TerraLive Conference Feedback and discussion topic

[Dune]

You did a terrific job, Martin. I was enjoying the whole thing, never seen anything like it.

@Paul: regarding point 5; I think it is going so fast, it is hard for people to pay attention to address certain people instead of just leave it at 'all'. Great job, by the way, getting this on line!

[Kevin F]

Well l thought it was a really good experience, and that Martin, Danny and Paul did a great job bringing this together for the community. Well done and thanks.
Things were a little chaotic at times but that's to be expected given the novelty and unfamiliarity of the conference concept. I agree with nearly all of the ideas people have raised so far and will be attending the Fuze tutorial.
Topics should be graded as beginner/intermediate/advanced etc.
Also, is there any chance of having Matt at any of these sessions? His input would be invaluable.
Looking forward to your new website as well Martin, first looks are that it will live up to your high standards.

[AnneCHPostma]

Hi Martin,

As I already told you via DeviantArt I liked the session and am looking forward to the main webinars. Anything you, Danny and others share will help me with my upcoming plans for Terragen 2 and the tips you gave will already be time-savers for when I start creating Terragen scenes in the near future!

See you soon!

[bobbystahr]

Wow...really good work folks...thanks Paul for initiating this and Martin and Danny for essentially co teaching. I learned a bunch of stuff I should have known and it sorta proves my point that us hyper visual types benefit from graphic examples. Took a step towards understanding Functions in what Martin was explaining in the whitecap section when masking the water plane and seeing the set u along with hearing the words it all made sense, well that section for sure. Also the section on Cloud and Atmosphere samples was quite instructive as well...I think I was grokking that for the most part but picked up a few cool ideas there as well.
Unfortunately I was at a rehearsal during the actual running (got home 1/2 hour past) but got to view if not input through the most generous recording...that was a blessing as I was cursing myself for missing it. Now I really have to make the attempt to connect on the 18-20 weekend sessions....once again...well done.

[neon22]

good job. I enjoyed it.
My 2 cents:

• Have someone grabbing questions from the public chat and feeding them to the presenter so they don't have to read the chat while presenting. (pref in same room as presenter). It'll go faster and off topic stuff can be accumulated for later, in maybe some kind of grab bag of tips or replies session.
• Keep everyone using the "everyone channel" unless they want to PM. Else you'll get one sided responses where people who are activley watching (most) will not be able to follow Q&A.
• Group verbal discussions seem like not so useful for this format. Submitting questions via chat seems better able to be filtered and everyone can have their say and be heard.
• If you're going to have several sessions - be very clear up front about what people are expected to know before the sessions starts. In this way try to filter the 'too basic', 'too advanced' responses by setting people's expectations.

Cheers...

[Oshyan]

Sorry I missed this, I'm really excited by the turn-out. I'm just listening to the recording now and it's really cool to hear everyone's voices! I agree that the cross-talk can be a problem, so certainly for the presentation and tutorial portions it makes sense to mute everyone but the presenter(s), but some open chat time, or "tagging" people in to ask a question on voice would be great. The voice portion of this is really a big step, what a difference it makes knowing what people sound like!

I'm really looking forward to the main conference.

- Oshyan

[Tangled-Universe]

Thank you everybody so far for the feedback.
I'm glad to see the session was appreciated

good job. I enjoyed it.
My 2 cents:

• Have someone grabbing questions from the public chat and feeding them to the presenter so they don't have to read the chat while presenting. (pref in same room as presenter). It'll go faster and off topic stuff can be accumulated for later, in maybe some kind of grab bag of tips or replies session.
• Keep everyone using the "everyone channel" unless they want to PM. Else you'll get one sided responses where people who are activley watching (most) will not be able to follow Q&A.
• Group verbal discussions seem like not so useful for this format. Submitting questions via chat seems better able to be filtered and everyone can have their say and be heard.
• If you're going to have several sessions - be very clear up front about what people are expected to know before the sessions starts. In this way try to filter the 'too basic', 'too advanced' responses by setting people's expectations.

Cheers...

Thanks
I think all 4 suggestions are good ones.
The first one we have recieved from somebody else as well, so if it's up to me we'll do this differently next time.
The second one makes sense too. I will discuss it with Paul how we're going to approach this. Probably just as a simple request at the beginning.
Group verbal sessions can sometimes be confusing. I remember mixing up Ron (Black-cat-studios) with Jeff (Moodflow).

The latter is a difficult one. For instance, I'm going to present how to work with the node network and how to understand the rules which apply to it and how to make good use of them.
I can make this super-easy or completely in-depth as far as my knowledge goes.
Then, one may consider my super-easy version already hard to follow and another may feel pretty comfortable with the in-depth approach.

I'm aware responsibility lies with me here and by using the feedback from this topic I'm working on the session material at this very moment.
A more detailed description of the session will be released in the coming days.
This way you'll know what I'll discuss and what you can expect.
However, judging whether this content is suitable for you is something I can not judge/decide.

Luckily we use a webinar form of presentation, allowing for interactivity.
It's not like watching a video which you can only pause and hope that the video isn't too easy/hard to follow.
You can pause me though but actually also asking me to explain it again or in more depth.

Sorry I missed this, I'm really excited by the turn-out. I'm just listening to the recording now and it's really cool to hear everyone's voices! I agree that the cross-talk can be a problem, so certainly for the presentation and tutorial portions it makes sense to mute everyone but the presenter(s), but some open chat time, or "tagging" people in to ask a question on voice would be great. The voice portion of this is really a big step, what a difference it makes knowing what people sound like!

I'm really looking forward to the main conference.

- Oshyan

Pity you couldn't make it Oshyan.
I hope my Dutch accent wasn't too annoying

Like others you're right about the cross-talk and such.
I think if Paul could just watch the Fuze Meeting screen, screening for questions and discussing and passing that on to me then this should take away a lot of the issues.
There will be plenty of opportunities as I will present ~5 minute long chunks each time and then summarize in between.
We may have to decide whether to discuss questions at the end or at the end of each "chunk".

If you don't mind I would like to send you a powerpoint presentation somewhere in the next couple of days.
I need some Planetside accreditation/approval to some parts of my tutorial

Cheers all,
Martin

[rcallicotte]

I came late, because of a family function and errands.  Will look at the recorded version to catch up.

[Oshyan]

Your accent wasn't annoying at all, in fact I love listening to other people's accents! Yes, sometimes it can be hard to understand people (though not in your case), but it's still fascinating and often beautiful to the ear.

I think presenting in 5 minute "chunks" is a good idea, that gives a clear time-frame for both presenter and audience as to what they can expect moment-to-moment and when there will be an opportunity to address issues, questions, etc.

There was mention during this initial meeting that the software used, Fuze Meeting, may be replaced by something else. Is that still in consideration? I'm curious what other options have been mentioned. I thought about Google Hangout as one interesting idea, though I don't know the details of how it works for those who don't have Google accounts for example, and it would be ideal to not have to require signing up to any specific service, if possible (downloading a client is reasonable, if necessary, but having to require an account is less desirable, I think).

You can certainly send us content and we'll give as much approval as we can.

- Oshyan

[ajcgi]

Thanks Alex And yes, I knew it was you

Good to hear your opinion on the webinar content. It's noted.
I hope more people join this thread to express their wishes.

Actually, at this very moment, I was browsing your website and was drooling over your TG + waterfal integration.
How about I tell you everything I know what you like to know about TG2 and you teach me how to match TG geometry, render waterfal and composite
I'm already a bit comfortable with simulating, so that would save you time :p
Also, since the introduction of FBX some aspects like matching camera and lighting should be much easier.
As you may have read in my reply to Michael (TheBadger) I still haven't nailed that down though.
So what do you say?

Cheers,
Martin

Well there's future tutorial topics there for exploration. Fire questions away in a PM or something

I personally didn't find the meeting software an issue. Once the echo was dealt with, everything was clear to hear and see.

[Dune]

In fact it was kind of nice to hear some background noises (kids and so), like you were in everybody's sitting room. Didn't really distract.

[TheBadger]

In fact it was kind of nice to hear some background noises (kids and so), like you were in everybody's sitting room. Didn't really distract.

Yeah, the only thing that really started to bother was the echo.
The other sounds made it all feel more personal.

I have a 2 year old some who was near by at the time. So I had to mute my self. But that really makes asking questions unnatural in the fuse environment.

[Digital Art Live]

I've taken the decision that Fuze Meeting will still be used at the main conference.

The main issue was the problem of echo with so many microphone feeds into the conference room. A simple housekeeping announcement will be made at the start of each webinar and we will have all microphones off by default (apart from the presenter and the moderator), and single microphones can be turned on just for the Q&A stopping points which will be better defined in the sessions.

Your accent wasn't annoying at all, in fact I love listening to other people's accents! Yes, sometimes it can be hard to understand people (though not in your case), but it's still fascinating and often beautiful to the ear.

I think presenting in 5 minute "chunks" is a good idea, that gives a clear time-frame for both presenter and audience as to what they can expect moment-to-moment and when there will be an opportunity to address issues, questions, etc.

There was mention during this initial meeting that the software used, Fuze Meeting, may be replaced by something else. Is that still in consideration? I'm curious what other options have been mentioned. I thought about Google Hangout as one interesting idea, though I don't know the details of how it works for those who don't have Google accounts for example, and it would be ideal to not have to require signing up to any specific service, if possible (downloading a client is reasonable, if necessary, but having to require an account is less desirable, I think).

You can certainly send us content and we'll give as much approval as we can.

- Oshyan

[Oshyan]

Sounds good Paul. Looking forward to it! I doubt I'll be able to attend all sessions, but I plan to be around for at least 1 or 2.

- Oshyan