OcDS 2.1 PRE RELEASE 5th

[linvanchene]

Going along in the vein of transitioning to using the standalone;

In the interests of changing my workflow as little as possible, how are the Octane export functions in OcDS?

As long as you do not merge different scenes you should not run into many issues when using the OcDS export options for standard scenes.

I made an extra thread about what you can do to "clean up" your scenes before exporting:

Export & Merge - Delete unused rendersettings & materials

http://render.otoy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=44692

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[leblancd]

I chose to not anymore pressure t_3, the plugin developer for another PRERELASE.

The pressure is not in yet another PRERELEASE.
The pressure is in TALKING TO HIS AUDIENCE. Without communication, everyone feels abandoned.
If t_3 told everyone today what the status is, a good portion of this forum would still decide to wait for him. However, the less he says, the more people grow impatient, and even start to consider alternatives.
Even with the development of Reality 4, Paolo took around a year to complete, if not more, but he often communicated with his audience at least once a month to tell everyone "here is our status, and what we have left to do".

What is needed in the future is a stable version without any bugs left.
There is not much point in pressuring the plugin developer to release another half finished PRERELASE that will just fix some bugs while then introducing another set of new bugs.

In the development community, a good developer will "release early, and release often". The aim in that is to get the software into the hands of people that will USE it, to vet out any bugs or work out any flaws in the interface, to better streamline efficiency in not just the code but how it is used. Without newer software in the hands of people using it, all you have left is a list of KNOWN BUGS, which supposedly are being worked on, but without the communication coming from the developer, remains to be seen.

[kibbycabbit]

As of the result of no communication and no mentioning of progress status, I think this plugin development is abandoned (is it?).

I had this situation as a web developer where my clients once told me that my communication habit restored their faithful in web development after I kept them posted of my work progress at given time interval.

The plugin's last build is from December 20 and almost no word since then. Does it mean it's still developing or is taking a break? I would love to know so I can wait or not.

[linvanchene]

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[leblancd]

But I guess you cannot change people.

If someone feels more comfortable coding without any outside interaction maybe all we can do is just accept it and wait until that person feels that enough progress has been made to communicate about it.

That is a process destined to fail a majority of the time.
Release update
Wait for forum feedback about bugs
Disappear for months while working on code

Is this your card? .... Is this your card?

Without actively engaging the users of the software, developer efforts are near useless, because the result will be fantastic software that no one wants to use or has heard about.

The process should be closer to:
Release a version
Wait for forum feedback about bugs
Acknowledge the bugs, and estimate (roughly) how much effort it takes to solve the minor ones
Release a minor update, solving the minor bugs, while telling everyone about the major bugs, to give them a scope of the effort/time involved to solve them

With that approach, you have made a portion of the audience happy, because they have likely found ways around the major bugs, or they didn't care about them, or they are willing to wait for the major update -- but part of the problem was solved with the 2nd release in fixing the minor bugs.
End result: people know what is going on, and they are happy that progress is being made, proven with the resolution of minor annoying bugs.

This is why software comes with a bunch of numbers in the name. They are <major>.<minor> versions.
Things change with "version 2", but things get fixed with "version 2.1".

The issue is not that people are unhappy with the progress.
The issue is that people do not see any progress, because there is no communication about the progress supposedly being made in silence.

[sikotik13]

Before this goes the way of every other thread this topic is discussed in, I would like to point out that nowhere did I bash t_3's methodology. When he delivers results, they are usually suitable for the timeframes involved. My only dig was at Otoy, who tout themselves as excessively helpful to their independent developers, but can't spare a person to do what linvanchene did, get that status update at least semi-regularly, and report it here for the rest of us.

Personally, though I am familiar with a lot of the more common and helpful user names, a name in orange popping up telling us where we're at and what's going on would likely reassure other users. And I don't think it's outside the realm of their responsibility, since we paid Otoy, not t_3 for the plugin.I'm only posting it here instead of in the main forums as sort of an underlining of the point that they clearly don't care about this plug-in. They responded to similar comments in the more general area rather rapidly with assurances of their developer support, before promptly changing nothing about this plugin's situation. Again, my intent isn't to browbeat t_3, as I highly doubt he has any say in how this plugin is presented, my issue is that if Otoy wanted to throw this out as a beta, they could have at least, I dunno, checked the status of it, and maybe continue to do so. If it announced on the product page in all caps like it does t_3's thread title that this is a "PRERELEASE," it gives a different connotation to what one is downloading and the level of support/feedback one expects. If I worded my original text poorly, I apologize, this was the entire intent I had at the time.

[Spectralis]

Last time I had doubts I just used the form to ask on the state of the progress.
t_3 replied and explained the state of the plugin and all the work that still has to be done in full lenght.

In that case could you feedback to the rest of us? If people are submitting bugs and getting feedback from t_3 then it would be great if they shared that information with the rest of us. Even a quick couple of sentences saying that t_3 is trying to fix such and such a bug would be nice. I don't have the technical knowledge that some of you have so it's probably not very helpful if I submit bug reports because I don't know how to explain the problem in a technical way. That's why, so far, I haven't done this. Maybe individuals who submit bug reports are getting responses that the rest of us are unaware of. Ideally the developer would share this info but this isn't happening so maybe we can each contribute when relevant? That way there will be an sense of an ongoing dialogue.

[linvanchene]

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[itou31]

Hi everyone,

I'm about to take some time to return back to Daz and OcDS. I have not purchassed yet the v2.x of plugin. Only have the v1.2 version.
Does the v2 pre-release 5 more comfortable than v1 ?
After reading the forum, I'm thinking about exporting from daz and finalize with the standalone v2.
Waiting for some positive feedback before purchasing the beta v2 of OcDS.
thanks

[Spectralis]

Hi everyone,

I'm about to take some time to return back to Daz and OcDS. I have not purchassed yet the v2.x of plugin. Only have the v1.2 version.
Does the v2 pre-release 5 more comfortable than v1 ?
After reading the forum, I'm thinking about exporting from daz and finalize with the standalone v2.
Waiting for some positive feedback before purchasing the beta v2 of OcDS.
thanks

I'll sum up my opinion - wait until the final release before you upgrade. The beta is unworkable atm.