Welcome to the new Softimage community website BETA - please read

[Leonard]

Hi all,

Welcome to the new Softimage community site Beta, SOFTIMAGE|NET.

Why is this a 'beta'? Because this is very much a work in progress. You'll notice that we used VBulletin as a foundation for our new forums. We're also using Photopost Gallery to power our user galleries and content exchange.

As with everything, only through usage and feedback will we learn what works. I've used my experience running CGSociety to get this forum started and with your feedback, hone in its usage so that it becomes a great community site for XSI artists.

Please take the time to use the site, upload your artwork to the XSI gallery and give us feedback on how to improve this site.

Best,

Leo

[GeneCrucean]

This is actually a great idea Leo. Thanks for getting this up and running.

[scaron]

ya thanks a ton for your effort leonard

[ElysiumGX]

The forum looks great, and has lots of cool features. It will help build a strong community. This will be fun and helpful. Thanks for the effort.

[Serguei]

Thanks for setting this up. There's definitely a lot of potential for this forum to grow and prosper and it would be a great addition to the mailing list.

[HeavyHanded]

In the words of Tychus Findlay:
"Hell, It's about Time!":winkiss:
Thanks SI!

[SheepFactory]

Forum looks amazing. I think this will be a great alternative to the mailing list.

[olsen]

This is really nice,

thx ...

[xuanprada]

Hello everybody!
Thpanks for this site I hoe that works well and grow much.

[Aumakua]

At last! I wish all the best for our forum :clap:

[kombi]

Hi,
This is a great idea, and long overdue.
One quick immediate point, as I have quite a few web sites I scan over each day (as most people do), when I go to XSI Base, for example, everything I need to see is there on the homepage. News, articles, features, jobs etc, are all clearly seen on that one page.
Unfortunately, with this site, it's all hidden. I've got to dig under the layers to find what's happening. So in a nutshell, personally I would prefer a much more visually clear homepage.
It's almost as if the homepage hasn't been designed yet or maybe it's supposed to be this way?
Just a thought.
Chris

[flynn]

well, took some time. but its finally here. looks good.
but i agree with kombi, some sort of homepage with an overview of whats going on would be helpful.
thumbs up

cheers
flynn

[thiago]

Great move!!
this was more than necessary to help the userbase grow! :)
An up to date community portal with continuous maintenance is everything that people needed.

I would put an effort on a home page resuming "what's going on". But for me the most important thing is to have a amazing gallery filtering the best work done with XSI.
I heard a lot of people saying that they don't see that much good work done with XSI as they see with other softwares... but I know it's not true, the problem is that XSI work wasn't being collected to a single place yet.
Hope Softimage|net will do that.

[hendrixer]

WHAT TOOK YOU GUYS SO LONG!!!! :taz:
Am for one excited as s*** !!
Cant wait for this forum to get started in full force (which i dont think should take long)

Congrats to all SI users :D


Cheers

[Leo]

Just wanted to say thanks for all the effort put into this website and add my wishes of success and long lasting life! :rockon:

[mattmos]

Thanks for getting this rolling Leonard! With you at the helm I'm sure it will be a success. I actually like the layout as it is too - access to the forum is priority number one with a few thumbs at the top.

[lildragon]

Indeed long overdue, and I'm excited to where this will all lead. Happy to be part of this young community. :)

Take care,

~t

[Adrian Lazar]

I'm so happy to be here! I'm sure that the forum will be a success!
Many thanks to everyone making this possible!

[x3dx]

You'r the man Leo! :punk:

If you need something like help, support, beer, screwdriver or anything else just ask.

Thank you for this new XSI community website.:yes:

[ParsEmAll]

Hi all,

Welcome to the new Softimage community site Beta, SOFTIMAGE|NET.
...

Leo

thank you so much :-)

[The Cow]

I wonder if this will attract and retain any of the regulars from the mailing list. If so, are you here Porl?

[alexyork]

Just popping in to say hi! Nice to see a new dedicated Soft community. I've not actually touched XSI in a good few years now (not my choice... that's my industry!) but I intend to start up a new personal XSI-based architectural project quite soon and bingo, up pops this site! Great timing :)

Cheers!

[Macphisto]

Good... I like it

[franky]

i stayed away from most forums and enjoy the mailing list since years. i hope most of the folks there will also participate here and make it a rich place.
this area (*hint hint*) here is highly welcome. finally soft dedicated a little server space for the growing xsi community :)

yipiie!

ciao
franky

[kombi]

Not wanting to disagree with Mattmos, but I don't think the forum is the priority. The priority is to provide a web site people want to come to regularly for everything from news, features, downloads etc. the forum being one item out of many. I currently get completely put-off when I see the forum style homepage. I need to be able to quickly scan for the latest info. If I've got to start digging, I won't have time for this as a regular site to visit.
Chris

[Leonard]

Not wanting to disagree with Mattmos, but I don't think the forum is the priority. The priority is to provide a web site people want to come to regularly for everything from news, features, downloads etc. the forum being one item out of many. I currently get completely put-off when I see the forum style homepage. I need to be able to quickly scan for the latest info. If I've got to start digging, I won't have time for this as a regular site to visit.
Chris

You shouldn't have to dig. The strip of images at the top highlight what's hot and new. And not to disagree with you, but I found over the years of running CGSociety that most people do like the forum homepage style with the strip at the top. We created CGSociety.org homepage as a "portal" for people to go in, but only less than 10% of visitors actually go there. Almost everyone goes straight to the forum homepage instead.

Also, if you're strapped for time, you can just subscribe to the RSS feed for the forums that you want to track, and have it feed straight to your Google homepage or whatever.

Cheers,

Leo

[StephenBlair]

...The strip of images at the top highlight what's hot and new...

Interesting. By default I just ignored that strip, just like I ignore banner ads on web pages.

[Matthew L. Stoehr]

Thank you for making a home for XSI content!

[SheepFactory]

Speaking of the strip I just realized we can scroll it left and right to view past content. that is awesome! :)

[Squid]

Just thought i'd throw in a 'thank you' for the inbuilt blog. such a simple yet fantastic idea.

has anyone got a camera and some cats ?

:biggrin:

[alanf]

Love the colour scheme and love the features.

I look forward to seeing this community grow. :)

[kombi]

HI Leo,
You're the experienced web guy, so I'll take your word for that.
Like Stephen B, I had pretty much ignored the strip across the top. I'm still not sure it's of much use. Again, XSI Base gives a little description of what the picture is about. That's useful.
If experience shows this format works, that's fine. We all have our preferences.

Chris

[aria3d]

it`s a good idea...
:)

[scottsch]

Nice to be here, great to see an official XSI forum running a version of vBulletin!

Looking forward to seeing lots of great XSI work from everybody. :smile:

[Zac-Donald]

1,000 posts in 4 days? crazy!

[kombi]

Is it possible to just have a bit of a re-think about the home-page. It's 'doing my head in'!
Basically, the important things are news and recent important updates, postings, possibly? So why are news items in a scrollable window at the top? As we need to scroll down to see the large numbers of forum titles, wouldn't it make sense to expand the important items at the top, to give them a bit more priority. Like I said, we need to scroll down to the forum listings anyway.

Here's an example of what I would do, just as an idea, with brief details on the sides:-

254

Feel free to tell me not to stick my nose in.

Chris

[Leonard]

This is awesome. We were planning to redesign the homepage to make it more 'portal-like' but you did it for us. :)

No really, we are going to redesign the homepage but right now we have other priorities.

BEst,

Leo

[kombi]

Thanks Leonard,
A slight redesign would be welcome. I'll stop ranting on about it now.
Phew!

Chris

[Photon]

Hello everybody! It's good.. I like the design, Really good Organized.

[aghiles]

Speaking of the strip I just realized we can scroll it left and right to view past content. that is awesome! :)

Yes, that is a cool feature but these scroll arrows are almost invisible! :)

-- aghiles

[druitre]

Thanks for starting this!

Question: how and where are you advertising/announcing the existence of this forum? I would like as many users here as possible!
I just happened to stumble upon some cryptical remarks in posts on XSIbase which made me wonder if 'hey, could it be there's another forum for XSI?'.

Or is it part of the 'beta'-status of this forum and will it be properly announced after testing is done?

[StephenBlair]

http://www.google.ca/search?q=softimage+net+community&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=1IW&start=0&sa=N

Also, if you enter the CGTalk Uplift Challenge, you end up here: http://www.softimage.com/products/xsi/promo/challenge22/, where there is a link to SOFTIMAGE|NET.

[Leonard]

We have been promoting it a little, but you're right that it is still hard to find on the main Softimage website and this will be changed soon.... no doubt it's on a large list of priorities!

Thanks for joining us. :)

Leo

[CareerNetwork]

I like what you have done with it very good idea

[dotgeek]

Yay! I need all the newbie tutorials I can consume :) I really want to switch to XSI 7 as my primary 3D workhorse.

[aria3d]

xsi 7 is very powerful....
use that and enjoy 3d world.....
use xsi guide and read it .... that can help you...

[pavanz]

Thanks Leo,
This is so much better than the ol' mailing list! I like the embbeded videos too, what do you think is the best format for submitting tutorials with video?

Phill A

[hikmayan]

Leo,
Not to bash anyone who is not happy with the style of the Forum.As a new user,I like the style and the strip ....it's fantastic.I think you guys are doing a great job based on everything I can find so quickly and get started...hey!...I am a happy camper.