TerraLive Conference Feedback and discussion topic

[Tangled-Universe]

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

[TheBadger]

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.

[Tangled-Universe]

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

[TheBadger]

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.

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.

[ajcgi]

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.

[Tangled-Universe]

Thanks Michael, I'll try to reply to some individual parts below.

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.

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.

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

[Jo Kariboo]

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

[Tangled-Universe]

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?

Cheers,
Martin

[Tangled-Universe]

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!

[inkydigit]

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

[Kadri]

It was a nice intimate experience Martin 

[zaxxon]

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!

[DannyG]

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 !

[otakar]

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 

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 

[Digital Art Live]

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.