working on Torque about a 2 months ago or so. Steve is top notch when it comes to problems and has always given me a fast response. I like his work. The one benefit from using a single artist (if your concerned with this at all) is having your in game models look consistent in form / style etc…
You do not have to do the lifetime membership as you can buy models individually. The lifetime membership gives you access to all previous, current, and yet to come content for just the price of the membership.
I also have a lifetime membership, my experience is somewhat different. I got the lifetime membeship when it first announced (2 years ago?), I never got an update until I bug him for it. And then all silent again. Do you get regular updates on your email?
I agree that spelling and grammar isn’t really a good way to determine the quality of the models.
The artwork speaks for itself. That’s all I really care about, even if I feel the same (that bad grammar means I don’t trust the person as much). I ignore these feelings, to focus on what really matters.
Besides, the person might not even be from an English speaking country (or English might be a secondary language).
Also, I’ve been on forums for over a decade, and what I’ve written could fill books that circle the world several times over. I also have created many many websites-- all of which were plagued with typos which naturally occur (especially when writing at 3am).
My point is-- fixing every typo, and reading/re-reading the website over and over is actually A LOT of work. Creating a perfect website without a single typo is actually one of the more difficult tasks I’ve ever had to do. I would say that it’s MUCH more difficult than creating even the highest quality of 3D graphics.
Not because I accidentally hit the wrong keys on the keyboard. Not at all! But that the English language is so complex, and so ridiculous, it is prone to misspelling words that you should (and do) know. IN fact… I actually just incorrectly spelt “misspelling”. And according to this forum… “spelt” is not a word.
English Grammar is ridiculous, because throughout my schooling I was actually one of the best and most accurate students when it came to spelling and grammar. Yet… I constantly mispell words, or use words that don’t even exist.
True, but the website in question is being run as a business.
Such blunders suggest to me that this is a business—and that’s the key word here—that’s not big on attention to detail. Your own opinions clearly differ from mine, but there’s no shortage of similar online shops, and the models aren’t that amazing that I’m going to make the effort to ignore the lousy presentation.
This is basic Marketing 101. It’s not difficult to find suitable information—even tutorials—on this subject. The Internet is not limited to websites related to games alone.
Your web presence is your shop window and your brochure. It also indicates your customer service quality.
That English might not be his first language is also just an excuse, not a reason: If I wanted to translate my own website into another language to help my sales, I’d make damned sure I got someone who’s as anal about their quality control and sweating the details as I am about mine.
The design of some of the website’s elements—and do note that I am NOT talking about language now—was also flawed. The music player alone was enough to make me want to hit someone. The incorrect links also smack of carelessness and clearly imply the site’s owner didn’t even bother with basic tests. For me, that alone is an instant “FAIL”.
There is no excuse for this kind of shoddiness in this day and age.