Thanks Wetfusion and V-Cube.
I like the idea of a relationship with a firm such as poliigon, v-cube, do you have a relationship with a senior person there?
While not part of it, I have witnessed the evolution of some user driven libraries growing around Revit back in the day. Essentially a bunch of people setting up a server with upload/download capability, and a rigorous classification scheme for organizing the assets, all done without any obvious support from the vendor. At the moment there is a huge advantage with Octane having the Live DB as part of the applications UI. There is no need to drive awareness in the community so that people get the benefit, it's just there.
As I see it there are a few issues with the current library that users need addressed.
1) The aging out of many of the materials as Octane has matured
2) Overly complicated material definitions to achieve a result
3) Unhelpful Material Naming
4) Inadequate classification system
5) Many broken materials that won't download.
This list is about cleaning up what's there, it needs to be done by someone and a user's group seems to be an appropriate way to do it, that approach unburdens Otoy who are clearly too busy and who are working on high value projects beyond anything users can do. That's the best use of their recourses.
Going beyond a cleanup to address the above so that we end up with a more valuable capability.
1) Addition of a keyword search - requires Otoy to implement.
2) Richer and more diverse content - requires user input, possibly requires Otoy to implement.
3) <PLEASE ADD TO THIS LIST>
There are numerous issues around point 2.
The thorniest will be legal, copyright being an obvious one but there may be others.
At the moment it seems that it is very easy for people to post a material that includes image textures that may well belong to others and to which they do not have the right to redistribute. I'm not sure how you guard against this, but obviously every material that ultimately becomes available on the site needs to be vetted before going live.
Good content might require the incorporation commercial components, what comes to mind here is again image textures, in that these can be purchased with various degrees of distribution rights. If an Octane library was to utilize these; it would need to be funded which implies some kind of paid membership to generate revenue for such purchases. This in turn implies that fees need to be spent wisely to benefit all of the members and the various divergent needs and interests they might have. Taking people's money makes things get complicated quickly.
Where to start?
I think the first thing is probably to form a small group that Otoy is willing to let access the Live DB server so they can clean it up and reorganize the assets, and to set up a permanent thread on this forum so proposals can be posted and debated prior to implementation.
Otoy has some precedent of giving power users special status/access with user bepeg4d and the Octane Guru status. Perhaps they could implement an Octane Live DB Manager status and make it clear to the community that this group is responsible for its administration, quality and content, requests concerning the Live DB get routed through this group, etc.
I guess it's time to talk to Otoy. Personally, I am happy to participate in some fashion.
best
Mark
