New: Community Contests

Hi All,

By popular demand, we will start as soon as possible with contests that you have suggested. We call them Community Contests and we will put one online every week. They can be with or without a template, it’s up to you. Of course I can’t do this without your input☺

How to participate
So if you want to participate, please follow the next steps:
Step 1    Text    
Make a short (max. 125 words), clear, specific, catchy English contest description including a title (max. 3 words)  

Step 2    Image
Find a suitable image for the header. The image will appear in the top, but also in a smaller size below. Make sure the image is not copyrighted, has sufficient resolution and is not watermarked, for example.

Step 3    Room number
If your contest is based on a template or an existing design of yours, mention the corresponding room number. How to find this number:
• First go to the room page

• Copy the number from the corresponding url. In this case the number is 43915580

Step 4    Highlight
Let me know whether or not you want to be highlighted as the creator of the contest. Realize that if you use a template, everyone will see that you created it. Design sketches of how it could look like on the contest pages:

Step 5     Mail
Collect the above info, add the url of your Roomstyler Profile page and mail it to saskia@floorplanner.com.

Game rules
The contests are mainly for fun, so it’s important that no one is disappointed. Therefore it’s useful to make a few arrangements so that everyone knows where they stand:
• Every Roomstyler designer may submit 1 contest idea at a time. If your contest is posted you may submit your next suggestion
• Roomstyler will make sure that as many designers as possible are featured, that there is enough variety in theme and type of contest, but also that it is suitable for everyone to participate
• Roomstyler will not send you a confirmation that your request has been received
• Roomstyler does not promise that your contest will actually be posted
• Roomstyler will evaluate the request and has the right to make minor adjustments if she feels it’s necessary
• Roomstyler will send you an e-mail before your contest is posted
• The Roomstyler designer is allowed to participate in the self-submitted contest for the time being. This is to make it possible for the creator to vote as well. In the future we think it would be better if the creator did not enter the contest him- or herself.

We appreciate it that you, as the contest creator, actively look at the entries and react to them as well. Encourage people and compliment them when you see something beautiful. (Please leave negative comments out. Everyone participates for fun and should feel safe in the community!)

I’d love to hear what you think of this and will keep an eye on my mailbox.
I think it is going to be fun! Do you want the speed contests as well? Let me know! Saskia

74 Replies to “New: Community Contests”

  1. I love this! Thank you for making this!!! I’m sure everyone will enjoy the new community contests!!!!! Take care! Also, I know this is kind of a silly question, but how do we know if an image is copyrighted (because I have a few ideas but I’m not sure if I can find an image)? Thank you! (Like does it have the little copyright symbol or…?)

  2. Hi Mydreamjob25 and all others,

    I also hope that everyone will join:-)

    Silly questions don’t exist. You can ask me anything:-) And especially this question because I’m sure more people don’t know this and it’s important that we don’t accidentally violate a photographer’s rights.

    There is, unfortunately, no register of photographs. Nothing that allows you to know definitively if it is copyrighted or not. So assume that any photo you find online is basically copyrighted. Except if it concerns images with a so-called CC0 (Creative Commons Zero) mention. In these cases it means that you do not have to give attribution or acknowledgement of source.

    Fortunately, there are a lot of sites that offer images with a CC0, so I recommend you search on: Pexels, Pixabay, Burst, Pikwizard, Photodexia, Picjumbo, Unsplash, Freepik,Stockvault, Rawpixel, Stocksnap, Live of Pix, Styledstock, Kaboom Pics, IsoRepublic,Skitterphoto, Travelbookcoffee, Free Food Photos, Barn images, ReShot, Morguefile, Freestocks, Shotstash, FoodiesFeed, Negative Space, Makerbook, Free Images, Freepixels, FreerangeStock, Visual Hunt, Newoldstocks.

    One more little tip: I always try to be a bit careful that the image I choose is not too much of a push factor in a certain direction. I think it’s important that every designer has the space to give his/her own interpretation of the brief. But finding the right image is a challenge in itself but you are creative enough to deal with that.

    1. I see!!! Thank you so much for always answering my questions! That was very helpful! Stay safe and God bless! Enjoy your day/night! 🙂

  3. Hi All,

    I already received the first suggestions for the new Community Contests! Thank you.

    This makes me realize that I forgot to ask something. Namely, I also need the url of your profile page. Like for example https://roomstyler.com/users/saskia-roomstyler.
    That’s why I just updated the blog on this point.

  4. Hi Saskia, thank you for making this happen! I just have two questions. One, do we just attach the photo to the email as a file? And two, do we have to include a template? Thanks again for helping the community get more involved, I will submit my idea soon!

    1. Hi Srmagi,

      Glad that it makes you happy too!
      Yes, please attach the image as a file and if you want to suggest a template contest, please prepare the template yourself and send me the room number. You can find this number in the url of the roompage. See images in the weblog please.

    1. Hi Norbosa,

      In the weblog New Community Contests there are 5 steps written down.
      At step 5 is my email address where you can mail all the needed info to. I am curious about your contest idea.

  5. Great idea! I will definitely think of one 🙂
    Silly question; but are you allowed to participate in your own suggested contest?

  6. Hello all,

    Did you guys see Esko’s interesting question above? I hadn’t thought of it yet.

    @Esko
    Do you personally think you should be allowed to participate in your own contest?

    I believe I would find it beter if the creator of the contest does not participate but does vote. The thing is, I can’t separate these two things technically on the current site, so for now we allow the creator to enter the own contest. This can be changed in the future though.

    1. I agree with you!
      I understand the technical side of it, and if someone enters themself it isn’t such a big deal either 🙂

  7. For the photo can i use one on roomstyler? like if it were about the floors and making it look super cool or something, could i use a render from my page for the photo? thanks!

  8. hello,
    this isn’t to do with the community contest but it is a problem that I have been having, when I render a room sometimes the wall dissapears and you can see straight through to the scenery, not sure if anyone else is having this problem, but I would love to see it resplved beciase it is really fustrating
    many thanks

    1. Hey Madeline,

      This happens when a wall isn’t connected to the room on both sides.
      I agree it can be frustrating. You can resolve it by making the wall into a ‘room’ itself, by adding different walls to it into a (small) square. I hope you get what I mean 🙂

      1. I have a problem with movable walls too! For example, if I want a wall around a tub, there is no problem with vertical walls, but as soon as I want to pull a horizontal wall there, the whole system crashes! My plan so far disappears, it is completely destroyed! If I look at the floor plans of Evahassing, she uses a lot of such movable walls! And I don’t understand that her system doesn’t crash for her?

    2. Hello madaline,

      This sounds very annoying indeed.
      Do more people suffer from this?
      At least in the new tool this will not happen anymore.

      1. Oh yes its happened to basically all of us. Its also hard because no one can teach us how to fix it (especially if you’re just starting rs and not many can see your page) and its hard to explain for the kind people online who can/do help, if that makes sense. I mean, I know how now but there are no YouTube tutorials which could help a lot to see what happens while hearing it. Plus I’m like horrible at explaining things hahaha. A lot of designers try posting their own tutorials and tips for some people but sometimes its not that clear.

        1. Please don’t mind my grammar and stuff, autocorrect has not been my friend today.

          1. Hi Mydreamjob 25
            This disappearing wall glitch appeared about 8 years ago and has been a nuisance, a solution to hanging wall items and a big help in creating architectural masterpieces.
            1. As Esko explained, walls need to be connected on both ends to a wall.
            Click on a wall, click on the scissors and pull the blue dot across to the center of another wall. The connections should look like a Y – if it does not the wall will disappear.
            2. When you create a template that has more than 1 room you often find that wall items pop to the “wrong” side. This is because there is an “inside” and “outside” to the wall. When this happens you can either delete and re-draw the wall (try both ways) or draw an independent wall outside your design, hang the wall item on it and move it over top of your template wall. If the item attaches to the wrong side of the unattached wall try drawing it the other way around.This was a welcome solution to the problem so we asked Roomstyler not to fix the glitch.
            3. Quite a few top designers use the invisible wall to create incredible designs, remix and find out for yourself. 🙂
            Btw I believe you are talking about the new Floorplanner Manual?
            Here is the old Roomstyler Manual, it has no updates so don’t know how useful it wil be.
            https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/media.eu.mydeco3d.com/media/manual/manual-en-2013-v1.pdf
            Hope this helps. 🙂

          2. Forgot to add that the invisible wall also get used to create open doors. Move the wall into the right position and place a door on it. the wall disappears and the door stay. 🙂

          3. @Theadora: Thank you so much for that! I already learned all that a few months ago actually, but I really appreciate that you tried to help 🙂 I’m so happy to see others reaching out and trying to support others as best they can <3 I hope you stay safe and God bless! <3

        2. It’s always nice to know that you’re not the only one struggling with something:-)

          The good news is that the new tool is going to improve a lot. And there is a good manual available, there are regular videos and webinars where you can ask your questions…

          And helping each other is always possible, although it is indeed not always easy.
          (Don’t worry about your grammar, I can follow you just fine).

        3. Theadora, I looked at this page, but I don’t see the correct making of movable walls here either!

  9. Hi All,

    I just noticed to my great surprise that completely against plan, two new contests have come online today.

    I was going to withdraw them, but decided not to because entries had already been posted on them.

    So, accidentally a little too many contests on offer in the near future.You may participate in all of them of course, but you don’t have to:-) We will go back to 3 contests a week as soon as possible.

        1. Hi Oyisha! I know not all of us are still in school but maybe you are using a school account so it’s blocked or something? If that is the case, maybe you could ask to borrow a friend’s or parent/guardian’s personal account or if you have one, use that one instead? Sorry if that doesn’t help! I’m not sure what else could have happened. I’ll try asking around on the chat. 🙂 Take care!

  10. Hi All,

    In case anyone is looking forward to the next weblog; it is in the pipeline but will appear later in the week:-)

  11. Hi All,
    On second thought, there will be no weblog this week but we will make up for that in the near future because there is a lot going on and to tell! See you soon!

  12. Hello! I have a question! It doesn’t appear to concern Community Contests but it is mostly related. I saw above that you are allowed to use a Roomstyler render for the header. If I send the room number as a backup in case the photo doesn’t load and my room is still set to private, will you be able to see the photo or not because you are an ‘administrator’ basically on here? Thank you! I apologize if my question causes any confusion and I’d be happy to clarify if my question isn’t quite clear. 🙂

    Take care!

    1. Hello, you may indeed send in a roomstyler render for the community contest header. A room number is not necessary as a backup as far as I am concerned. If there is a problem with the render, we will be in touch! I hope I have answered your question this way, otherwise please let me know.

  13. Hi Saskia!
    I know this is kind of late and all, but since I am using a school computer, I can’t email you anything. Do you have any idea on what I should do?

    1. Hi Grace,

      The only solution I can think of is the one mydreamjob25 came up with earlier:
      Maybe you could ask to borrow a friend’s or parent/guardian’s personal account or if you have one, use that one instead?
      I’m sure there must be someone around that can help you out!
      Unapprove | | | Edit | Spam | Trash

  14. I am unsure how you make a contest. I think I understand that you send it by e-mail to Saskia.

  15. I am not able to open the template on the hallway contest. I receive an error message.

    1. Hi Tammie,
      How annoying that it doesn’t work out with the template.
      I’m forwarding your problem to support so they can help you figure out what’s wrong.

  16. I, myself am not a fast designer. I marvel at those who are swift and still execute a design beautifully. I take my time, I change my mind, I’m meticulous, I change my mind some more, and heaven knows, the library is still so disorganized that it takes faaaar longer than it should to find what I want. There are way too many items in the wrong categories clogging up the works and items that should be in categories that are just floating around somewhere else. Believe me it goes far deeper than this, but I’ll get a headache just recounting all of the unnecessary difficulties in regards to the library.

    Though I will add right quick that everything that is a sofa, for instance, should be labeled a “sofa.” Then a description line can tell you the material, model, and/or the Designer’s name. This would ensure that when you search for a sofa, you have access to every last sofa on this site in one continuous listing, which of course, can be broken down into sub-categories (sectional, reclining, etc).

    So back to why I’m here. My “proofreading” time, so to speak, is hours in itself critiquing every little thing and re-rendering my 4Ks until I am satisified or just so dang sleepy that I can’t even keep my eyes open anymore. Even then I push on. Ugh. So I personally, wouldn’t enter any speed contests, but there are some very fast and equally talented master designers like ZsuzannaCs and Daisy320 who may love the challenge.

    1. Hi again,

      Thank you for sharing your thoughts on how we can improve the library. You can already find items much easier in the new editor and we are definitely looking at how we can make more improvements for you all.

  17. Hi, Saskia!
    I love the idea o creating community contests. I wanted to send you my contest idea, but I received an e-Mail telling me that the address I wanted to send it to does not exist. Can you please tell me again the address I have to send it to? Thank you!

  18. Thanks for sharing such a great blog, Glad to see this such a wonderful blog. Also, tell me how to subscribe to your webpage as I don’t miss any other blog from you.

    1. Hello Marka,

      Unfortunatly Saskia no longer works for us. She has left the support of roomstyler to me and i am happy to help you with all your questions. I am not as good of a blogwriter though.

      Greetings Luc

    1. Hello Monoprice, If you are interested in creating your own community contest. Please send a mail to luc@floorplanner.com with the details as described in the blogpost and we will try to get it up as soon as possible.

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