Hasn't it been awhile since Raydream was alive?

Is time to kill RDS on this forum or should we cling to the dead past? It makes the entire forum appear slow to evolve and change (even though that is not the case).

I know this has been discussed before. I used to think RDS had a place here but we are now on Carrara 4. When was the last time you saw a RDS post? What do you think?

Steama

I haven't seen a Ray Dream-specific post in over a month. But... I like that we are acknowledging history, and I like that anyone with an old copy of Ray Dream can look here and realize the opportunity they have of transferring their skills to Carrara. I have no shame in my grey hairs, that I learned computing on a Kaypro, or that I still draw with a pencil and brush. I think people who get the shakes at being associated with an "older, un-cool" program (or anything else) need to grow up. :)

Who's got the shakes? Who needs to grow up? I dunno? Just curious about other opinions like yours. History is okay with me. Thanks

Message edited on: 01/11/2005 16:28

Heh. Thanks for giving me a chance to indulge in an "old fart" rant. (And when I started 3d, we didn't have wall sockets. We had hand-cranked generators. The mice were real mice and were really slow right after feedings -- besides, they left mouse turds all over the desktop. Wire frame? I'll give you wireframe! We made ours with real wire!)

LOL.. when I started 3D, you had to clean the clay out from under your fingernails with a toothpick... Then I got RDS 5.5, along with a training CD, and never looked back... Still got it... Just can't bring myself to get rid of it.

Heh. I once got bloody fingers from 3d. I was carving a pair of styrofoam heads on an impossible deadline -- used bare fingers to scratch out the shape and wore the flesh right off my fingertips. Yah, I kinda miss working in plasticine, where the "bones" were a frame of soldered coat-hanger wire. You could do some pretty nice cloth effects with tissue paper dipped in watered-down white glue, too.

I was hoping RDS would be removed. It only confuses new people who haven't heard of Carrara or RDS. And RDS has a stigma as well. Let's get rid of it for once. It died. Just like WordStar and Bankstreet Writer did.

I admit...might as well call it the Carrara/Infini-D forum (not that it saved a lot from Infini-D.) I figure most people with an old copy of Ray Dream will have moved on by now. Not even sure Eovia is still offering that upgrade. So, in short, I regretfully agree we might as well simplify the name of this forum. However, I find this sort of "let us be free of the dead weight of the past and shoot forward into the high speed future" an annoying attitude, usually espoused by people who think you can't possibly surf the net with less than a Pentium 4, or do graphics without a 42" monitor. I'd like to think we were more sensible than that around here. Perhaps, keeping that one mention of "Grandfather Dream" around keeps us humble...

Either continue hanging onto the RDS name long after Carrara is sold off to yet another company and renamed to something else, or give RDS it's own community/forum. Let Carrara breathe on its own without a cojoined sibling.

I think the current banner provides a nice balance.

It's kind of like acknowleging your grandfather. Besides, those of us that got introduced to 3D through Raydream can say things like, "All you young 3Dee whippersnappers don't know how good you got it. When I used to model objects, I had to walk uphill both ways, in the snow - and I liked it. We didn't need no fancy boolean subtraction or eye-candy HDRI, no siree. We just contented ourselves with good, old-fashioned geometry and we were happy to do it.Yep, back in my day, doing atmospherics and landscapes were only for those la-tee-da rich kids who could afford the Four Elements plug-ins and we certainly didn't need no, what do you call 'em now, Bones? Them's were the days alright..."

There are 10 times as many posts about Poser in this forum than there are posts about RDS. Ray Dream is a non-product. It was a venerable tool for, but it'sreally just a cousin to Carrara at this point. I say this should be the Carrara forum. If there's a real outcry, then maybe Renderosity can make a Raydream forum.

Of course my personal opinion is that the quality of work you show is more important than what you call the forum it's in. In fact, we could call this forum Uncle Ed's Flat Footed 3D Goons and it wouldn't change a whole lot! :D (I mean besides people that have good feet defending their arches)

An awful lot of what is discussed here applies to RDS as well. RDS is basically the bones of Carrara. Those of us who've been around a while understand this. I don't know what the stigma mentioned above is. Raydream 1 was my first really capable modeling program and I still use RDS 5.5 for much basic modeling. It's not perfect and it lacks some useful features, but it is often faster than Carrara. I use Carrara for combining RDS and Poser scenes, although the RDS import is not as clean as the TransPoser import. In the end it makes no difference to me whether the forum name changes or not since the content will be the same, but I don't see keeping it as negative in any way.

I still have RDS 5.5 on my computer. I even open it time to time to take a look at the interface but I would rather do all my work in Carrara. I can't bring myself to wipe Ray Dream off my hard drive though. I do think the name Ray Dream Studio is a better product name than Carrara Studio whatever that's worth. I don't care what we call this forum but if I had to vote I'm thinking the Uncle Ed's Flat Footed 3D Goons would be pretty cool... just think of the banner we could make! memaci

Ooooo, I could get my teeth into this one!

Message edited on: 01/12/2005 10:15

applauds loudly I tried to make the worst banner possible in 1 minute. This is much better. Now I have to try for more tonight...

I like the logo! I move we change immediately.. . 2nd? :-) It would keep the riff-raff out too. ;-) Markd

I'm all for remembering the past, but its near impossible to find/purchase a copy of Raydream anymore. Occasionally you spot it on Ebay, but thats about it. I think noting Raydream in the backroom is a good way to remember the past, but considering there are maybe 1 maybe 2 people that still actually use Raydream and come to this forum, its not worth keeping the title. I see it as an older version of Carrara. I don't see the Bryce forum labled "The Bryce 1, Bryce 2, Bryce 3, Bryce 4, and Bryce 5 Forum" :) But doesn't matter that much to me. Keep it, get rid of it, just my personal opinion:)

Well, I could go either way on keeping Ray Dream Studio in the title. I was probably the last holdout, too, I was still using RDS 5 up until last year when I upgraded to C3, and I've opened it maybe once since. But for the years I was still using it, I didn't post here, because I didn't really see any other posts from RDS users. I didn't want to ask "How can I do X in RDS5?" and hear "You silly little man. You can't do X in RDS5!! You need to UPGRADE to be able to do X!!" or more likely, "I used to know how to do X in RDS5, but it's been SOOOOOOOO long since I used it, I don't even remember what all the Icons mean any more..." However, If we DO decide to drop RDS from the Forum Name, then I vote we ADD Amapi in it's place. There seem to be far more Amapi users hanging around here than RDS users, and all of us who have C4Pro are now Amapi Owners, if not users, and maybe the Amapi modelers will stop picking on the VM modelers so much. You know what I mean, "Why'd you mode that in the Vertex modeler? I can't do squat in the vertex modeler, it's so hard! It's like trying to learn a new language! Everything is soooo much easier in AMAPI! You should use Amapi, it's so much better! Buy it now, and I'll show you the secret handshake!!" Ironically, I want to learn modeling in Amapi, but it's so hard! It's like trying to learn a new language! But it has nurbs, and manifolds, and Coons surfaces, and MacInerny Nodules......(Ok, I made that one up) But I has a lot of cool, useful modeling tools that I barely understand and really want to learn. Maybe we could even get some Amapi Tutorials put in the Back Room, that would be cool...

Ha! Flat footed and round toed!

And ANOTHER thing..... I want an Uncle Ed's Flat Footed 3D Goons T-shirt....

Brainmuffin, that might be worth considering. Kix? I know exactly what you mean about learning Amapi. In fact I only dinked around with it until this year. It is too-cool once you get the hang of it, though.

Attached Link: http://www.zazzle.com/create/custom/apparel/prices.asp

First place I tried. They even broker images, I'm considering submitting a few! World's Biggest Breakfast for sure!

Message edited on: 01/12/2005 15:51

I've been using Ray Dream/Carrara since Ray Dream Designer 3. My vote is to lose the Ray Dream tag. I don't really think that it's relevant.

It could actually represent the mind of the peeps around here.

Or not...

(it is not something I can actually control or anything)

It's closer, HC, but think T-shirt, not banner. That first face was great, too. I picture that guy standing behind a counter in sweaty tank top holding a fly swatter. It should look like the counter in the grubby office of a junkyard, and there should be a doorway behind him with a sign proclaiming "Uncle Ed's Flat-Footed 3D goons and Second Hand Auto Parts" and on the pegboard walls should be some auto parts, some human bodu parts, some spaceship parts (and some of the objects should probably be in wireframe) and on the counter in front of him should be some unrecognizable twisted, knotted object made in the spline modeler, and there should be a speech bubble coming from his mouth saying," You gonna buy this here MacInerny Nodule or not?" Of course, that's just how I see it.... I have a feeling that we're going to wind up having a contest.....

RayDream 3D was my entry to this fabulous world; RayDream Studio 5.5 was my first serious 3D program, and Carrara is my tool of choice now. My only hesitance at removing the RayDream name is for the wayward RayDream user who's just bought it from e-bay or found it in Uncle Ed's attic; it's tough to find help, and this place was very helpful to me. If it was possible to remove the name, but still direct folks with RD questions to the forum, I'd be all for removing the name. Yeah, we could remove the name anyway, but then are we abandoning our cousins? Oh, and I'll take fries with my MacInerny Nodule, please!

Having finally stuck my toe in the chilly waters of Amapi, I think brainmuffins idea has some merit..... then again I like the new banner ideas too so my opinions may be suspect!

Wow, go away to a work forum for a day and come back to find we're hashing on this again! Well, we never really came to a consensus the last time we debated on it. This time however I'm seeing that people either don't care either way OR do want it changed. I'm going to start another thread on this subject and I want people to post to it ONLY if they want to keep the RDS title. After I see what happens there, Mark and I can confer and make the call. -Kix

Sounds good Kixum. I do somewhat see the merits of combining the Carrara and Amapi forum, but that is debateable.