Testing a few of the basic searches here:

Categories
Science Fiction - Anything Scifi related
Cityscape - Buildings and Props you might find in a city
Vehicles - Air, Water, Land and Space transportation
Music - Props related to music
Props - General category of property


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Thanks in Advance for the contributions to A:M Exchange.

It's entirely appropriate this section is starting off with Matt Campbell's 'Free Money'.
It may be worth remembering there is no such thing as 'free' in this world.
Everyone puts a lot of effort into creating and maintaining their resources.
When sharing our resources with one another its a way of saying 'Thanks'.

So, thanks Matt!

...and to everyone who will visit this forum area 'Thanks in Advance'.

Hey...ask and you shall get! This forum ROCKS! Thanks Rodney!

If we may ask, please add an image of your model so people can see what it is...and of course, include the materials and decals. This is a PERFECT time to use the new 'texture burn' feature for economy.

Let the free-sharing begin! I'll put some up asap.

Good to see you Rodney...now if we can scare-up Vern...where has he been? Maybe we need to run a car by his house with some WaWa coffee and some Amish chicken...

There are a lot of resources already uploaded to the forum so we'll collect those again as time allows.
As they are already on the server its just a matter of linking them in.

We'll see if we can't get a rudimentary menu/search function going via the forums search capability too.
If that works well having an image of the resource will be handy.

Please avoid uploading huge files.
We don't want to abuse the servers that Hash Inc has devoted to the Animation:Master community.

This is a great initiative! I think it is an good idea to clarify whether the shared models is free for personal use or commercial use. I usually add that in the models File Info. Properties->File Info->Notes. Also a note in the thread itself should be added

Yay! I had an idea that other people already had and it came to fruition with no effort on my part... yay!

Thanks Rodney. And thanks to all you generous spliners and riggers and ... whatever else there is (I don't know yet I'm new) out there.

Great idea!
Is there anyway that my model upload thread can be moved to the A M exchange?

I agree.

It seems reasonable that models posted here are for use without restriction by the A:M Community unless specified by the creator.
At a minimum it is recommended that the creator make sure their name is listed somewhere in the file.
Then if there are any questions the author can be contacted and credited where such attribution applies.

If you don't want others to use your models, pick them apart and modify them this is not the best place to post your resources.
This area is for the benefit of everyone in the community and there is a 100% chance that someone is going to be breaking/modifying/studying your files.

For those interested, perhaps we can work limited usage/rights restricted resources at another time?

If you are zipping all of your files into one zip file (via A:M's Consolidate feature) I would recommend adding another file to the folder that identifies you as the creator of the files. In the File Info Properties you can have the URL field point to this file.

Jirard,
I had some of your downloads in mind!

In a few days I'll be able to devote more time to this effort.
I don't want to move your Special Topic posts as that will confuse people reading those topics but its easy to link into those files.
From the average forum vistor's perspective it'll be almost the same as you posting them here.

As we get more resources linked in we'll work to get them more organized and easy to find.

If you are familiar with the Extra CD's menu (Vernon Zehr is the guy!)... that menu's functionality (with an added search capability) is the minimum to which we aspire.

Instead of reinventing the wheel, use one of the Creative Commons licenses. There are enough "flavors" to fit whatever the group decides upon for usage rights.

Creative Commons Licenses

Anything I gave out is free.
If anyone wants it.

There's a big difference between "free" and "public domain". Using the Creative Commons licenses allows you to distribute your work for free, while still retaining certain copyrights. For instance, there is a version of the CCL which effectively states "you can do anything you want with my __XX__, as long as you give me credit". There's another version which effectively states "you can use my __XX__ as long as you give me credit and don't modify it".

The Creative Commons licenses allow you to pick & choose amongst various options on how you want your works to be used. Declaring something Public Domain is different, in that you are giving up all of your rights to the object in question. Someone can take a public domain object, repackage it, and distribute it for profit while calling it their own.

I think most of the contributors to the A:M Exchange would want credit acknowledgement at the very least - something the CCL was designed to do.

This is a great idea and long overdue! When I have a moment I'll post the Christmas props I posted last year, with images etc. Hopefully they'll be in time for someone else to use them this year in their holiday greetings.

Testing a few category searches... (See the first post in this topic)

Hopefully we'll get a drop down menu and pretty interface with all the major categories listed in a master menu that features a contribution one of these days. If any of the following categories are added in the posted topic the item should appear in the automated search.

Category: Scifi
Category: Cityscape
Category: Vehicles
Category: Music

Notes:
- In order to work properly the entire line of the category must be added somewhere in the topic.
- If you don't care to add the category while posting that's fine. A category or two will be added at a later date.
- Multiple categories should be added on separate lines and must include the "Category: " lead words.
- At this time it is recommended that only one space be added after the colon in the category line. The forum can strip extra spaces out randomly at times.

Rodney- Just checkin-in on the forum after a week away (vaca) this one caught my eye... THIS IS GREAT!