To all OTOY executives, managers etc.

[martincarlson]

I am a faithful subscriber to various podcasts on CGI. Eg CG Garage and Blender Guru. I really miss an Octane (OTOY) Podcast. A podcast with main focus on the current OTOYs products and their potential.

Sometimes I marvel at how blind a company like OTOY can be for the tremendous ambassadorship which are among the product users. There are tons of people who use the Octane on a highly professional level and who have interesting perspectives on various workflows with software. Use that people and that ambassadorship. Reward it.

A given host for Octane podcast's course is everyone's Tom "Mr. GPU" Glimps. A humble and very ambitious person. Had I been in a executive position for OTOY I had provided him with a damn good microphone, sound card and what ever he wanted to produce an episode a week of an OTOY/Octane Podcast.

Content of this podcast can be discussed. But I’m sure there’s loads of people with insight in different OTOY solutions for example that could talk and explain stuff.

For example Light Fields:

The YouTube clip of the live LightField capture of a room has gotten WAY too much publicity than it deserves right now. Which is good - please understand me correct. I’m the biggest OTOY fan and I’m very interested in all these techniques described very diffuse on the OTOY homepage.

A film clip demonstrating probably something group breaking in the industry - is uploaded WITHOUT sound? OR any explanatory speaker OR at least information in text? Is this available now? How does it work? Is it a prototype? Is it for real? Have someone used it yet in any commercial stuff?

Imagine if you guys had put some more effort in the branding of this video release? The ambition must be kicking all competitors asses I recon? If you want good examples of this - check out the music software developers Propellerhead or Ableton. They know how to put out film clips that bangs on the big drum and make you wanna kill someone to get your hands of their cool new stuff.

Over and out!

[Goldorak]

These are good points. We could hype things more. But we are really just busy building the product and bringing it to market. Did you read the two upload VR articles about it BTW?

Regardless, we can and will do better. We'll be bringing on more people to help with user resources and outreach. We all love Tom here at OTOY too BTW

[Rikk The Gaijin]

I have expressed in the past similar critics on how poorly OTOY's videos are made.
They have an incredible technology, but they fail to properly present it to the world. I understand that it's all Work In Progress, but it doesn't take much effort to make a nice video, with proper audio commentary, and post it online in the appropriate channels, rather than some anonimous silent video on YouTube that last 3 seconds with little or no explanation.

I hope they will do something about it, for their own benefit!

[Goldorak]

Out of our videos - which work and which don't? This feedback helps.

[martincarlson]

These are good points. We could hype things more. But we are really just busy building the product and bringing it to market. Did you read to two upload VR articles about it BTW?

Regardless, we can and will do better. We'll be bringing on more people to help with user resources and outreach. We all love Tom here at OTOY too BTW

I understand you're busy. And that it is work in progress etc. But If you're too busy to make that awesome thing - and don’t have the time making a video showing how aweseome that new thing is – Don't do it at all. All in or all out.

Don’t wanna whine. Just want you to shine in all your glory.
It’s like open school day and you are proud to show off your cool parents to your friends - and they show up drunk, smelling bad and make you look really weird when all you wanna do is brag about them. =)

Yes. Everyone loves Tom.

[Rikk The Gaijin]

Out of our videos - which work and which don't? This feedback helps.

I'm referring to the OTOY youtube channel. For example, the videos about LightField are really short and have no audio. In the comments, most people don't understand what are they looking at.

[Rikk The Gaijin]

The solution is simple: if they have no time, just deliver the task to someone that can do it (someone like Glimpse)

[martincarlson]

Out of our videos - which work and which don't? This feedback helps.

I'm referring to the OTOY youtube channel. For example, the videos about LightField are really short and have no audio. In the comments, most people don't understand what are they looking at.

Exactly. It's really hard selling in theese techniques to clients. They don't get it. At all. And I understand that.

[Goldorak]

Out of our videos - which work and which don't? This feedback helps.

I'm referring to the OTOY youtube channel. For example, the videos about LightField are really short and have no audio. In the comments, most people don't understand what are they looking at.

OK. On the new OTOY site is the light field section more informative?

[glimpse]

hehe, thanks for a shout-out, Martin. I've actually been thinking 'bout that.. =) though not sure where to start, but maybe..

& do agree with You quite a bit, here are few reason:

* I've been surprised that month into RenderTheMetaverse challange even facebook fans who are following OTOY doesn't know that they could get OctaneVR fro free & it's full fledged OctaneRender, but Guys where still sitting on demo..I surprised that so little people use the possibility to try this software..but that's not because they don't want, but because they don't know..-comunity is huge but conversation hazy (not all spend so much time reading every post on forums =DDD)

* other point, again touching the contest - seems it's so easy to output the scene (when You know), but I'm amazed how little entries we have during first month - it's comunity, but again, some endorsment, maybe few tuts (information in one place) might help others, encourage them to jump in & explore these possibilities, even if they don't have gear to play with (I've done my experiment on very simple scene - agree it's too little of details, but it was not to compete, but rather to learn..& I wouldn't like to put too much time in it..if I'm not sure that it works - guess that's the case with others too)..

* already share with some from OTOY, but maybe it would be worth to say out loud there (& create a thread). I think it would be useful for a lot of user who don't have gear to try out - have a thread in forums, where others could help to test their scene giving some feedback. Might sould like a waste of time, but actually in one thread we could gather tons of interesting relevant information 'bout best practises & things to do or not while building VR environments.. - not all those tips are scatered around..(it takes a lot of time to pick all those).

* it's new field, a lot of things to learn..but Your work or Your learn..-& when You get too deep into learning..You might come short with time for doing. Bit of organising the forums & information delivery might help a lot to boost Octane, to make much more user friendly in terms of adoption. As much as I like Octane, it's bit diffferent from other apps..in a good & in a bad.. way (not severely bad, but..it might be hard to get in touch with it) I know that first hand, 'cos I nearly dropped this package in first weeks of using it..

ok, let's stop, 'cos otherwise nobody going to read it- already too long =DDD
cheers