bring back softimage.net

[elhemp]

I am wondering why nobody mentions the legacy netview. I found it a really neat way for organizing and accessing third party addons, shader, scripts etc. and I have never really understood why it has been abandoned after the aquisition through AD. The organization of the legacy netview and the integration into Softimage has been far superior then every other repository I now, at least from a user point of view. http://www.rray.de/xsi is a nice replacement and a cool initiative but gives not nearly an entire overview what's avialable for Softimage and it is not as well structured and accessible as the netview was.

I you don't know what I am talking about. You find the legacy netview here: http://area.autodesk.com/downloads/plug ... w_database

[Tekano]

@ Elhemp think its because it is fixed in time and new content cannot be added to. Also it was stuck with a basic Internet Explorer backend or something so was limited with specific functionality. but I agree it was another neat idea way before its time and was not developed further to be more useful or successful. I think some studios improved some content internally for themselves but it never went further than that

@ Pancho I don't know if this website can be pimped with downloadsII or not as it is similar basis, I just feel that Owie and Mods have done enough for the community already for free and its long overdue for others to step up, help out and fix what Autodesk is too fecking greedy to do.

@bottleofram heh it seems you dont need to log on to see that post also the site is so badly constructed that inorder to see the results you have to vote, again. and again and again ok no more than 5

[bottleofram]

The modo website got a pretty nice content area for shader, objects, etc. Rray is great, but is a bit tricky if you want to find stuff. Can't this website be pimped a bit?

Indeed! Luxology have done a good job with their community stuff. But, heres the catch: they have to do this. They rely on newcomers, hobbyists and freelancers to grow their business. AD gets that for free from all the schools that teach their software. In this position you focus on studios, the big clients. A huge pond of small fish is difficult to please; a small pond of big fish is much better audience.

Which is why i cringe every time Bellsey says AREA is not all that bad and is getting better, just needs more time... I dont think it needs to change, really. You have a way to ask a question about flagship products, someone from autodesk will probably reply, theres a blog platform, there are news, links, landing pages. Its just "good enough".

[Hirazi Blue]

Okay, let me add some more cents to this discussion. The main problem any attempt at a download hub suffers (and will suffer if a new one is created) isn’t the way it is organized, the way it facilitates uploading and downloading or even if it is Autodesk sponsored or not. The main problem any new web based resource site faces is how to get the user base to actually use it, either for downloading or for uploading purposes. If nobody uploads their content to your website, no amount of good will is going to help and sadly, the idea of a dedicated team scrounging the web for new content, is not the best idea either. The fact that rray.de can pull it off is admirable, but that’s a dedicated “labor of love” kind of one-man show IMHO. The fact, that the Softimage content is scattered over the web isn’t just the fault of the resource websites available, the fact that the user base can’t seem to make up their mind about the resource site to use seems to be an equally important culprit in this. And unless you can come up with a game-plan that actually will make the user base flock to this new hub and fully embrace it (to mix some metaphors!), in the end you’ll probably end up with yet another resource site, not the grand unifying resource site you obviously (and rightfully) envision.

And in closing: don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to such an initiative, even if it might sound that way. I’m merely slightly skeptical if it can be done in a manner that would please “all” (so to speak).

edit: fixed a small idiomatic mishap...

[Tekano]

Hirazi,

I think that the reason no central hub exists at the moment is because whats out there on the internets currently regarding compound sites are still is not as good as what we had 4 years ago. I agree its not that easy to organise users and they may not come, this is like the snake eating its own tail though and I really feel that if we had same functionality as we had, then

a) there will be more reason to participate as it will be super easy to browse , view details , upload / download compounds
b) it will be the 'definitive' place to get and share Softimage compounds
c) it will concentrate on delivering compounds to the community and nothing else, it wont try dilute itself to be a forum, gallery, news or a blog.

now Softimage.net downloads section was, I believe, moderated by SI staff and there will of course be some moderation needed but after the initial burst of activity in filling the site with whats out there currently - and a small team of folk could quite easily do this once the upload functionality exists. Im more than happy to transfer all of Rray's ICE compounds links to a new database - thats like a high percentage already of what exists. and of course anybody could upload compounds to it themselves.

I didnt realise that vBulletin was so cheap like £200 for perpetual license and DownloadsII is a free plugin for it. Im currently looking into server space costs and and someone to help setup and manage the server and massage Vbulletin into something like a leaner , meaner more modern version of this

http://web.archive.org/web/200808271449 ... =cat&id=15

its the running costs of maintenance and bandwidth Im not sure yet how to deal with, but sadly its a case of if you want something done properly then you have to do it yourself.

[Mathaeus]

now Softimage.net downloads section was, I believe, moderated by SI staff and there will of course be some moderation needed but after the initial burst of activity in filling the site with whats out there currently - and a small team of folk could quite easily do this once the upload functionality exists.

Softimage Net....... yes they had some approval system for ICE compounds. For my first submission, it took about two days, for second, a few weeks I think. OK, second was sometime after AD acquisition, and more important things for SI people. Anyway, for third one, I didn't even tried to submit anything, I just posted a link to my own site.

In short, If you really want a decent collection, *you* have to browse all around, just as RRay already is doing, and AFAIK, owners of appropriate sites of another 3d apps, like ScriptSpot for Max. I don't believe people will come alone, especially not to site without appropriate forum life. And there is second "rule" - what you can hold for a very long time, that is a real quality. Nothing worse than ambitious start, then a fall a few months later.

[Tekano]

some valid points there Mathaeus,

I would expect approval fairly instantly as long as you are logged in as a member. I think Softimage had more of a legal obligation to check for virus's , damage limitation etc but hopefully the user site would not be as strict and certainly not shabby as 2 days or weeks for approval!

Also I anticipate there will be comments /thread on each compound asking for advice / giving instructions for use. But definitely more of a functional site. where is the only place on the internet right now with the biggest collection of compounds? rray's! I dont think its fair to expect him to do this on his own. I feel there is enough folk who care enough that already do scour the webs everyday noticing new compounds when they appear. these are the folks I see contributing to the user site all the compounds that some creators would not upload themselves.

and the quality issue - is the most important. Longevity is the key for sure. this is why I would prefer the site to be a dialogue with as much of Softimage users as possible to establish what is expected and needed. I dont want to rush into this blindly without doing background research and seeing if its is viable to maintain for years rather than months. It would only survive if it contains all that exists already and is regularly updated by its users.

[ximage]

I do miss the old site too.

to be honest, I dont think another forum is needed. but a place where people can upload there own scripts, compounds whatever. which is well designed, visual, well categorised would be sweet.

I applaud Rray for what he does with his site, labour of love for sure. but on one hand trying to do another site aswell as that might be counter productive, why not try and all teams up and rebuild or re invent Rray? I have been wanting to try and do something like this for a while, but have been so busy setting up a small business i have not had time.

i think if you had a few moderators and a list to what people could add too (like rray now) and a way they could add compounds them selves this would be awesome. be good to have versioning system too somehow??

we run and small media business, so we have servers with heart internet, il speak with the guys but we may be able to help out with hosting? if lots of people would like to see this maybe a bit of crowd funding could work for sure.

Daniel

[Tekano]

I do miss the old site too.

we run and small media business, so we have servers with heart internet, il speak with the guys but we may be able to help out with hosting? if lots of people would like to see this maybe a bit of crowd funding could work for sure.

Daniel

splendid news Daniel! please do speak with your guys, its case of the more the merrier right now

ps I hope you are not German - we have enough assistance from our German cousins already in Softimage. where would the Community be without them!? honestly, its long overdue for some UK / US guys to step up !

[bottleofram]

Sorry, ill bullet-point this post to spare some time...


- edharriss.com - Stopped updating long time ago. Looks like a huge knowledge/resource base but most stuff is very old. Glad its still up.

- xsifiles.com - Same as above. Beautiful homage to times long past by. Archive.

- softimage.net and similar sites obliterated from the face of the net.

- xsidatabase.com - Started by Eric Thivierge, contributed by other well known xsi artists. Similar effort as the one you propose Tekano, but it didn't take off.

And if you include other software, you will see that the success rate of this kind of sites is not very high.


Some thoughts on stuff that worked well:

- rray.de - Super simple, super consistent. Controlled by a single dedicated person; kept clean and regularly updated. All entries have: name, description, relevant links and a local backup. There's a search functionality with filers. You're in, you're out. Done.

- vimeo ice group - Its a subcommunity of a much larger video sharing community. It is not unusual that author would post a link to a compound in the description. People who have no contact with softimage can became interested and eventually may even be influenced enough to consider learning more about it. Could result in them contributing to the group. Creator/moderators have almost no obligations and the thing can function for a very long time on its own.


Obviously, if this initiative is to go forward, not being supported by Autodesk will be a huge drawback:

1. Not being connected, staying a separate entity makes it hard for users to stay engaged. You can see rray.de trying to solve this by utilizing twitter. Not everyone has a twitter account, though.

2. Legacy-netview is brilliant because it works directly inside softimage.

3. After a while, theres a chance maintenance will became hard (xsibase).

4. Hack-jobs like reworking vBulletin for a database may cause problems down the road.

5. If everyone can upload, don't expect consistency. Some compounds will be misplaced, not well documented or miss other crucial bits.

6. Its just another place on the internet.


If the aim is longevity, i urge everyone not to make rash decisions and commit to something that doesnt have very bright perspective.

[druitre]

I'd say: add a well-designed repository similar to softimage.net's to this forum. Tekano (and others) could moderate such a section. Maybe have Reinhardt (Rray) included, too.

Starting a new, dedicated site would dilute userbase - yet another xsi-site.
A resources site without a forum would be lacking.
This site has been picking up speed lately to become the de facto SI-forum.

Of course, all IMO. Agree with OP on all points concerning the need for all of this. Looking at that archived .net-page brought back warm feelings (and reinforced the cold ones I have for AD).

[Hirazi Blue]

add a well-designed repository similar to softimage.net's to this forum.

That sounds way easier than it actually is. In fact: we probably would have added something like that, if it were that easy. After having modified this community several times I still haven't got a clue how the forum software actually works. Creating such a "well-designed repository" to add to this community while not disrupting the day-to-day functioning of the si-community isn't impossible, but it would mean a lot of work (and frustration).
Looking at our own upload/download facility (with all its shortcomings) and the low number of users actually uploading anything there I personally sometimes wonder if the need really is all that high.
I'd say, however, cleaning up the current download section and adding some new subcategories, i.e. " pimping" it, maybe add a post manually listing all that is available, is a possibility we could, however, possibly discuss...
;)

But: as always Owei ultimately decides in these matters...

[rray]

just wondered.. did SI.Net have admin-approval based resource submissions?

[Mathaeus]

just wondered.. did SI.Net have admin-approval based resource submissions?

Yes they did.

[scaron]

coming in late here...

it safe to say making a central repository of plugins that isn't actively moderated, supported ($), and loved will always fall short... http://rray.de/xsi/ is all i need, and i will continue to make monetary contributions to keep in running. i will say to anyone attempting to create something akin to the area, softimage.net, xsidatabase, xsibase, etc. should back away swiftly.

we have survived the autodesk purchase, we are migrating slowly from xsibase to si-community. we still have our wonderful mailing list. we have stephen's support blog, reinhard's plugin database, and a thriving vimeo presence. xsi-blog is still up but we just need more authorship. with all that i think we are doing pretty well. killing yourself trying to create yet another plugin database is not worth it. so please go have fun, take more time for yourself, and be with your friends and family.

s

[druitre]

(...)That sounds way easier than it actually is

OK, too bad, I didn't know that. Maybe scaron is right and having si-community and rray is all is needed. The way softimage.net had it (forum, tutorials and repository) all combined was just very very nice, though.

If I could suggest something for the current uploads-section, I would say it needs to have subcategories for compounds. Even though it's just four pages at the moment, it's already hard to find something if you don't know very specifically what you're looking for. (ICE is like that, because it's so versatile it quicly becomes a forest where you don't see the trees)

By the way, is the number of users/visits/posts going up these days or is that just my impression? It feels more active than before.