Dont think this has been said yet, but it'd be good if there was also a monthly newsletter/issue regarding things like new challenges going live in a weeks time etc, or winners of challenges, even with news tutorials coming out which used to happend a while back...

the reason i say this is because, usually the people who enter the challenges are the ones who come across it. many times i have forgotten to look in there and miss out or other things happen etc. if this letter was sent out to the "141,006" members, i would believe that it'd attract maybe new and old faces again... hopefully anyway

"this site has more potential than its given credit for - joopson"

totally true.

there is a vbulletin plugin that allows you to be notified if somethign is made on forum and can be turned off and on per thread ..

but i think a newsletter or just adding RSS feed to forum would be great

also this is just a thought ..adding aracarde games and having monthly or bi monthly prices for top score it would increase traffic to site and also have people come back more oftne to win prize ..it can be a small as 2 points or just something like that and then certain amount you get to cash them in


also i think there should be more tuts out there for free to get traffic ..more indepth ones not just in general ..example ..model a car tire ..model hand ...feet ..etc ..something people would like ..model plane ... sometimes you have to offer big to attract people

but if you had sponsers then they could help off set the cost. .

sponser meaning hey i sign up for monthly cost and get tuts for free or cheaper price as long as i am a monthly donor or they get special tutorials not offered in general public

you're more then 100 percent correct about the newsletters...im like that with threads, ill forget until i get the notification because i posted..so it helps because there are many times like you I never checked the challenge forums and then ill go and see its almost done and nothings worse then missing a challege you think you could win lol....I do like the news letter part

To be honest, I've not heard from David in a long time. I know there are lots of things going on in his personal life, so I hope none of them have gone south on him.

i am more than willling to taking over the forum and having david as my boss .... i will keep up with forum daily ..I am in the US and can keep up. i have worked on tons of forums

I like your suggestions 99GsTurbo. Some things I would like to see are RSS feeds for new topics (because sometimes there's an explosion of new topics and since it only shows 9, I miss some). I don't really search around the forums for topics, I usually just click on the new topics and see if they're interesting, then hit subscribe to check on the progress later.

Another thing I've been thinking of is simplifying the forum. Get rid of the Modeling, Animation, and Effects areas. Merge the Maya Basics & Newbie Forum, Maya Chat, and Technical Issues into one big forum. This way all the topics are in one area, which makes it easier to look around for people's questions.

I'd love to see some more tutors, especially ones that will make free tuts (because that's what originally brought me to the site).

mmoore5553 sounds like he has a lot to offer. The whole transition to S3DW has been taking way too long, and it seems like you need more people to work on it. Especially since David hasn't showed up in a while, so he must be pretty busy.

Thanks Jr.Who, you reminded me....I think that RSS feed is important...not even new topics but for new post like most cg websites.....that way you can see what ppl have been doing for the day and you dont have to go through each forum link to read whatever was posted since the last time u logged in...GREAT SUGGESTION.......

also, i do agree with getting rid of the modeling, effects and Animation to simplify....making more usful links will be great.....loving the ideas.....hopefully this gets done...

As Mtmckinley said, dave was going through things so my condolences go out to him but Jr.Who's correct, this is taking a long time and maybe we can get other members or someone who really know what they're doing to help out during his hard times until hes back on his feet and everything back to normal...and even then, it doesn't harm to have a 2nd voice overlooking or help maintain everything.......

well thanks JR who ...i have done many forums and build them ...my job requires me to know all the ins and outs ...

www.smoothstone.com is website i redid

www.smoothstone.com/old ..is the link to older site

i have kept and maintained tons of forums and have tons of idea's for this site .... hell i might suprise some people and start up one to show how it would look ..who knows

Impressive, this site has been more or less the same since I joined in 2005, and a change would be good, IMHO.

well i am more than happy to help

I could not disagree more, remeber its not just this site, its also Simply Lightwave and Simply Max also.

Give the guy a break, hes very busy as far as I can tell and S3DW will be alive when its 100% ready... And not before...

If Dave accepts Matthews help all well and good, but unti lthen I tink we need to stop speculating about what is and isnt going on

donate money, that one way to contribute.
donate your time, a lot of yous here are in web development and web design, help that way.
making free tuts can only help so much... this all cost money for the owner. :alien:

Wow, there are some great ideas, and I totally agree.

I like the idea of breaking the tutorials down into the separate sections.. Concept, Modeling, Animation, etc... Then the user would learn allot more, as each part would be more specific to it's subject, and would be tutored by someone who was talented in that area, as apposed of having someone, cram all that info into one Tut, and perhaps the tutor isn't so good in one subject than another, thus the project flops at that point.
Also then each section could be sold separately, so the user could DL the section they most wanted, and it would also be offered as a bundle (discounted price.. of course)

Plus it might me nice to offer a mini course.. Where the user would simply pay a fee... log in, and download a daily video, and follow the tutors instruction, and built up the model alongside the Tutor.. as he's building it. The user would get exclusive access to an area of the forums where they would post (along with the other users and the tutor) there work, they could ask questions, and have them answered at that point in the project they are at. This would make for allot more of an educational, intuitive, better, and more fun experience!

anyway, I think that might attract some more users... But would require allot from the tutors.

And for what it's worth.. I don't mind contributing some tutorials. I own Camtasia Studio 5, Maya, ZBrush, photoshop, plus some other software, and I wouldn't mind making a couple of video tutorials. Maybe Car modeling/ rendering, or Organic modeling, and I would be willing to do it for free!
I did receive an Email from Kevin asking if I would be interested, but then he vanished!

Looking forward to seeing more of the communities suggestions!

sounds more and more like this will end up with features from both CG Society and 3D Buzz :)

i see increased traffic as a double sided sword...
like... if you have more traffic then that's great because it increases the chance of threads getting more variety of answers by a larger variety of people

the down side is that your threads will dissapear off the first page fairly quickly... and who ever searches past the first page? i guess it'd be compulsory for the mods since they have to check the threads for appropriate content

i'm pretty sure my threads vanish off the first page in cg society within the first 24 hours...

I need to get my finger out so to speak, Just in the process of getting camtasia and sortring out the problems with the mocap stuff I''ve got available, I'll then put a tutorial togehter about capturing, cleaning, characterising, adding and blending mocap onto a character using motionbuilder and maya, going from a characther in maya, to motionbuilder, then back.

Although I might not do the capture as its a bit pointless really.