So we all just had the introductory session to the 3D Art Direct TerraLive conference :)
It was nice to be able to wet my feet a bit with online presentations and to hear your voices!
More importantly, what did you think about it?
Cheers,
Martin
It was fun martin. You did a good job I thought.
But I am looking forward to the next one when I hope things will be more orderly.
I have some requests/suggestions if you want to hear them.
By the way, your english is very good. I did not expect it. It sounded like you lived in a english speaking country for a while. Very clear.
Thanks Michael :)
My English is really Dutch ;) I think I can only thank my English supervisor at work for this as he was too stubborn to learn Dutch until a few months ago.
The final webinar session will be "topic driven" so less chance that it's drifting off.
It was actually a little bit the purpose here to keep it more informal and see how people would interact as well as wetting our feet with this form of online presenting and discussion. At least, I was pretty unfamiliar with it.
What would your suggestions/requests be?
Martin
QuoteIt was actually a little bit the purpose here to keep it more informal and see how people would interact as well as wetting our feet with this form of online presenting and discussion.
Its a good idea.
My suggestion is pretty simple.
I thought it may be nice if you make just a single rock or stone in TG2. and go through it step by step. So talk about and apply displacement and color. Or perhaps do it on a sphere object for render times sake.
Basically a way to talk about methods that can be transferred to terrains in the fastest, simplest way possible.
You could pick a rock type and just show a formula.
The other thing on my mind was about .fxb. I thought it would be cool to see a terrain or other elements set up for export to other software, regardless of what that software it is. So just the TG2 part of it.
Working between softwares in a pipeline is one of the most aggravating parts of 3D. And I for one would be grateful for any and all advice and info.
Just my ideas. But I will attend for almost any subject. Though navigating the UI sounds like a waste of time to me. New users should get the tuts on the UI that are already available. I don't think I would be happy spending an hour listening to you guys talk a complete beginner through the UI. They should have that before coming to a conference.
NO pressure martin. Its your gig. I just wanted to put out a couple of things I would like to hear some discussion on.
I thought it was a very interesting presentation Martin. I have a few notes jotted down to check things out.
The cloud and atmosphere optimising stuff is always welcome. That's one area I struggle in sometimes.
I'm glad that the actual webinars will be topic driven. Without that, there's the danger of it turning into a college class, with questions delaying the actual content. I agree with TheBadger that the beginner stuff really should be covered elsewhere as ultimately I don't want to pay to hear the basics when a tutorial on the forum tells me that.
I'm very tempted by the actual webinars coming up.
I didn't use my forum name today, so btw I am Alex Jevon. :)
Thanks Michael, I'll try to reply to some individual parts below.
Quote from: TheBadger on January 05, 2013, 05:58:00 PM
The other thing on my mind was about .fxb. I thought it would be cool to see a terrain or other elements set up for export to other software, regardless of what that software it is. So just the TG2 part of it.
Working between softwares in a pipeline is one of the most aggravating parts of 3D. And I for one would be grateful for any and all advice and info.
FBX export is very interesting indeed. I haven't nailed down the entire process for myself, so at this stage I'm afraid I won't be able to fit that into the webinar as I would only have 2 weeks to figure it out + actually understanding it + preparing the other aspects of the final webinar.
The actual process of exporting to FBX and importing it into the respective software is really simple. If you know how to use the micro-exporter then you know how to do it for geometry. It's then only a matter of setting the file extension to .fbx and you're done with the geometry.
Other elements you can export using the "File -> Export" feature.
So in regard to exporting that's really it.
Quote from: TheBadger on January 05, 2013, 05:58:00 PM
Just my ideas. But I will attend for almost any subject. Though navigating the UI sounds like a waste of time to me. New users should get the tuts on the UI that are already available. I don't think I would be happy spending an hour listening to you guys talk a complete beginner through the UI. They should have that before coming to a conference.
NO pressure martin. Its your gig. I just wanted to put out a couple of things I would like to hear some discussion on.
Don't worry, no pressure :)
As you're past the beginners phase of Terragen 2 it's totally logical to me why you're not very interested in a UI walkthrough.
The session will cover UI aspects, but many parts of it will also cover scene building.
There's no other way of explaining how all the connections (types) between the nodes
work without building a scene.
Then it's mostly a matter of how deep one wants to dive into the scene building or into understanding the node network etc.
It will be a trade-off, not so easy though.
Quote from: TheBadger on January 05, 2013, 05:58:00 PM
I thought it may be nice if you make just a single rock or stone in TG2. and go through it step by step. So talk about and apply displacement and color. Or perhaps do it on a sphere object for render times sake.
Basically a way to talk about methods that can be transferred to terrains in the fastest, simplest way possible.
You could pick a rock type and just show a formula.
Yes I agree this is definitely interesting to do. As you may have read now I'll have to see how I can weave this kind of stuff into the webinar. IF I can.
So far the biggest problems seemed in problems with the node network. How to mask, displace, apply constrictions etc.
Second to that is population techniques.
We need to reconsider the survey and how the webinar went and adjust plans accordingly if necessary.
Cheers,
Martin
Congratulation Martin. I hold to say thank you for time that you devoted to this meeting. http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/Smileys/default/smiley.gif
Pierre
Quote from: ajcgi on January 05, 2013, 06:07:46 PM
I thought it was a very interesting presentation Martin. I have a few notes jotted down to check things out.
The cloud and atmosphere optimising stuff is always welcome. That's one area I struggle in sometimes.
I'm glad that the actual webinars will be topic driven. Without that, there's the danger of it turning into a college class, with questions delaying the actual content. I agree with TheBadger that the beginner stuff really should be covered elsewhere as ultimately I don't want to pay to hear the basics when a tutorial on the forum tells me that.
I'm very tempted by the actual webinars coming up.
I didn't use my forum name today, so btw I am Alex Jevon. :)
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? ;D
Cheers,
Martin
Quote from: Jo Kariboo on January 05, 2013, 06:18:41 PM
Congratulation Martin. I hold to say thank you for time that you devoted to this meeting. http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/Smileys/default/smiley.gif
Pierre
Thank you Jo and thank you for visiting of course!
yeah, thank you Martin, (and Paul) (edit) and Danny... you did a great job, some great tips in there!
Having everyone 'talking/typing' at once was a little bit chaotic at times; but in general I really enjoyed the show, and will take away some extra knowledge...
Thanks again!
Jason
:)
It was a nice intimate experience Martin :)
Thank you again Martin, hearing the voices and the interplay of some of the long time users was fun. I thought your examples of water and clouds were very informative, but some of the technical glitches and unmuted micrphones were distracting, certainly that aspect of the webinar can be cleaned up. I agree with Badger and ajcgi that basic elements of the interface should be in another separate session. As a 'beginner' myself, I feel that the available tutorials/wiki/forum archives are more than adequate to get started with in that regard. However, it is your expertise that I most appreciate and wish to see more of. Your subject coming up of node network flow and logic is, to me, the key element in grasping T2. The question of interaction with World Machine and perhaps Real Flow was brought up as a possibility for future topics - yes, that would be wonderful! The teasing glimpses of your set-up for the streambed of one of your recent works was really fascinating; even though I am a novice with T2, I have some experience elsewhere in the Digital Desert, and I would definately sign up for a step by step walk thru of one of your master level scenes. I'm being long-winded, sorry. Looking forward to the next installment!
Hey, its never been done before .... Tonight. We'll get the tech bugs out of Fuze, But tell me it wasn't cool as heck to have all us Terragen guys and gals together, chatting it up in real time !! Certainly the beginning of something years ago wasn't even thought of, but now a proven reality, Martin .. heck of a job and certainly the man for it. Thank you 3D Art Direct, Martin and all involved for the first of many events, lots to look forward to. Can't wait !
First off Martin, thanks for taking the time and doing this for free. It was great fun to actually follow you and the discussion. Too often I feel like a lone wolf perusing the forums and then typing up some observation or question and retreating to yet another TG project. At least now I know there are real people out there who use this thing and spend considerable time with it 8)
I have noticed that some people are old-timers and may have specific questions on some shader settings or generally something more advanced than where the presets can be found for example. And then there are the more or less beginners who are still struggling with the UI and who will get lost when you get into vectors and scalars (especially the more visual users vs the math wiz kind). So you may want to make it clear in advance which session is meant for which user type, because I can see things bogging down when you have to keep explaining the basics on an advanced topic or then getting involved questions in a session meant to cover just the basics.
But maybe it's not as dramatic as I make it out to be. In any case, good to interact with everybody. If you figure out why that surf displacement did not work, be sure to let us know ;)
Quote from: zaxxon on January 05, 2013, 08:14:39 PM
but some of the technical glitches and unmuted micrphones were distracting, certainly that aspect of the webinar can be cleaned up.
Hi Otaker and all,
Thanks very much for attending last night's session.
For the main conference I think there are a few improvements that I could help with:-
1. Have a
30 minute session on the 13th of January (Sunday night at 20:00GMT) for all attendees of the main conference for a pure technical check to establish their audio.
2. Invite attendees to join up at least 20 minutes beforehand and have them address me, or call Fuze Support directly to sort out glitches especially audio.
3. Check that Fuze Meeting runs okay on your machine using this facility:
http://www.fuzemeeting.com/files/ookla/PROD/Detector.html
4. Invite attendees to use the
FUZE MEETING tutorial before the conference takes place, so they could grapple with audio and other options. I did publish the URL to members of the mailing list, but I think this may have been missed by some.
https://www.fuzebox.com/support/fuze-ed/on-demand-courses
5. To have attendees use the chat window to address individual paticipants intead of using the "ALL" option, which may make it less distracting.
6. To mute all attendees audio output until we get to specific points in the webinar. This should prevent the echo that we had on a few occasions.
Let me know and Tangled Universe of any other feedback you have.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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...
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
Thank you everybody so far for the feedback.
I'm glad to see the session was appreciated :)
Quote from: neon22 on January 06, 2013, 04:23:35 PM
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.
Quote from: Oshyan on January 06, 2013, 09:51:10 PM
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
I came late, because of a family function and errands. Will look at the recorded version to catch up.
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
Quote from: Tangled-Universe on January 05, 2013, 06:20:42 PM
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? ;D
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.
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.
Quote from: Dune on January 08, 2013, 01:40:58 PM
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.
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.
Quote from: Oshyan on January 08, 2013, 12:14:31 AM
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
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