Working on a Freebie Wiki
dakkuuan
Posts: 305
I've grown rather fed up with looking for freebies for use with Daz Studio. Places like renderocity and sharecg are wonderful community hubs but have terrible search engines. I grow tired of searching for 'hair' and finding almost nothing but materials for hair I don't own. Forums can be a bit unreliable, especially when changes are made by the management semi-frequently. So, I've decided that I'm going to build a freebie wiki that will make this search easier. My aim is to create a wiki that is useful for those using Genesis 1 and 2, so I will be including compatible Generation 4 content as well. Maybe the only exception to this rule will be hair because that can usually be easily scaled to fit any gen model. That pretty much leaves out only gen 4 morphs, because the software to convert them isn't cheap and I'd like to focus on items that can be used by those of us who generally use the Genesis figures. Maybe later I'll expand the wiki to other figures but until then I'd just like to make it easier to find content for use for the last two generations. Also props would be awesome to include any I can.
This post has two purposes,
1. Who would like to become a moderator once it's ready? It won't be publicly editable (I don't want people making their own page for their freebie and adding a zillion tags to lead everyone to theirs). I'd really like if I got reliable sorts like some of the moderators of the Daz forums or major freebie contributors like Wilmap.
2. Any suggestions? Especially about a layout. Should I go with a few pages with lists or one freebie per page with tags leading to said freebie. I like the one freebie per page idea, just not sure how that will work with wikispaces, where I plan to host this.
That's all for the moment. Any suggestions or ideas would be appreciated.
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Comments
I've worked with wikispaces and I don't think it will meet our needs so I might need a custom solution, something I really don't have the time to build (or the server or web domain for that matter). I'll keep looking.
There are over 250 free texture packs for the Genesis Morphing Fantasy Dress - and that's just one outfit. Kerya's free hair list has nearly a thousand links, many of which have multiple freebies. If you have a limited number of pages, having one page per freebie will result in you hitting your ceiling rather quickly.
As for moderating, my interests are in some props and most Generation 3 characters. I can help you with the props...
Actually I've just created a solution on my own free domain. So there won't be any real limits. It's a lot of work though. Once I get everything setup, I'll send you a link and an account. As for that hair post, I was just looking at it and a lot of them are broken. This will give us a far easier way of moderating and reporting broken links, once I learn how to set up dokulink.
Well ... if you answer to the hair list thread with broken links they will be deleted fast ...
There are 30 List threads in the Freepository and that number is added to when someone starts a new "list" thread. They are all linked into one post at the top of the Freepository. The people who maintain those lists can tell you that it is not an easy task, but they have maintained then, some for several years now. Yes maybe some may have dead links, but these are removed when the person making the thread is notified. Suggesting that maybe you can do things better is somewhat demeaning to the members that have set up this searchable resource, in their own time and voluntariily.
BTW the Freepository is limited to threads which offer freebies, so this post is actually in the wrong forum, as it does not offer a freebie, and will be moved to product Suggestions.
Now that I've had an evening to think about it (and to remember another project)...
There's already a resources wiki out there, and it's poorly-used and poorly-maintained. Heck, it doesn't even list Genesis, let alone Genesis 2, and the wiki's owner hasn't touched it in over a year. (Although it does make for a good place to show an example of how I might organize the freebies.) Why would this wiki be different?
I'm still willing to contribute... but I won't abandon the lists I have here.
I have too much on my plate as it is, so I think I'm going to do the basic setup and let the community have at it. If they use it, they use it. They don't, they don't. No skin off of my nose. I think the best solution is for things like MFD textures, the list format would still work. But for freebies like clothing, morphs and hair, I think we need singular listings. Searching for stuff is tough and want to do something to make the process easier.
(blows dust off thread)
It loks like dakkuuan never got around to announcing that wiki... so I went ahead and did it myself.
We now have a freebie wiki!
All my lists are there. Kerya's hair list is there. semicharm's lists for Koshini and Deco are there. Eustace Scrubb's list of Doctor Who freebies is there. I've even made a list of the freebies available in the DAZ3D.com store - and started providing descriptions of individual freebies!
But that's barely scratching the surface of what we want on the wiki, so please come and add to the lists and the descriptions.
https://poserdazfreebies.orain.org/wiki/Main_Page
Free items for Genesis, G2Female, G2Male, Shaders, Props, Furniture etc
https://www.wilmapsdigitalcreations.co.uk/
And that's now the first link on the "list of freebie sites" that's on the wiki!
More thoughts about the wiki...
Eventually, what I'd like to see there is a page for each freebie, showing at least one render of the freebie and listing at minimum where to get a copy, what the freebie's usage restrictions are, and what you need to use the freebie.
We don't have that. Yet.
What the wiki does have right now is many of the lists of freebies from this forum (posted by the maintainers of those lists), plus a couple of other lists. This is barely a beginning - feel free to create an account and add whatever you can, even if it's just one link to an obscure freebie for an obscure or old character. (Hey, I've set it up so somebody can make a Victoria 1 freebies list if they want.)
We do have a few simple rules for content:
1) We can't use the "official" images of the freebies because of copyright laws. Please make new images for this wiki. (If anyone needs an excuse to render something, now you have one.)
2) While the wiki is not bound by any one vendor's Terms of Service, it is bound by anti-obscenity laws. No nude renders and no listing of anything that sexualizes minors, please.
3) It's a freebie wiki - paid content should be listed elsewhere. (I'd suggest Lyrra Madril's http://posercontent.wikifoundry.com/ as a place to list paid content.)
4) It's a wiki for Poser and Daz Studio content. If a resource cannot be used in Poser or Daz Studio (or with those programs, for free software), it shouldn't be listed on this particular wiki. Yes, I know that leaves Bryce and Carrara fans out in the cold ... sorry about that.
Now to kick this announcement up a notch:
Logo Contest!
If this was easy, I would have done it myself... The freebie wiki needs a logo.
Requirements:
* The image must illustrate the idea of free 3D-art resources.
* It must be 135 × 135 pixels.
* You have to use free elements that are licensed for commercial renders in the image. (This is for a freebie wiki, and there's a microscopic chance that somebody might use the image in a news article.)
* You must be willing to share the image under the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license.
Post your entries to this thead - you have until 23:59 (Daz Time) on September 10 to enter. List what freebies you used in the image, including the URLs where to find them. I'll pick a winner (although I reserve the right to ask for advice from everyone).
The Prize: Fame and Fortune, sort of. The "fame" part is attribution on the wiki, and the "fortune" part is a $15 DAZ3D Gift Card, paid for out of my own pocket.
That may be a significant task, and a lot more clicking and back buttons.
Have you considered a table format for the item page? This would make it "sort-able" on column, scrollable, same page searchable, and allow for quick browsing. Sort of like the discography shown here, but with images in last column: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rolling_Stones_discography
This would make it "as convenient", if not more, than the typical Thread Listing
You could always have a link to a "More info" page...for the above (i.e. additional info, fits, mats, additional renders, etc)
It could have columns, such as:
Item Name, Description, Modelled for..., Author, License (Free/Comm/etc), Image (hyperlinked)
You could take what you have, and drop it into excel and get significantly close to "done", except for renders
(EDIT: I made a quick example in a sandbox page (I think you can access it?): https://poserdazfreebies.orain.org/wiki/User:3doutlaw/sandbox Unfortunately I could not find how to upload an image, and links to render external images seems to be turned off)
ok, done some shameless self promotion and added my free skydome + expansions to the wiki (had to use something to try, so if I have to mess things up, then better to do that with links to my own stuff..... :-P
Well, before I add anything else I guess I'd better take a crash course in wiki editing :lol:
As for adding images, I don't think that would work well in the 'list' pages in the present setup....
BTW, you made it hard to join for a 'dog' person like me ......;-P
(Oops, forgot to subscribe to this thread... No logo entries yet? Nobody wants $15 of store credit during the PA sale?)
The wiki is still very much a work in progress. I like the idea of a sortable list, especially for pages where we couldn't come to a consensus on how to sort things. And there was trouble with all images during the first couple of days, but that should be fixed now.
EDIT:
As for the idea of "More Info" pages, take a look at the one for Mitsu Hair - it has almost everything I'd like to see on such a page.
Ok, here is my entry for the logo contest.
Or something simpler:
Or a combination:
Thanks for the entries! We still have a couple of days to go, so I can't say anything just yet...
Three entries, one entrant - while I'm not sure which entry wins, it's pretty obvious who wins. wwes, check your PMs for the GC code.
Awesome, thanks. I'm surprised more people didn't jump on that.
I like the table on the Anime resources page! :) I added a new freebie to it I just made. I did not spell out the whole link, as the page goes off the right side of my browser, even widescreen, due to the length of that column. I just put the word "link" and hyperlinked it. It also has the first actual Thumbnail on there :)
That's a pilot project - "one of the editors" ;-) suggested the format, and I ran with it.
I just installed a template for single-item pages, too. I think it has everything we'll need for 99% of the freebies - and whatever's missing for the other 1% can be listed in the page text.
Hey, Rob. Not sure about the protocol, but I thought I'd post here before diving in and editing the wiki. On the V1-2 page, it states: "Victoria 1-2 is the female character in DAZ3D's "Generation 1 and 2" figure selection. She is no longer available for legal purchase. ". Actually a product described as Victoria 1 is still available for purchase, here:
http://www.daz3d.com/daz-originals/millennium-woman-victoria-1
In reading the product description I am uncertain whether it is V1 or actually V2, since it lists many morphs and improvements, but either way she is still available.
Thanks! The usual protocol for a wiki is "create an account and make the change"... :) I'm in the wiki right now, so I'll make the change for you.
I didn't see a "store page" link in the entry for V2 in my Product Library, so I assumed she simply wasn't available any more.
They killed V2 - the newer, better figure with morphs and let V1 stay in the store?
Oh my, I will never understand Daz!