Proposal: Community Tutorial Project?

[Hirazi Blue]

Although our Community Projects tend to be short-lived, I’d like to propose yet another one. One often hears the complaint that there aren’t enough good tutorials for Softimage. And often those tutorials that do exist seem to fall victim to a lot of criticism from the user base.
So my proposal would be to create an all-new “Community Tutorial Project” to achieve three goals: firstly, to create a good inventory of what tutorials are perceived to be missing most (general topics as well as more specific ones) and then secondly set out to actually produce these tutorials under the watchful eyes of our peers, who can help improve them with constructive criticism. And maybe thirdly, figure out what makes up a good tutorial as an added bonus.
But as this is merely a proposal I’d require a lot of feedback before we’d open yet another “doomed” community project. What are your thoughts on this? Would you be willing to participate?

[EricTRocks]

I'll volunteer to make tutorials. Just need to know what people are missing.

[dwigfor]

I think the biggest thing missing is just organization. I think what would work nicely would be a "video manual", organized into different topics. Each topic would have a list of urls to vimeo, or wherever. There's alot of content out there, it just needs to be collected and organized.

My request is probably too far out there, but I'd love to see a tutorial on creating a Custom Display Host Window. I always thought that had a potential, but lacked the ability of utilizing it. Could it be utilized for visualizing Kinect data?

[milanvasek]

I'll volunteer to make tutorials. Just need to know what people are missing.

I would really like to see some good rigging tutorial. Especially face setup (because the rest i can do somehow with GEAR autorig ) on some cartoon character. With good explanation from experienced rigger, tips&tricks, when to use bones, when to use shapes, when to combine them and why... all that stuff you need to make character with nice expressions
That would be great.

Or is there already something like that?

[Hirazi Blue]

I think it would be best, if we would use this specific thread to figure out if there is enough enthusiasm for a project like this on the side of the potential/possible tutorial makers. So far we've got EricTRocks and myself (implicitly and by stating this: explicitly as well) "on board" to try and remedy some gaps in the land of Softimage tutorials.
If and when we get enough people "on board" willing to attempt making one (or more) tutorial(s), the next step would be to create a long (?) list of all the tutorials that are obviously missing. The list could become a pool of potential tutorials, the "makers" can choose something from that's "up their alley".
The whole thing is intended not merely for seasoned professionals (and tutorial "makers") like EricTRocks to participate (they're all obviously welcome though!!!), but to make the creation of useful tutorials a potentional additional learning experience for the "makers" as well. And it should obviously be rooted in our little community also. (Showing/premiering all tutorials in dedicated threads here, for instance)
;)

In the end the focus should lie on getting some tutorials actually made, not just listing what's missing...

[aio]

-Rigid bodies

Apart from momentum which is a paying option there are no tutorial on the matter, simple things as how to avoid particle blasting apart, how to build a collision object that work etc.

[gustavoeb]

I'll volunteer!

I for one think there is a lot of material out there... Certainly not all of it is good, but many things are. I hope we can get enough people to at least centralize many of this content, and maybe rate it + check if it is current/dated.

[csaez]

I'll volunteer too!
My english isn't perfect but I can try

[TwinSnakes007]

Well, I am personally gonna be getting into Creation Platform and Softimage. So I can do some tutorials about that.

[Pooby]

Well, I am personally gonna be getting into Creation Platform and Softimage. So I can do some tutorials about that.

I would Really love to see that!

And I'm happy to make any tutorials covering anything I'm familiar with. Or even stuff I'm not.

[EricTRocks]

As far as organization, I've tried my best to categorize the videos on the Softimage Tutorials vimeo group. If anyone wants to volunteer to help moderate and organize please PM me.

[Hirazi Blue]

So how are we going to do this? As a proper (and probably in the long run yet again slightly doomed) Community Project or shall we simply open a “missing tutorial request” thread here and see how it develops. My idea to engage a large group of users to join the effort, even those who had never dared to make a tutorial before, probably was a little bit too optimistic. A compromise, I guess, would be the “missing tutorial request” thread together with a thread dedicated to presenting new tutorials, additionally to EricTRocks’ efforts with the Vimeo Group (as I still secretly want to add something to the si-community specifically as well, obviously).
Your thoughts on all this would be very much appreciated.

[gustavoeb]

If a missing tutorial thread shall be open one should take into account that, without a centralized source of SI tutorials, requests for duplicates will arise. So, in my opinion a sticky (and organized thread) should be kept in the tutorials section.
The first post in this thread should be a compilation of all known tutorials split by category, type (text/video) and availability (free/comercial). When possible one or more viewers could rate the tutorial, tag it as up to date or oudated (in relation to currently used features and workflows), and maybe add a short description to it (which could be limited to X characters, like twitter). This will help people not to waste their time, and also highlight what is missing as far as tutorials go...
This is by no means something small. It could be tackled inside the forum stucture or outside of it. It is easy to set goals way to high, and make it unfeasible, so I know I might be getting unrealistic here...
In order to achieve this I think it would be possible to firstly index some well kept bases, like AD's Youtube Channel, AceMasterminds Youtube Channel and the Vimeo Group Eric mentioned. The indexing of those should be tedious, but easy... Then it is up to voluntaries to add whatever else they find. It would be up to people who use this centralized source to eventually rate the material as they see it, and also request if there is something they cant find...

[EricTRocks]

While I think Gustavo's idea may work on a smaller scale, the amount of items that we would have to list is pretty astronomical. I think a sticky thread for people to post ideas of tutorials they'd like to see / can't find may be more useful in terms of what this forum can handle / deal with. Otherwise a database would be needed and a list of searchable entries would need to be available as well.

This is what xsidatabase was meant for initially but the community based aspect didn't really pan out.

Not sure what I'm really saying here other than having a huge list of all videos is not really manageable in a single forum thread and another type of solution is probably needed so it can be easily searched, items tagged and categorized.

Lastly, I think there may need to be a weekly poll of what tutorials people are looking for then the results at the end of the week will determine what tutorial should be made during the next week. Asking for more than 1 tutorial a week may be too much even if spread around a group of people willing to make them.

[gdebello]

A full military vehicle rigging tutorial, similar to how Craft Director studio works but only using Softimage would be great. Any tutorials like that now?

I work in military sims now and rigged tanks and bradleys similar to how Craft works. I know mine is not the greatest of rigs but it works. I can make one of what I have done for mine but I won't be able to start until the new year.

Thanks,
Glen

[gustavoeb]

Yeah, I was aiming at what would be best, but reconize it is unrealistic

Not sure what I'm really saying here

Neither am I

Should we start an rray.de for tutorials then? Or are we better making something within SI-Community, strenghtening one spot instead of spreading thin?