VirtualWorldDynamics opened this issue on May 11, 2024 · 51 posts
VWD3D posted Tue, 14 May 2024 at 7:26 PM
Hello Gérald!
Glad you are well and back, and energized to continue to improve VWD! Of course this is good news.
With many thoughts, for *me* it comes to this:
Do it and share it. Or call it quits and stop raising hopes with no delivery.
Everyone that has ever loved VWD would be *so* happy to see you work on VWD for your own love and enjoyment, and then to share your ideas and special talents as you go along.
And, we both now know there there is no real money in this small 3D niche. D-force, cloth-room, and Blender sims are free and good enough for most.
But I still think VWD is better.
VWD is still a *wonderful* tool, and of course we (all of us users) have many small wishes for little features that would make it even more wonderful (e.g. saving selected vertex-sets - hint hint), so *anything* you add would be welcomed with *great* appreciation.
To do this only for yourself would be fine, but perhaps sad, since it is all still so magical and amazing, and would be so appreciated by your users.
To my thinking, the Patreon model is the best for this product now, where you can share any fixes you *enjoy* adding, only when you feel like adding them, big or small, and anyone who enjoys these changes can support you and share in those changes as you go. This way VWD thrives in your mind, your own desktop 3D world, and with those of us who know and love your creation. It would be easy to post ongoing updates on Patreon, so the mechanics of doing this would be pretty easy to do, especially if the updates were built like the version 1->2 update version. (we can discuss the practical logistics offline, but I put this out there for comments and other ideas)
You can share videos, but even better, you could also share your betas and experiments on Patreon (as updates to the paid-for base). They don't need to be perfect as long as we can revert to our earlier working versions (re-install, etc.) and I think many users would be very happy to *play* and try out your ideas and current experiments *along with you*, sharing feedback, ideas, and debugging! Maybe restructure the VWD base to use plugins for the features that lend themselves to that sort of functional isolation, like photoshop does, so people can buy the VWD base, and kind of build their own personal VWD versions for their workflow - swapping new beta plugins for the stable versions and back. And, that would probably work very well in the Patreon model.
You (and only you) have the ability to make this project a fascinating playground - and maybe, when *you* think the time is right, you can "smooth off" the rough edges of your ongoing beta features, and create stable/reliable 'point-releases' every year or so, as the features stablize.
My hopes are raised, but... to be honest, not too much yet. A popular English saying that comes to mind, is 'show me the money' (you said we should be honest here...)
I too have been away from active 3D work for a long while, and understand that life pulls us in many ways, so it is great to see life calling you back here for a while.
So, I am very glad you are safe and healthy! And I'm happy that you are back and saying that you wish to shine up VWD and make more magic.
Maybe it's a new beginning for this brilliant gem of a tool called VWD.
What do you think, Gérald?
best to you all,
VWD3D/Dan
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Resources: https://www.virtualworlddynamics.net - https://www.patreon.com/VWD
Rendo PM: VWD3D or VirtualWorldDynamics or support@virtualworlddynamics.net
Current VWD Version: Release: V2.2.924.6464 - 2019/12/12, 9:46am
Qualifier: Yes, I'm helping Gérald with VWD, Nooo, I'm not yet an expert on its use!