In the next weeks I’ll be launching the new section of the Cafe, with better forums, groups, and galleries.

No old posts are being deleted from THIS forum, but unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a way to export old posts to the new forum…. We are still looking for a way to port them, but it’s possible we will be forced to start clean. I would like to keep the old forums for a topical “knowledge base” so we can organize tutorials by subject (something that has already been happening…)

The new forum allows for sharing files (.zip will download automatically, .car and ,cbr will have to be “saved” to disc as browsers don’t know what they are and try to open them as a text string… working on a way to force those to download), naturally we can embed videos and pics, also tagging other members in a post, full formatting, forum topics can be labeled as “answered”…, and everything else you’d expect for a real forum.

The new galleries allow privacy settings, so you could create a sub-gallery only to share with “friends”, or to keep private.

There are Groups which contain their own discussion forums (hopefully we can provide a home for some longterm group projects, as well as specialized knowledge groups like for Unity users etc…).

There are Profiles which some may want to use that work sort of like Facebook. If you enter your location you may be able to find other members in your area…., and be notified when someone tags you in a forum post…. Also private messaging.

Basically there is a lot of promise to be more than *just* another Carrara forum. DAZ 3D has paid for a software upgrade to help get this rolling. Everything is being tested, but the cosmetics will be changing as I can dig into the options a little better.

You won’t need to re-join, it will work with your existing profile. I’d love to try to organize some hosted topics and a freebie drive to help build traffic and get people interested…. With Carrara in limbo a while between versions there hasn’t been a lot of traffic here or there…. I’d like to try to change that.