Some Organization in a New Direction

[Senkusha]

I've decided to take the site in a different direction.  Because of the lack of interest in anime characters within a role playing environment, I've decided to expand the site into pursuits of creativity.  There will still be a heavy anime bias towards the content here, however, I'm opening the site up on discussions involving various applications that we can use to create new worlds and characters with.  Specifically, Unreal Engine and VRoid Studio being our primary 3D applications, with the addition of other applications such as Blender, Maya, and Unity 3D if there's enough conversations about them.  I'm also looking to add content about using various 2D applications such as Gimp, Photoshop, and Krita as well.

I've done some minor reorganizing of the forum layout to accommodate this update, and I will be working to replace the web banner image at some point as well.  My goal is to transform this site from a simple role playing gathering place to an informative, tutorial driven discussion group on general creativity, with an emphasis on anime and/or role playing application.  I'm dreaming of being able to create rich immersive worlds using various 2D and 3D technology that allow us to interact with each other using our favorite fictional concepts.

I made the decision to add more technical tutorials to my site because I got tired of searching for and re-watching the same YouTube video tutorials on how to do mundane things that you'd only do at the beginning of a project (using Unreal Engine for example), and thought, if I had a notebook I could refer to, that's all need.  Why not make it a public notebook, so that more people can appreciate the work I've put into collecting these resources?  I will mention that I have not yet perfected the art of making tutorials.  So, I'm going to ask that if you see something that needs clarification, or an image that needs to be resized into a better resolution, or if there are any steps that I've omitted, please let me know!  I want this site to become the home of some good recipes for technology driven creativity.

I've also made some minor theme changes to the site.  I've reverted to using the default template for now and removed the side information panel to provide a cleaner, more professional look.  It may be on the boring side for now, but really, I think we need to concentrate on quality content, and that will hopefully attract new members to join up.  At least, that's my hope.

One other major change I've made is that new members will only have access to posting in the New Members board.  If you're new here, please consider making a formal introduction post.  After you make this one post, you'll be able to fully access the rest of the site.  Thank you!  Let's all be awesome friends together!

Have fun!

[ZandraJoi]

I actually like this new look without the side panel. Makes the board look bigger & easier to focus on what we are doing versus getting distracted. I do like the Similar Topics at the bottom. That helps when people want to post something but not sure if it's already posted!
I can relate to having a vision for your forum & having to tweak it along the way. I wanted mine to be for Secular & Eco-Friendly. It still is but I have religious people & those, while they do some eco things, are not gung-ho like I am lol
Forums are hard to manage. Specific niches even more so.