TG2 tötet jedes bischen Kreativität !!

[Aenea]

In my short 3d carreer I have never ever seen a program that is easy to use from day 1 ! You have to dig into it, it´s the same with Poser, with 3ds max, cinema4d, PS.....
What do some people expect? I was´t able to drive around with a car after I had my first lesson....so what?!?!
And I am not a native speaker too. I am also German, but hey, if you´re interested in learning....you´ll get it one day...just keep trying....if not...let it be.
Of course there are days I am cursing around (it helps, *lol*), but my will to get it done is bigger, much bigger.
By the way, I should do something again with TG, spend too much time with Poser at the time *lol*.

If it helps non native speaker, there are also German boards out there....
Give it a try and don´t give up, it´s worth it!

Aenea

[odd]

A node based system is the last step before scripting / programming.
Yes - it can be hard to get into - but there is nothing as powerful...except programming.

I think it's great that we get to go "under the hood" and re-wire the engine of TG2...that is what this node based system really is.

Now - coming from a background of using node based systems...there is one thing that I would like to see in the final version...

I would love to be able to hit F1 when I have a shader selected...and then get a help window describing what the shader does, what it inputs and outputs and what it is "usually" used for. A few links to info about the algorithms inside the shader would help a lot too!

Feedback anyone??

cheers

//O.

[rcallicotte]

odd,

I completely agree with everything you've just stated.  A help system would be enigmatically useful.  Well, maybe not that useful.  But, greatly helpful.  I do like the idea of a node system and the fact the TGD is just basic XML.  This lends itself to programmatic changes as well.

[RealUser]

A hit F1 help system for every node could be very helpful. I love this feature in WM!

[Harvey Birdman]

Yeah, a complete help system (F1, menu selections for contents, index and search, etc) would rock. It would be a huge help. I also wouldn't expect to see anything like that for quite a while. I know that on my own projects, documentation is always the last thing to be finished. (For nearly a year now, I've been sitting on a couple of new features for a calculus program I have on the market. A Fourier series visualization tool and a surfaces of revolution tool - they work great but I still haven't written the docs.)

Let's face it - writing documentation totally sucks. Writing code is fun; documenting that code is the worst.

[Volker Harun]

In my humble opinion everything is quite easy and understandable - this is for me. For Highflyers ... feel free to ask ... even in your native language. Flaming is not the best way to get help ;-)

Hallo Highflyer,
für mich ist die Oberfläche der Technologie-Vorschau (!) von TG2 ziemlich einfach. Wenn Du Fragen hast, dann stelle diese einfach, gerne auch in deutsch, irgendjemand wird schon antworten.
P.S.: 'Ne Frage hilft oft weiter als Meckerei ,-)

Volker

[cajomi]

Well, that is at all really surprising.
Renaming a control takes about 30 seconds for the developer (if not he definitly had to think about a better naming system).
But this naming at all looks like you have discussed naming, and to give peace, every of the discussion partners have given a part to the naming:
One for Lead-in, lead-out, lead --?
One for greatest, smallest, average feature size
one for greatest, average, smallest  scale,

well may be the one for the octave naming did loose, lowest, highest and main octave.
And so we look at different names for equal controls.
I do not know, if it really was so, but it looks so. Great teamwork and absolutley not confusing - if you have read the documentation and learn the TG2 language. So, hear to all those, who ensure, that TG2 is all easy, logical and do not change the naming before the final release and give us all a chance to learn to think and speak like a terragener. We will be part of a outstanding community and able to talk to each other by being sure, no one outside of our community will be able to follow us.

[ThinkPink]

oh yes .... I understand the mood of the first posting .... I started 4 months ago with TG09 and went to TG2 one month later.
The first 6-8 weeks with TG2 were horrible!!! First of all the GUI which was completely different and not self explaining like TG09 was. And than that node system ...... And the settings of the settings in a shader of a shader ... of a shader ......... of a ........ unbelievable! And no Help! Some basic tutorials somewhere in the internet. No ideas, which values are usefull and which one are completly stupid. Example?  The settings in the cloud density: if you take the slider to the right you get a max. value of "1". But who the f.... knows, that the best value for puffy clouds is 20 or higher??? A slider should show the absolut min and max values and not a random range somewhere between. This are basics in  software developement.
And that's not the only thing that works a little bit "strange" 
Confusion and frustration !!!!

And then the system crashes ..... after 2 or 3 hours of configuration .... blop .... TG2 is shut down..... I had more system crashes with TG2 in 2 month than with all my other programs in the last 2 years.

The only thing that is really excellent is the render engine!!! But if i can't use the program to tell this engine what it should do, the best render engine is useless.

Well, there are some people here, they can handle TG2 like no others and their pictures are fantastic!!!!! They create pictures I'll never could do (I'm from Germany and my personal big problem with the software is the complete english interface and the terms which are used - but i don't want a german version  ) So I use TG2 for 10 - 15% of it's functions ... perhaps ... some days it will be 30%.  The rest of functionality is fog and miracle .......
Now, to me, TG2 is like a Lamborghini or Porsche but .... nobody tells me where the clutch and the gearshift is (but i have a lot of pretty buttons i can push and sometimes something will happen) ...... So I try .... and try ..... and try ..... sometimes happy .... but very often frustrated .... and a few and far between very very angry.

[nikita]

The settings in the cloud density: if you take the slider to the right you get a max. value of "1". But who the f.... knows, that the best value for puffy clouds is 20 or higher??? A slider should show the absolut min and max values and not a random range somewhere between. This are basics in  software developement.

And a 500 pixel wide slider to cover most of the values would be better? 

I don't know if you know it, I recently wrote a TG2 Tutorial for Beginners (in german):
http://nikita.tac-design.net/themen/tutorials/tg2einsteigertutorial/tg2tutorial.htm

[cajomi]

No, a 500 pix wide slider is nonesense. But you can code a slider with a squared function, so a slider from value 0 to 50 covers 0 to 2500, for example.

This slider critic is constructive, how about accepting constructive critic and supporting it.

[rcallicotte]

@ThinkPink - We are allowed to fill in any number, even sometimes negative numbers, within these blank fields which is far beyond the restrictions we would have with this sort of slider.  The slider is okay as long as we can put whatever numbers we want in the field.

@nikita - Wow, that's incredibly helpful.  I know we have quite a few German users.

The settings in the cloud density: if you take the slider to the right you get a max. value of "1". But who the f.... knows, that the best value for puffy clouds is 20 or higher??? A slider should show the absolut min and max values and not a random range somewhere between. This are basics in  software developement.

And a 500 pixel wide slider to cover most of the values would be better? 

I don't know if you know it, I recently wrote a TG2 Tutorial for Beginners (in german):
http://nikita.tac-design.net/themen/tutorials/tg2einsteigertutorial/tg2tutorial.htm

[cajomi]

unbelievable........................
A nonesense slider is a feature!
@calico
Okay, if there would be a sensful slider, would you lost the feature of typing in a value in the textfield?
ThinkPink did not want to have the textfield disabled, but to let the slider represent the possible values for the textfield. It is so in nearly every application. It is sensful, it does not restrict the textfield. And it is possbile to code a slider so, that it represents the whole range of possible or sensful values.

[rcallicotte]

You're right.  If it's possible to have possible values represented by a slider, this would be an accepted standard within an application. 

I also don't want to lose the ability to fill in the blank, which is just addendum to this conversation.  A slider like you stated would be nice and expected.

unbelievable........................
A nonesense slider is a feature!
@calico
Okay, if there would be a sensful slider, would you lost the feature of typing in a value in the textfield?
ThinkPink did not want to have the textfield disabled, but to let the slider represent the possible values for the textfield. It is so in nearly every application. It is sensful, it does not restrict the textfield. And it is possbile to code a slider so, that it represents the whole range of possible or sensful values.

[nikita]

My only point is: Designing such a smart slider is something probably very very low on the priority list for a "tech preview".
Plus, I'm pretty sure that if a slider is restricted to a certain range, they did it for a reason.

[rcallicotte]

We have less than 6 months before the end of the year, which means there is still some time for this.

It would be nice to hear and actually understand the reason, if there is one. 

I would like to see this whole thing to start to be treated like an end product rather than something that is "just a preview".  That sort of reasoning is getting old, don't you think?  If it's an end-product, then certain things are expected in the world of what works.  Right?

My only point is: Designing such a smart slider is something probably very very low on the priority list for a "tech preview".
Plus, I'm pretty sure that if a slider is restricted to a certain range, they did it for a reason.