CompuServe Thread

At the risk of starting another "Tempest in a Teapot" (Earl Grey's, Gary favorite. <g> ) I am curious to know why Modeling/Materials would be split up from Animation? It seems to me that a more logical division would be hardware and software as these two areas encompass at least 70% of the message threads. I think a specific section for development of IPAS and answering IPAS related questions makes sense. If it is it being suggested that you'll have to log into these different areas specifically, I for one would find this very awkward. If that is the case then a seperate section for developers would work, but breaking the rest of the forum up between Modeling/Materials and Animation doesn't make any sense to me. And as there is no mention of hardware, I wonder what's going to happen to that? I would like to propose the following if my impression is correct that you want to create 4 different sections. 1) For IPAS developement and questions. 2) 3DS Animation, Materials and Modeling 3) Hardware related issues. Unfortuneately, I think breaking up the forum like this will compartmentalize the overall free flow of discussion. IMHO. Wouldn't it be better to keep it all in the same place and have a specific Sysop responsible for each one of the 3 divisions? John (In the Eye of the Hurricane) Ellis P.S. Anyone for a cup of Tea before we discuss this? <g>

I think it's overall ok. My only objection is in dividing 3D Studio that way. I would divide in: "How do I do this?" and "I can't get this thing to work"…

This seems like a really useless division of the 3DS forum. I can fully understand wanting to keep the section traffic manageable, but my feeling is that this won't do it. I really don't notice many messages that divide modeling/mapping and animation. I think the biggest traffic jams are hardware messages being posted in the 3DS section. Perhaps sysop's monitoring of hardware threads and placing them in the Hardware section would help more. John Tissavary (La Luna cie)

>> 3DS Modeling/materials…and 3DS animation. There's a fine line there. It may be more effective to split it into 3DS Installation/Hardware Issues and 3DS Techniques.

To the powers that be, I agree with the others that an installation/hardware/tech ("when I use my so&so video card I get this error in the mat editor…"), and a general/how-to/tips ("I'm trying to get a copy of this object to move along this path….") section is a much more logical and useful division of the 3ds section than the proposed modelling and animation split. Please consider it. Thanks. David

It would be helpful if you could explain what the specific rationale for wanting to split up 3DS questions into modeling and animation is. ?? – G

Brian, >> We are planning on splitting up the 3D Studio section into 2 sections, one dealing with 3DS Modeling/materials and one dealing with 3DS animation. << Bogus. I agree that a better split would be into "3ds: installation/ hardware issues" and "3ds: how to do?" would be far more logical.

>> We are planning on splitting up the 3D Studio section into 2 sections, one dealing with 3DS Modeling/materials and one dealing with 3DS animation. << I agree with the others about splitting it based on Hardware vs Technique, however as a note of support for your suggestion, there is a lot of traffic specific to VTR controllers, for example. If you don't have one (and given their price, many don't), it's a waste when you DL a 20 message thread about it because the subject was not obvious and it's all useless to you. Perhaps you should split it into "3DS users with $" and "3DS users without $" <g> Bruce Meikle

>> 3DS Modeling/materials…and 3DS animation. >>There's a fine line there. It may be more effective to split it into 3DS >>Installation/Hardware Issues and 3DS Techniques. I'd second that! There's so much blab about how this or that doesn't work/won't install/invalid normal array, I get tired of wading through it. I'd love to get that stuff into a separate conference. It'd save me loads of time downloading all those messages.