Hi Everyone,
Just letting folks know that Paralumino will be closing its doors. All plugin questions should be directed to the Igors over at http://www.eias3d.com/forums.
Training videos will remain online and for sale for another week or so before everything is pulled. I’m working on a different website that may include them…but currently that is unknown.
Thanks so much for your support of the Paralumino product line.
Brian,
This was a great idea, too bad it had to go that way. I wish you the best of luck with the “newer and bigger things”!
Congratulations are also in order for the creation of the Previsualization Society. Lots of efforts that turned into a very interesting site.
Lets hope 2010 brings us all peace and fulfilment!
Thanks Richard. The Previs Society is doing quite well. We’re right around 500 members and growing. Difficult to keep up with membership. 
Phase 2 of that site will include a very robust social networking engine. I’m looking forward to putting that together. I plan to use what I learn to build my second generation site.
As for future things, I have a lot in play. My previs company has some products in development that are very cool. More on that when the deals are signed. The immediate issue I have now is what to do with this forum.
Hi Brian, let it run unmoderated, if you have no longer time to moderate this forum. I think this is possible, because i have never seen a forum leader/moderator at the modo forum.
I for myself don´t want to see another forum leader here, because i have seen that at the new EI site people get banned even if they have not posted yet and i would feel pretty uncomfortable if one of the many admins there would become a forum leader here…
Regards
Stefan
It is true that this forum has mature into a place that doesn’t need moderation for the users can manage themselves quite efficiently. However I doubt that the CGSociety would allow the forum going without anyone heading it. This is an excellent place to exchange and be seen by our peers. It would be a great loss for the EIAS Community if it was closed for lack of administration. This is why I would gladly accept the charge of “groundkeeper” or gladly support the nomination of any other user. We need this place.
Dunno if this forum keeps the peace from good users, or from few users? just has seemed quiet around here for many moons.
Cj
CGTalk will not allow a forum to remain unmoderated for long. Those that are unmoderated for a short period of time are always discussed in the Forum Leaders’ section to find a moderator. Basically CGTalk requires two things.
CGTalk must approve of the moderator and they tend to prefer people within the CG industry with experience under their belt. CGTalk didn’t want an EI Forum here, but I asked and they agreed to it if I moderated it.
If the moderator is supervising a forum that is application specific, like this one is, the management of that software must endorse the forum and its moderator. While I have Brad’s endorsement, my relationship with the Igors isn’t really what one would call “stellar”. Since they are now the “owners”, they may have an issue.
Personally I take the Igors’ refusal to address users over here as very telling as to what they think about this forum and more particularly me. Their outburst on the EITG forum over a year ago about how I was “ruining” EI pretty much cemented that. I’ve also read their comments on Bear’s Hotline Beta site which haven’t been overly positive about CGTalk and its users either. Essentially, if I’m talking about the software, CGTalk doesn’t want any potential legal issues occurring between what is posted on CGTalk and the interests of the software company. CGTalk has to protect itself legally.
So I guess the question is…what do you guys want? Do we want to keep this forum active? If so, its definitely time for a co-moderator. Personally, without Paralumino, I have little tying me to EI anymore, but will continue moderating if asked by EI management (and the users of this forum).
I’m fine with you co-moderating Richard. If anyone else wants to be considered now’s the time.
As for “endorsement”, I would consider it a “burying of the hatchet” if the Igors were to start posting here again. It doesn’t have to be often. Tomas pops in on occasion, but I would prefer seeing the entire management & development team over here from time to time. Despite our differences, its time to put that to rest for the sake of the application.
Its been quiet because I haven’t really done anything “in many moons” to generate conversation or activity. The last thing we did was “Yesterday’s Future”. The place has been on autopilot. I’m here, right now, only to manage, observe and moderate…rather than participate. The Igors pretty much killed my desire to participate to be honest.
Can you please cosider it.
I wish Scott N was moderating these forum along with you Brian.
Good luck.
Edgard
I think Richard will be a good co-moderator.
Your contribution to the EIAS community is greatly appreciated Brian. I think this forum has helped to keep EI in the 3D public awareness and maybe brought a few new or returning users to the app.
I hope that the new EIAS3D app, the new modeler from EITG will continue to benefit from you being part of this community
I also think that Richard will be an excellent comoderator or even the moderator if he’s willing and if Brian choose to drop the job.
Maher
The current situation is rather complicated: while this forum had become EI community’s heart, leaving the EITG one for addressing mere technical issues, the new EIAS3D one is getting to be the center of attention now (mostly because having that close contact with the Igors and co. is almost exhilarating, I guess).
I wasn’t aware of any bad blood happening there already. If so
Well, I don’t know. A good percentage of any forum content is wishlisting and ranting: now that one can do that (can we?) right in EIAS3D owners’ faces, this forum’s traffic sure is meant to go lower. And there is not much to talk about lately, everything being sort of mid-cruise between versions. Until, say, EITG actually produces a modeler
I would suggest to let this forum coast for a while and see what happens, but I guess that CGTalk’s policies could complicate that, now that EIAS’ change of owners redefine things.
Well to be quite honest, I never really wanted this forum to focus on the nuances between versions. I always envisioned this forum to be for EI users where artistic technique was emphasized. That’s why I held the contests and tied them in with EITG’s website (aka project Phoenix / Yesterday’s Future), and how to tips and stuff like that. I also wanted to see works of art generated within EI that I could “plug” as moderator to the CGSociety’s gallery and front home page to show the world that EIAS was just as good if not better than “those other applications”. Yet the EI WIPs forum remains rather empty and works of art are in short supply.
Instead what happened was the political features war about what EI needs and doesn’t need. I’ll admit that I’m guilty of contributing to that debacle. But I’ll still stand by my position that character and vertex level animation is a massive deficiency in EI and is probably the sole reason why people aren’t really interested in the program anymore. It was the whole reason why the Para plugins were created in order to start addressing those deficiencies. EIAS3D hasn’t been active for long, and lo and behold a MDD i/o has been created. All the while I was told MDD wasn’t possible for the Fact file format and the Igors created gNome instead (for Simcloth).
See… here I go again. This makes me feel like nobody was listening or I was being brushed off.
The fact is if we want this forum to move forward, we have to find a new purpose for it and I have to let go of what I want to see for EIAS and regard it as nothing more than a tool rather than investing myself into the success of the software. My problem is I always like rooting for the underdog and its users with that kind of zeal that help propel a software package forward. Its the constant back and forth between users and developers that makes a program great. But without the real support of the developers over here, what’s the point of this forum?
Hey Brian,
I know the intellectual property of EIAS was acquired by EIAS3D. I’ve seen Tomas do pretty good job bouncing from forum to forum. I don’t know if its in his interest to moderate this forum or be the corporate backing for Richard.
I think we have odd friendships / acquaintances here so my question is this. This forum is called EIAS personally weather this is an EITG or EIAS3D this is a community that is in transition just like the folks aforementioned. Wouldn’t the fact that v8 is still sold through EITG still legally entitle you to support this forum and have EIAS3D decide over time if they want to bother moderating / sponsoring this forum? On a personal note I’d hate to see this forum go to the wayside of Postforum.
I’ve seen most of the users here already hopped over to EIAS3D forums and getting nice traction. Here’s a general question that you may or may not have the answer to but I’m curious of your and others thoughts on this.
I think we can agree that EIAS has become a rendering go to tool. We all model and animate with various apps and we use EI for various career and personal reasons. Would the separation of EIAS from EITG be a total dissolution over time? Meaning, will EIAS3D have totally nothing to do with EITG’s efforts for their modeler with the exception of importing obj and hopefully fact files? Is it possible that once both companies release a v9 EIAS and EITG releases their modeler wouldn’t they share that core connection? If these apps become brothers to each other or distant relatives could the EIAS/Silo/EIM/EITG(plug soft here) be run under a weird title forum like EITG/EIAS3D? This applies only of course if there will be harmony amongst the 2 companies or you need dual consensus from both companies if not then hands down Brian pull the plug.
Like punisher says “kill em all and let God sort the rest out”
Hopefully we keep this friendships / acquaintances under a roof.
as usual long rant, for my 2 cents. Best of luck in your new endeavors.
Brian,
For totally selfish reasons, I’d love to see you stay just because you have had so much to contribute over the years. I’ve really enjoyed this forum and have gained a lot from it. I’d hate to see it go the way of PostForum (when was the last time anyone posted there), but this group tends to limit their discussions to one or two forums at most. Collectively, we might already be making the decision for you.
I’ll continue to check here regularly, and add to conversations when I can, as long as we have this available to us. I’d freely support any of the people who’s name has come up for being your co-moderator.
Good luck as you move forward. Don’t forget to come visit once in awhile.
Ross
Hello, me again…
after reading the last posts i would see it this way: Appoint Richard now as co-moderator and once V9 is released the new company should take responsibility about the forum and speak with CGTalk folks. Since they are currently not replying here to this very important thread you gave them the opportunity to know what´s going on in advance and they have now time to plan in advance in case they like to see this forum continued.
I for myself can only thank you for making this forum possible. Before i didn´t know nothing about CGTalk and i must admit i learned here, not only from the EIAS forum, a lot.
In case this forum get´s closed sooner or later i hope to see many of the EIAS users who added modo to their toolbox in the modo forum!
Regards
Stefan
