carraracafe
ManStan
Posts: 0
I have to ask is there a point to it? With 95% of the carrara users using/posting in the carrara section of the DAZ forum is there any reason to have the carraracafe?
The forum design/function is archaic, login is confusing, posting is a flashback to the forums of 20 years ago, and no one it there.
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Is there a point to ANY OF US existing...? Maybe we should all go away if we cannot answer why we are here or what purpose we serve.... :-/
The gallery is better than here (IS there a gallery here?)
and it is curated with articles, news, plugin updates, and tutorials from all over.... None of those features are here.
There is a growing FREEBIE section there (the Carrara freepository forum at DAZ was removed).
The forums there are a little lacking in features, so I assume you are talking specifically about the forums? They could be beefed up certainly.
Another problem is (I believe) the people involved there are not native English speakers and there are many typos and misspellings...
Another thing I find annoying is Cafe attempted to organize like Carrara's interface, so the forums are broken up into arbitrary "rooms" for discussion.... Spline Modeller does not really need its own forum -- meanwhile In my opinion the Hair Modeller COULD use its own forum... The organization of Cafe - at least in the forums seems really arbitrary to forums.... It should be arranged around the way we TALK about Carrara, not arround the program's interface.... How can you do ANYTHING in Carrara without involving several of the rooms at once?
Well...At least its something...
Yes Holly, my point is the forum. Certainly there are things there for carrara you wont find here, but something you will find here and not there are people. It's like throwing and party no one shows up for, or setting up a banquet for 100 people and only 5 show up.
If the carraracafe is for us carraraest to carry on conversions with out being under DAZ's very watchful eyes. Some safe place from Studio fanisiam, why is everyone still posting here?
So what about the site is putting people off, and can we change it?
For me, as I stated the login is confusing at best, and the forum itself is rather archaic in design and function.
Another thing I have often wondered about on the DAZ sites is why there seems to be a complete lake of artistry in the site appearance. As an example of what i mean look at the LOTRO forum site http://forums.lotro.com/forumlist.php
Now a while back I did render for the carraracafe header. It's some of my better work. What they have now just looks sad. I never entered because I couldn't get the steam rising from the cup like I wanted.
I won't argue aesthetics... Your pic is nice but has absolutely nothing to do with how Carrara actually looks... I made an attempt on my own site to come up with a logo that incorporated the Carrara icon -- but of course the Carrara icon itself is inconsistent between Mac and PC. The Mac version still uses the original Carrara chiseled cube... The PC version uses something that I can't describe and I don't care for anyway, but I'm old school like that. The Cafe logo is cute like a low-bit game or something.... Your suggested logo is like an art deco diner...
*shrug* it all seems pretty arbitrary. No one is in charge and it's a free-for-all. Even the "official" logo is confused.
As far as the forums at Cafe... I'd like to see some html formatting tags... So it is easier to embed images and youtubes... make some BOLD and ITALICS. Change the font size... etc. There is no way to upload an image into Cafe's forum, so you have to host elsewhere... If you don't have your own site, that can be a real pain, especially if all you want to show is a screen grab or WIP you wouldn't care to post in a public gallery...
A little TLC would go a long way.
Oh yes change the font size please lol
"Your suggested logo is like an art deco diner… " holly wetcircuit
Good, that was what I was going for. :D
I have a sort of private gallery. I do some game alpha/beta testing, so I need something that will work with in an NDA.
I'm starting a thread there for hair and fur... what I find annoying is there are too many subforums named "General" -- more than 1 of any forum with the same name is too many...
What is the difference between GENERAL DISCUSSION -- GENERAL and TIPS TRICKS AND DOUBTS -- GENERAL...?
The very structure of the forums there is user-UNfriendly and confusing. Seriously, all you have to do is pick some sample forum threads here at random and ask yourself which forum they would belong to at Cafe. I bet you would hesitate... Beyond some fancy header logo, not having obvious places to put and find things makes the whole forum there a turn-off.
I call it SUB-FORUM-ITUS... ;-P
Most forums also give Newbies an easy place to start by giving them a NEWBIE subforum -- that's where the most frequent starter questions can go, and people who are just starting can get the basics without getting confused by more advanced topics... If you are just starting out, would you even KNOW what part of the interface a question belongs to?
There is also a forum drop down menu there that lists like 5 or 6 plugin category threads but not the most recent threads in all topics... It just doesn't make any user sense. Little wonder people don't post or reply there.... It's difficult to find anything. Even my OWN thread I started last night, I had to hunt a few minutes to find where I put it....
Ive found the Cafe very good. and at least its another site for people to hear about Carrara.
Do you look for things to have a go at that have Carrara in there name, here's one for you its SO bad they've even forgot to mention the software at all http://www.carraramarble.co.uk/.... :-/
LOL, keep goggling... When you get to the Carrara chastity belts, well, let's just say it is an eye-opener! :bug:
:grrr:Holly why do you go and make me do a search, that is so Nasty and they look really uncomfortable.
Off to bleach my eyes now..... :bug:
As a newbie at CarraraCafe, I don't have the history, but I believe that the Forums are technically bad because it is a free package that ships with Wordpress, while you need a little money to upgrade to a proper forum software package compatible with Wordpress. So it is a money thing...
Just fired off an email to the colleagues, lets hope for the best.
Since this Carrara forum At Daz works well, I have personally focused on other content for Carrara, like adding more news, tutorials, downloads, freebies and so on, which is the point of CarraraCafe. There are very few other Carrara fan-sites with Carrara content...
ManStan, you are welcome to contribute in any way, images, animations, tutorials, whatever Carrara related.
Thanks 3Drendero... In the past I had offered to help with the site since I have like a decade of experience with Wordpress. I submitted an article, but never had the ability to fix the various typos or formatting throughout the site. I understand if they want to keep the admin to themselves to prevent too many cooks in the kitchen, but I feel they might need the occaisional influx of fresh eyes...
I'm sure if there is a better forum plugin that requires money we could raise the funds for a one-time purchase... I definitely see the use of having a differentiated site with a much slower (and less troll-y) forum than here.
Stan
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I think we probably had the most posting going on over there back when someone got banned and the censorship here grew to ridiculous proportions.
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You're right, the layout is pretty bad.
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I started a thread about keeping the cafe alive sometime ago, but I'm at a loss of how to get people over there.
I think the site of cafe is fine for the posting of news and galleries. It could use a little facelift here and there but really It's pretty nice and yes thanks Daz and 3drendero for giving us this spot and for 3drendero for updating it. They did not have to do that and do not have to ---so lets figure ways to make it ---"the" Carrara spot it is supposed to be.
Yes , the forums have to be a little better organized ......and they look kind of simplistic but that should not stop folks from posting over there. I need to myself and will start going there daily. If everyone took that step we could shift momentum over there. And if it was my site I would have a folder just for bitch festing. Let everyone who for some reason see the glass half full or who feel they do not even have a glass that day --post away an say their ideas and thoughts as they have the right to . Revel in the muck as it were . Venting and feeling good about their venting but in a closed room . Smiles. This way the rest of the forum world could go about the business more focused of learning, asking questions , and posting images and animations and getting better with Carrara. Smiles .
Emailed a question if the seniors at CarraraCafe can set you up with site access, let us hope for the best.
The forum problem needs money for an upgrade, there are 3 options:
-Ask Daz
-Ask for donations
-Join the Daz affiliate program, not sure if this would generate money though
Awaiting feedback from the colleagues on how to proceed.
3drendero--
Thanks for pushing this up a little. The more I think about it though ---its only the forums that are really kind of ugly and unorganized . As Holly says the folders are too many and not appropriate. So even just that would be nicer face lift and maybe more condussive to use.
And really we could use an upgrade in what we all post. When folks are getting deleted as much as they have lately ----that's telling you we need to be a little more focused on the topic and not the folks responding so much to every word we say. Bring something good to the conversation. Something new. Something folks can learn from . If its just another rehash of an opinion we all probably know it by now -so that's not helpful to anyone except adding another old hashed response. Smiles .
Agreed. After all this drama I open Carrara and look blankly at it... and all I think is the bugs and whether or not it's worth it... In fact I finally realized something I was doing in the hair room in the beta I had thought was a bug was really a feature I didn't understand... I mean, yes this stuff is not well documented (I eventually went to the manual where I didn't understand the explanation, lol), but my assumption was immediately "UGH they broke this too..." then an hour later I realized it wasn't the function I thought it was...
Basically if all we talk about is bugs and lack of support then that is what we expect... Once I realized it was something new and uncharted it was too late to play and I needed to go to bed. LOL! I psyched myself out of enjoying my Carrara time.
:sick: Having a different place to post explorations without dodging angry trolls would be a good thing! It's too easy to become a troll yourself to combat trolliness...
I know! I'm more than guilty of that myself!
Anywho, off to capture yet another hour of video...
OK Stan, I have bitten the bullet and offered to get involved at Cafe..., so I will try to tinker around and see if I can make the forums there easier to use.... More important I'll try to organize it to be an asset to long term projects, feature development/bug hunting, and hopefully enhance the download repository we've always needed to share shaders and presets...
:grrr: Wish me luck!
Thats wonderful holly. I'm sure you will make a big difference.
Welcome and good luck!
We can use all the help we can get.
Indeed!
Thank-you for getting involved! I look forward to the changes.
I went over to post at the cafe, but for some reason I no longer had an account over there.
I DID open a new account and have made a few posts.
Too bad, I can't sem to upload my "face" (avatar)
Welcome and good luck!
We can use all the help we can get.Fantastic!
Good Luck!
Better yet, Thanks! Off on a small honeymoon vacation with my Rosie. Be back to forums soon ;)
This is awesome, Holly.
Enjoy the vacation Dart! Damn...I wish I had a vacation...
Staying on topic here -- I just noticed that Carrara Cafe has an RSS feed. SWEET! That is a trillion times better than relying on the flakey email notification.
Heading over to sign-up now.
EDIT: Signed up...here is a larger version of the avatar that I'll be using (assuming there are no issues with uploading).
If you aren't there you are missing out on my fumbling attempts at a graphic novel ;)
The original Carrara logo represents Carrara a location in Italy where you can get the best sculpting stone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrara_marble
Just in case someone was wondering about the name and original logo ;-)
Just created new account at Carrara Cafe.
Glad to hear Holly is over there.
Hope to see you all around.
8068
One of the issues with CarraraCafe is the site page loading speed. Its very slow even with fast cable internet. 4-10 seconds for a click through. This is why I never go there. If Daz is funding the project, can you guys get them to move the site to a faster server or hosting company? That would help a lot.
I posted on the Cafe about this. I'd be interested in learning exactly where the bottleneck lies (web server, database server, etc.). I stand by a willingness to contribute to help either financially or technically.
It is great to have this alternative - I hope to see more of you over there.