Planetside Software should host more contests. Maybe 4 a year to divide up the quarters with a annual "big show" being one of them. I've been going over the forums, and data I can find online regarding traffic online and it seems a lot of activity coincides with contests. But, with one contest a year, that said contests subject matter may not peak the interest of everyone to partake, or even really take a look. More contests + subjects = more peak interest in TG software.
It's really clear when you start searching about Terragen, a lot of reference on Google comes with past contests, winners, and subsequent interest by other websites making an article about TG because of a contest going on that brought them there.
Even with a modest amount of contests and huge prizes there are only 25 entries, so I wouldn't expect much of 4 a year. For users to spend enough serious time in a contest you are almost obligatory to offer prizes. I don't think many companies would do so. So I'm not very enthusiastic.
Quote from: Dune on November 06, 2018, 01:53:30 AM
Even with a modest amount of contests and huge prizes there are only 25 entries, so I wouldn't expect much of 4 a year. For users to spend enough serious time in a contest you are almost obligatory to offer prizes. I don't think many companies would do so. So I'm not very enthusiastic.
Art communities regularly host contests, though, while not even being a company and all at personal expenses of those running them. I've host several myself on my own art communities of the past such as The Platinum Zone and AniShack.
The contests doesn't need to be serious (as I indicated) but that one anual. Most companies don't do contests because they are a large corporate company and literally don't give a crap. Not a company still trying to stabalize it's supports in the field that should take advantage of any and all means of public interaction, especially being perceived as fun and relatable
No offense to TG but it tries to come off as too Enterprise/commercial without even having a hold in the field or exposure. I talk about the lot with my artists friends and always have to remind them what it even is. Lol and some of these chaps are in the movie industry which is almost embarrassing when they are like "Ok what is this?"
Also those 25 entries are based on the whole exposure of TG to begin with which is the point of this post, where TG is only trending during contests, and than drops off the radar. Simply not enough people even know about it to try it, and than those few that do are overwhelmed. So naturally you just need ways to draw in more people in whole and hope some stick around. Community interaction is the way to go if you have no promotional budget.
Heck, since the Cliff Contest the most trending results for Terragen come not from Terragen, but NWDA on Facebook. That means there is such low traffic to the website that even updates don't cause a buzz...
And most the traffic (and interest on Google)... is from me.... as I don't see D.A. on the active list that often.
I mean, I spend more time on this server than Matt or Oshyan. Lol
Additionally, the majority of the trends not relating to me, NWDA, or rendering software searches... come from a website I won't mention here, illegally distributing copies. At least pretty sure they are considering the nature of the website.
And when you compare TG to almost anyone else, TG flatlines...
Yes, it's too bad all TG related activity has gone to FB, while this is (for me) the main area to be regarding TG. Maybe host a contest on FB, but you MUST post WIP's here :P
Yeah, I was thinking of doing a contest on FB as there seems to be "other" users there, but I also wonder if they're on legit copies due to what I discovered earlier.
It's funny looking at the trends though, You can literally see a flatline around July when I got a new game that I was addicted to over the summer (PUBG). I didn't do much but some like texture stuff which didn't challenge me to lookup anything.
Everyone knows Facebook is the internet. ::) j/k.
:'(
Quote from: Matt on November 06, 2018, 04:27:49 AM
Everyone knows Facebook is the internet. ::) j/k.
This is literally how a lot of my friends operate these days. Some of my friends have even gone full-time Facebook for their businesses, ditching hosted solutions.
Don't worry man, it's just that nobody cares about world building in general. ::) Terragen is fine vs. the competitors in the space. Heck I'm surprised we score that well against World Machine, it's definitely got a bigger footprint than we do. Which probably just suggests this is not that great a measure, i.e. the data isn't that accurate.
- Oshyan
Indeed, though quotes interfere with results and are taken literally. Google has stopped omitting special characters and stuff like "and", "or", "the" etc and now is a phrase search engine. Including all the special stuff like inputing formulas and conversions.
Even analytical results show World Machine and World Creator above everything else, because, movies, games, etc. Every kid is a full on game developer these days cover every aspect it seems like... I do textures. Lol
Even including terms or searches for pageviews regarding Heightmaps dwarfs TG. In contrast, the World Creator FB, people deliberately searching on FB Groups is already at 135 members for an alpha software.
... do you not see the absurdity in your examples? World Creator and World Machine without quotes are way more popular because... those are normal words that people use all the time, and are likely to occur on the same pages together way more often than when people are actually referring to the products. Do you seriously think World Creator is more popular than Substance Designer?? Let alone 3DS Max? (oh except you put "3DS Studio Max", should be 3D Studio Max OR 3DS Max, not both)
If I search World Creator *without quotes* in the regular Google search, literally the 4th result on the 1st page is *not* the World Creator we're talking about. On page 2 the 5th, 6th, 7th, 9th, and 10th results are not World Creator either.
You seem to misunderstand how Google and keyword searches work.
- Oshyan
Quote from: Oshyan on November 07, 2018, 01:13:11 AM
... do you not see the absurdity in your examples? World Creator and World Machine without quotes are way more popular because... those are normal words that people use all the time, and are likely to occur on the same pages together way more often than when people are actually referring to the products. Do you seriously think World Creator is more popular than Substance Designer?? Let alone 3DS Max? (oh except you put "3DS Studio Max", should be 3D Studio Max OR 3DS Max, not both)
If I search World Creator *without quotes* in the regular Google search, literally the 4th result on the 1st page is *not* the World Creator we're talking about. On page 2 the 5th, 6th, 7th, 9th, and 10th results are not World Creator either.
You seem to misunderstand how Google and keyword searches work.
- Oshyan
These are search phrases, again, not keywords. They aren't taken individually on trends. No one is just arbitrarily searching "World Creator" or "World Machine" except Minecraft users for World Creator, which PC users have literally dropped to historic lows due to the DMCA "attacks" back in the day that basically killed the modding community outside of their new modding API. Also not sure that map editor has even been updated in years.
When I search "World Creator" the first result, is World Creator, same for World Machine.....
Web Development, SEO optimization, and design (on-top of whole server management) has been my career my entire life, I've only had 2 IRL (one with servers) jobs, and I'm pretty good at it.
Wouldn't be a good system if it's just Keyword hits. It's a trending system based on modern search engines that don't just work of the most popular key word, but the most relevant results to the phrase searched. Which is why you can actually use Google to do research now by full phrases, and sentences. And mind you my phone blocks ads at the hosts level through over 1,000 entries, plus Ad Blocker on the phone and computer which block just about everything there could ever be. These are just normal Google results.
And again, we have to use trending phrases people actually use on Google, otherwise you're willingly creating bias in your data.
Additionally because of relevant phrase matching, when you search
"World Creator" you're literally looking for quoted phrases, like we've been doing in this topic such as: "World Creator". You'll notice by doing that you start bringing up articles quoting World Creator, tutorials, toooons of youtube videos, and such rather than links from the site.
Ah I see why so many videos come up when you quote, the author is World Machine on Youtube.
Yeah, I know what you do for a living. Yet your data contradicts your assertions. There's no way World Machine is more popular than Substance Designer.
I also know how to use Google. Quotes are used for exact matching, whether a phrase or a single word, so the term as-written must be included in the results. Without them your search is less precise. Period. The algorithm is not smart enough to guess you mean World Creator the software and not someone going on a religious rant about "the creator" making "the world". Both pages will include the words "world" and "creator". That's why when I search for World Creator without quotes I get 451 million results, and even *with* quotes I get 269,000, and we both know not all of those are for World Creator the software (hint, if you combine "world creator" with numerous other words that identify it as software, such as the word "software" or the word "program" or "windows" or "terrain", then you get about 1/5th of the hits).
Google Trends works the exact same way: https://support.google.com/trends/answer/4359582?hl=en
- Oshyan
Thing about google search is it doesn't take into account peoples routes to them a lot of people could be just visiting support.allegorithmic.com like I do when I visit the forums here, directly. But I search google often for Terragen related info because of SMF.... Substance Designer has an amazingly comprehensive documentation so far....
Also, if you have an account with KWFinder or visit another alternative, SD only has 1-2k more PV than World Machine a month. These results are based on search engine order ranking that calculates the ratio of PV. Searching trends coincide with the software too with a pattern of "World Machine" "World Machine 2" and "World Machine 3" being the most popular trends... before stuff like "World Machine Alternative" lol
Also, World Machine is a HUUUGE Unreal asset still. Again, gamers, movie producers, down to indie, use World Creation software.
Almost every major game employs procedural generated terrain.
Oh I also forgot to add that "Substance Designer" is more of a Unicorn, or "hard search" than World Machine is. That is, "Substance" and "Designer" both relate to far more together than "World" and "Machine" do together. Substance is an affiliated term with Designers and art, used in critique and appreciation. Substance, and Design(er) will come up in far more searches whether by phrase (the software) or keyword relation in pages (or meta).
I mean I have a friend working on his second game project right now with World Machine and Substance Designer and Unreal Asset Store alone, showing their equal relevance to someone in that field, which is huuuge. Granted his use of WM over SD is muuuch smaller, at least I imagine it is unless he's incredibly OCD about art like I am.
I could go on point by point, but there's, er, no point. All I'll say is that my real point re: Substance vs. World Machine is the size of the communities around them and relative level of discussion and use. Engagement, that's what you were originally talking about in posting this thread, right? So go look at the Substance forums and Facebook groups vs. the same for World Machine. See what I mean?
Forums:
World Machine: 13,555 Posts in 2,819 Topics by 14,624 Members for the *entire* forum, for all time. It started in 2006 (I was there :D).
Substance: They don't provide the same summary of stats World Machine does unfortunately, but the Substance Painter discussion forum alone has 14,002 posts, and a quick skim of the other categories shows at least 40,000 total posts, probably a good deal more. First post in January 2013, "Welcome to our forums". So in 5 years they have had at least 3x as much discussion as WM had in 12.
OK, how about Facebook:
World Machine: 1,300 FB likes, primary group has 875 members, 17 discussion threads since Sep 1st.
Substance: 45,000 FB likes, primary group has 1787 members, 68 posts in the last 30 days alone.
So if nothing else the *methods* you're using to try to gauge popularity (Google trends and PV) just don't correlate to the reality of what we're discussing here, IMO.
- Oshyan
Quote from: Oshyan on November 07, 2018, 02:55:47 AM
I could go on point by point, but there's, er, no point. All I'll say is that my real point re: Substance vs. World Machine is the size of the communities around them and relative level of discussion and use. Engagement, that's what you were originally talking about in posting this thread, right? So go look at the Substance forums and Facebook groups vs. the same for World Machine. See what I mean?
Forums:
World Machine: 13,555 Posts in 2,819 Topics by 14,624 Members for the *entire* forum, for all time. It started in 2006 (I was there :D).
Substance: They don't provide the same summary of stats World Machine does unfortunately, but the Substance Painter discussion forum alone has 14,002 posts, and a quick skim of the other categories shows at least 40,000 total posts, probably a good deal more. First post in January 2013, "Welcome to our forums". So in 5 years they have had at least 3x as much discussion as WM had in 12.
OK, how about Facebook:
World Machine: 1,300 FB likes, primary group has 875 members, 17 discussion threads since Sep 1st.
Substance: 45,000 FB likes, primary group has 1787 members, 68 posts in the last 30 days alone.
So if nothing else the *methods* you're using to try to gauge popularity (Google trends and PV) just don't correlate to the reality of what we're discussing here, IMO.
- Oshyan
Nope not at all. My points are about a devloping software and increasing community engagement through time old means, making things engaging beyond a mass of help topics (and great deal complaining about features and quirks tarnishing results online about features) and some images from mostly the same users.
You also are stretching targeted audiences and the whole use of World Machine. It's never been an active "community". This is about it's popularity over the an option for procedural terrain.
Substance Designer inherently has more pop-culture trend because again, just like it's name being more of a unicorn than World Machine inherently, it covers faaar more than World Machine does. World Machine doesn't provide beautiful renders... It's a heightmap software with specific end-use outside the software, including Substance Designer textured terrain assets on Unreal.
You should go on point by point because so far you're showing me a clear misunderstanding of current search engine functionality, as well as consumer markets. I
While I am talking about bare bones trends, like a person going out and searching the software they heard about, and their main websites. Statistics based on all this real world data don't just lie, especially what I and hundreds of thousands of web developers pay for to gauge their reach and SEO. There would be lawsuits already inherently considering our technical fields. Lol
Substance Designer only has a PV (not hits) 1-2k above World Machine. This is their gateway website through the most likely destination through thr trends I am monitoring.
Also World Machine is dirt simple to understand out of the box. Made plenty of great terrains at school for everyone without even a glance at a tutorial. I had never even encountered a reason to search "how to" for World Machine. It's all straight forward and almost literally explained via titles.
This is like saying Adobe community should be massive considering it's age AND popularity everywhere, but it actually isn't all that big, especially compared to competing sources, that's because Photoshop is straight forward, it's actual tutorials and methods people look for which their community doesn't facilitate well with plain links and no images.
Also what the heck does post counts even have to do with this convo? TG has 252,962 the majority of which are "How the heck do you ____" lol The post ratios could be for better or worse content wise. I already got almost 3k of those posts since 2014 when I finally decided to join up and a lot of are help topics.
And again the reason why World Machine is not far behind Substance Designer/Painter as far as actual site PV and WM is ahead of SD as far as trends is because Unreal Engine is simply larger than Substance Designers community, and the number one viewed tutorial for landscaping in Unreal is for World Machine (https://wiki.unrealengine.com/World_Machine_to_Unreal_Engine_4_-_In_Depth_Guide), literally millions of hits and double the PV of SD. That's because Games are the biggest end-result of 3D modeling, and modern games employ realistic landscapes, even in cartoon worlds, and you can't have good game without terrain... and painting it brings you back to PS2/Xbox 1 era real quick.
Quote from: Matt on November 06, 2018, 04:27:49 AM
Everyone knows Facebook is the internet. ::) j/k.
I guess I don't have Internet yet. So what am I using now? Remember the BBS days?
Quote from: PabloMack on November 07, 2018, 05:16:08 PM
Quote from: Matt on November 06, 2018, 04:27:49 AM
Everyone knows Facebook is the internet. ::) j/k.
I guess I don't have Internet yet. So what am I using now? Remember the BBS days?
Witchcraft!! :)
Quote from: PabloMack on November 07, 2018, 05:16:08 PM
Quote from: Matt on November 06, 2018, 04:27:49 AM
Everyone knows Facebook is the internet. ::) j/k.
I guess I don't have Internet yet. So what am I using now? Remember the BBS days?
There are still a couple left that you literally have to dial into physically if you don't use a gateway.
How do you guys getting these stats? Which site is this?
Never mind. Find it.
Quote from: WASasquatch on November 06, 2018, 01:49:18 AM
Planetside Software should host more contests. Maybe 4 a year to divide up the quarters with a annual "big show" being one of them. I've been going over the forums, and data I can find online regarding traffic online and it seems a lot of activity coincides with contests. But, with one contest a year, that said contests subject matter may not peak the interest of everyone to partake, or even really take a look. More contests + subjects = more peak interest in TG software.
Quote from: Dune on November 06, 2018, 01:53:30 AM
Even with a modest amount of contests and huge prizes there are only 25 entries, so I wouldn't expect much of 4 a year. For users to spend enough serious time in a contest you are almost obligatory to offer prizes. I don't think many companies would do so. So I'm not very enthusiastic.
Quote from: Dune on November 06, 2018, 03:50:07 AM
Yes, it's too bad all TG related activity has gone to FB, while this is (for me) the main area to be regarding TG. Maybe host a contest on FB, but you MUST post WIP's here :P
Group,
I have to agree with Dune on this, although I would love to see more challenges and wouldn't mind doing the work, there isn't a demand for it. We have had Roadside in 2013 (19 entries), Iceland 2015 (28 entries) and Cliff in 2018 (27 entries). I am glad to see the lurkers are out during challenge time, but the fact remains for whatever reason ... they are not jumping in. Jordan mentioned during this time a majority of this traffic goes to NWDA's facebook page, realize they are directed there from dozens of NWDA Challenge announcements on all social media outlets, digital art communities, LinkedIn, Press releases and Broadcasts from NWDA's contact list. So that is the reason for the spike.
A little background info on Terragen & NWDA's facebook presence, NWDA's FB started in 2012 as a advertisement page for Planetside and the Shop and remains as such. The 3d landscaping group started as a "Terragen vs Vue" page which was tanking so I opened it up to a broader audience, that group is actually doing quite well and serves as a place where all Landscape junkies can share their work with any program, that said there are only 1-2 Terragen posts a month there. The Terragen group was created by an independent user in 2015 which I linked NWDAs page to. Now on both these pages there are only about 4-6 TG users 'occasionally' posting there so the notion that there is a parallel Terragen universe keeping users away from the forums is incorrect. They still serve as a Terragen announcement and advertisement page with a couple of posts nothing more nothing less. Facebook is a huge tool, not using it in today's social media dependent world would be silly.
I would like to mention that NWDA will be launching something that I am sure will be very beneficial to the community. This new learning outlet will be on NWDA's mainsite and will be a massive resource IF the community gets involved. More to come on this..
Good to know that there is no real parallel Terragen universe keeping users away from the forums ;D I always thought differently.
Quote from: Danny on November 11, 2018, 09:10:12 AM
Group,
I have to agree with Dune on this, although I would love to see more challenges and wouldn't mind doing the work, there isn't a demand for it. We have had Roadside in 2013 (19 entries), Iceland 2015 (28 entries) and Cliff in 2018 (27 entries). I am glad to see the lurkers are out during challenge time, but the fact remains for whatever reason ... they are not jumping in. Jordan mentioned during this time a majority of this traffic goes to NWDA's facebook page, realize they are directed there from dozens of NWDA Challenge announcements on all social media outlets, digital art communities, LinkedIn, Press releases and Broadcasts from NWDA's contact list. So that is the reason for the spike.
I'll point out, that's exactly why small businesses run contests, to create demand, for their product, and overall hearsay interest. TG comes off as a enterprise solution right down to lack documentation and PR. In fact, NWDA is it's only real PR beyond change notes....
Quote from: Danny on November 11, 2018, 09:10:12 AM
I would like to mention that NWDA will be launching something that I am sure will be very beneficial to the community. This new learning outlet will be on NWDA's mainsite and will be a massive resource IF the community gets involved. More to come on this..
Interesting, I'd be interested to learn what you mean.
----
I'd like to also interject you're all going on your personal opinions regarding your own work and it's worth, not from a real public relations and web community aspect. Heck look
Look at Blender Guru... it's had mass success with it's contests (which helped build it's community... again), which serves as a master gallery of fine art. They didn't start doing prizes until they were able (Same for BlenderNation with a old, but used to be the most popular F1 challenge). This same model as seen all over the internet. CG Society did similar back when I used it over a decade ago, no prizes. All community fun to start.
So far I see only personal opinion in defense which is somewhat void in a objective analysis regarding community development, and the wrong type of thinking in general. You have to think like everyone you don't know, the masses. What does the average person think when he first comes across TG website or the Community? (The verdict isn't good..) etc.
And it's kinda odd, considering all this conversation, it seems the number one thing Matt should be thinking about is how to raise interest. By discussions here it seems like not many people even buy TG besides those that already know it, mainly cause the exposure of TG limits itself via alot, not least of which is it's intimidating posturing as a commercial enterprise asset without even having a legitimate foothold. TG licenses itself could be prizes (even limited time licenses for specific use).
I mean, I'm poor, have no money, and ran contests off my second hand give-aways, and was able to create an anime themed digital art community with over 2 million users and eventually end in lawsuits from FUNimation and Pioneer Video because we're more popular than actual anime distributors (and shady stuff like being the first large streamer before YouTube even fully opoened). But no one would have ever joined the community if there wasn't contests. We even started the website on a contest, all for a poster I made in Photoshop.... We have over 4 thousand users, and roughly 2,000 active in the first month. This all in 2004-2005 when getting on search engines, and being found, was all manual work and networking. And the only reason to join at that time, was a contest, and an empty forum. We had hardly any art resources, no anime reviews, and no streaming yet. Eventually i gave away stuff like all my original Pioneer Dragon Ball Z Movies, a original Bowser plushie from easily 90s... I mean, all junk.
Still closed the site with over 2 million users, over 15,000 active.
The game Mesozoica held contests just to get a species in the game that was the winner, and had thousands of entries when they had no community or even kickstarter support yet.
I'd like to hear more about your plans Danny, but I'm sure you'll keep us all updated as things progress :). I've worked on images for three NWDA contests, and posted two entries. Also, posted an entry in the TG VR contest (won third place and I'm still awaiting the promised large VR image ;)). From this entrant's perspective: contests are a lot of work and are very distracting from other projects. There is a work vs reward aspect that would limit how many I would be willing to enter. E-on used to run one major contest a year (which I have reason to believe will resume soon). Great prizes and a knowledgeable jury made a strong lure to attract entrants. I'd be up for one TG contest a year.
Back to Danny's 'hint'. I've recently been running thru a number of major DCC software packages to see and evaluate their additions to environment creation. The thing that jumps out at you is the large number of available video tutorials. The 'manual' has become less and less a factor in learning the software. Granted, the manual serves as a reference resource, but for me at least, it is the number of tutorials covering as many aspects of the program that promotes understanding that I'm searching out. Indeed, a significant factor in which programs I intend to add to my toolkit are which apps have the most and best tutorials. The sources ranging from Youtube, Vimeo, Company sponsored, and my new favorite: Patreon, are numerous. I believe these channels really do make a difference in what software people ultimately choose.
Stepping into the "Data Analysis" topic (with fear and trembling). An anecdotal saying from my Corporate Marketing days: 50% of advertising works, but what 50%? Equating 'hits' with inquiries leading to purchase and use seems problematic to me, but then "Data Analysis" is not something I can claim any expertise in. For practical logic however, consider that 'hits' can be topical as well as being focused evaluation. For example: World Machine's chief guy, Stephen Schmidt, 'disappeared' from the scene for over a year generating a lot of traffic online as to what was up. Another: E-on thru being acquired by Bentley Systems and suffering a catastrophic website hack has been without a web presence and upgrades for some time now, how has that impacted the 'hit' parade? I'll leave all of this high level cogitation to the folks who spend time calculating "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin". :)
Quote from: zaxxon on November 13, 2018, 12:16:26 PM
I'd like to hear more about your plans Danny, but I'm sure you'll keep us all updated as things progress :). I've worked on images for three NWDA contests, and posted two entries. Also, posted an entry in the TG VR contest (won third place and I'm still awaiting the promised large VR image ;)). From this entrant's perspective: contests are a lot of work and are very distracting from other projects. There is a work vs reward aspect that would limit how many I would be willing to enter. E-on used to run one major contest a year (which I have reason to believe will resume soon). Great prizes and a knowledgeable jury made a strong lure to attract entrants. I'd be up for one TG contest a year.
Back to Danny's 'hint'. I've recently been running thru a number of major DCC software packages to see and evaluate their additions to environment creation. The thing that jumps out at you is the large number of available video tutorials. The 'manual' has become less and less a factor in learning the software. Granted, the manual serves as a reference resource, but for me at least, it is the number of tutorials covering as many aspects of the program that promotes understanding that I'm searching out. Indeed, a significant factor in which programs I intend to add to my toolkit are which apps have the most and best tutorials. The sources ranging from Youtube, Vimeo, Company sponsored, and my new favorite: Patreon, are numerous. I believe these channels really do make a difference in what software people ultimately choose.
Stepping into the "Data Analysis" topic (with fear and trembling). An anecdotal saying from my Corporate Marketing days: 50% of advertising works, but what 50%? Equating 'hits' with inquiries leading to purchase and use seems problematic to me, but then "Data Analysis" is not something I can claim any expertise in. For practical logic however, consider that 'hits' can be topical as well as being focused evaluation. For example: World Machine's chief guy, Stephen Schmidt, 'disappeared' from the scene for over a year generating a lot of traffic online as to what was up. Another: E-on thru being acquired by Bentley Systems and suffering a catastrophic website hack has been without a web presence and upgrades for some time now, how has that impacted the 'hit' parade? I'll leave all of this high level cogitation to the folks who spend time calculating "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin". :)
I be sure to limit my area of review to usually that week/month. Before that is irrelevant really. And it's not hits. These are pageviews which indicates (standardly) an actual surfing user, not just a page being accessed creating a hit. It records a single user IP/Browser data as a unique visitor. Hits could be from any device triggering that count that may not even be a browser (for example, I can socket pages and that would create hits, but not a pageview).
The issue is that again WM has a direct use in the gaming industry. Every person who evers picks up Unreal Engine 4 will be looking at world Machine tutorial and give it a try. And sorry, but gaming industry is far larger than just 3d modelings or movies. Everyone and their son are trying to get into gaming that have a presence online it seems like.
Also you said it yourself. Your projects would be interfered with which again brings us full circle with personal bias. This doesn't represent anyone but you. Certainly not me who literally develops in TG with the purpose of creating examples for others while I learn and wait for proper documentation and methodology.
People's time is worth whatever they think. And as mentioned when the incentive is the software there will be peek interest.
I won't mention how many illegal downloads there are but this website has tons back to TG2 And they have toooons of "thanks" from the community and downloads. This is where 90% of TG artwork comes from on devientart (I assume). Illegal use.
I'd much rather these people be playing with the freeware with hopes purchasing, even winning, a TG license. There is so much TG art out there. Not affiliated with this community because the real focus on TG is a illegal community. Vs the hundreds of them we are nothing. A pirate community is more interested in TG. Lol Lots of potential out there without even being the legit source. Not a good thing too.
Its sad to know a lot of TG interest is a priate community and their love of the software sharing and posting on DA.