3D Buzz
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3D Buzz is an online company, founded by Jason "Buzz" Busby in 2002, that provides video tutorials devoted to various high-end applications. Its main purpose is to educate through video tutorials, rather than traditional text and image-based tutorials. The website includes a plethora of free content, as well as a sprawling community.
[edit] History
Initially, 3D Buzz produced one free training video CD a month. These discs, which at the time were encoded in DivX, taught beginners various 3-D applications, such as Alias Maya, and Softimage XSI. Dubbed VTMs, or "Video Training Magazines", (Later renamed to "Video Training Modules".) these discs were mailed, free of charge, to all community members. The postage fees were all paid for by Busby.
Two factors differentiated 3D Buzz from other sources of video-training available at the time. As it was a very small operation, Busby often polled the members of the site to determine what content to produce next. Also, Busby's past and present students were brought in to guest star in his training videos. This allowed for greater instructor-student interaction, as well as made the training more entertaining to his members.
In order to finance his project, Busby solicited funds from large corporations whose contents were being taught in exchange for a minimum of two hours of monthly tutorials on their products. Busby financed the remainder of the expenses on his own account. He was then a full-time Director of Animation at the Renaissance Center in Dickson, Tennessee.
The site went through various stages of development. When it became too costly to mail out the disc's, Busby introduced downloading. However, corporate sponsors started shying away from his website. In order to finance the download system to fully replace the mailing system, 3D Buzz appealed to its members, offering a new program entitled "Member Sponsors". Member sponsors ended up being a dedicated team, pledging $35 a month to support the download system. In order to thank them, Jason Busby provided them with a handful of exclusive content, and also content that 3D Buzz produced for other sources such as 3D World Magazine.
Not everything released under Busby was successful. An online classroom type environment was introduced, but later cancelled due to the enormous stresses that it put onto Busby, as well as the other staff. This online classroom featured assignments, forums, tests, and grades. A point system was used in the forums to encourage answering and asking questions. When members became fed up with the late grading of assignments Busby decided to close the online classrooms for good.
Later on Jason Busby introduced the star system. The system is best described by Busby himself. "After a six month spell, we are bringing the Star System down from 3D Buzz. I do want to say, however, that the Star System was a complete success for its intended purpose. Several months ago, while we were in the middle of our obligations with Epic and the book, we realised that we could not focus enough time and energy into 3D Buzz in order to make it bring in a revenue. At the same time, bandwidth was steadily rising, and the costs were quickly draining the company finances. The only answer was to find a way to cut back on bandwidth, while still leaving the videos available to those members who were helping our community. The Star System was the answer. However, now that we are back and ready to focus 100% of our time to the site, we no longer need this system to protect our bandwidth. The system will be completely removed in the next 48 hours! However, those of you who currently have Stars will keep them so that… well, I shouldn't spoil everything at once." -Jason Busby
Almost directly associated with the star system, the Karma System was a download restricting system which kept track of user activity level. Busby eventually realised that the Karma system was blocking him from his ultimate dream of 3D Buzz, which was to provide free high quality training material to everyone.
By 2003, 3D Buzz had grown significantly. Busby began replacing the cast of students in favour of a recurring crew of video lecturers. Although most videos still have several hosts, they now primarily comprise Busby, Zak Parrish, Logan Frank, and Joel Van Eenwyk, with the occasional guest hosts for specific series. The three hosts began to make a name for themselves at 3D Buzz.
Although some interest was shown in 2-D art, web design, and gaming prior to 2004, the gaming aspect of 3DBuzz became a large emphasis in 2004. Not only did Busby and his team produce sixty odd hours of modding content for Epic Games, released with its "Special Edition of Unreal Tournament 2004" (and later re-released with its "Editor's Choice" edition of the game), but they also authored a book on the subject, entitled "Unreal Technology: Mastering the Art of Level Design."
Finally in 2005, both Busby and Zak Parrish quit their jobs as Renaissance Centre instructors. Now devoting full time to 3D Buzz, they have begun, once again, offering online courses. This time, however, the courses revolve around their proprietary software, Buzznet. The first course, entitled "Mastering Maya: The Fundamentals", contains 82 hours of content to bring any viewer with no knowledge of Alias's Maya to an intermediate or advanced level. The course features three main projects, and various other smaller assignments. Initially offered twice, the video lecture content from the course is now sold as a stand-alone product.
Two other new endeavor's in 2005 were "BuzzTV", "BuzzNet News"/"BuzzTV Live":
- BuzzTV contains such "programs" as "Modelling on the Fly" and "The Developer's Corner". In these broadcasts, the hosts have to tackle a problem (such as modeling a motorcycle, or coding a download system for a website), with no preparation time off the camera. Although there is no estimated completion time for the projects, they are tackled in one-hour segments. These are published on a weekly basis (when possible for the creators) in a similar manner to IPTV.
- BuzzNet News/BuzzTV Live is a cross between a podcast and videocast. Currently offered two times a week, Jason, Zak, and temporary house guest, Jay Penington, talk about daily happenings at 3D Buzz headquarters, and other random news. These episodes are broadcast live, but users can also download them for later viewing. The ultimate goal of these broadcasts is to show live tips, and have guests from the industry make appearances. There is, however, no indication as to when a conversion from random news bits and antics to serious show will take place. The creators are currently using the broadcasts as a way to interact with the site's community, inviting users to call in to the shows and join the IRC channel while the broadcast is taking place.
[edit] Recently
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One further new endeavor for 2006 - "BuzzTV - The Daily News":
- BuzzTV - The Daily News is the most recent addition of the three and provides an overview of key developments in 3D, Animation and Entertainment industries married with an inescapable dash of humour from the hosts, Buzz and Terry. The show is recorded 5 days a week (Monday to Friday) with new episodes following the latest announcements from software houses, hardware manufacturers, online communities, portals and rumour mills to keep the viewers up to date with day by day developments as they happen.
One of the biggest driving forces behind this site is the "Community". There is strong support for 3-D applications, and recently, for programming tutorials. 3D Buzz's forums are still very active. They include numerous sections including anything from 3D computer graphics to Web Design and Programming. The community is an open learning environment for any age. Previously problems arose with threads containing material based on political and religious subjects. These subjects were banned from being discussed due to the flaming that usually ensued.
One of the latest projects undertaken by 3DBuzz is its 3DS Max the fundamentals. This class's aim is to take the absolute beginner to Autodesk's 3DS Max software to being able to fully model, rig, and animate a complex scene. It was also the company's first foray into "content drop" software. The content drop software was available to consumers who pre-order the product from 3DBuzz; rather than have to wait till the class is completed before they receive their copy of the videos, users are able to receive the content in weekly "drops" of about 4-5 hour bundles.
Ongoing is a new project, titled "XNA Xtreme". In this class students will learn from the ground up on creating games for the PC and Xbox 360 with Microsoft XNA and the C# language.
One of the latest projects being undertaken by 3DBuzz is its Mastering Maya: Advanced Digital Production. The aim of this class is to show the student the complete process of creating a short film. The instructor, Zak Parrish, shows all the steps in the creation of his short. Currently there are two routes being followed: full participating student or auditing Student. The volumes will be sold separately when they are completed.
Also of note is the Python: Technical Director course. Currently available to Member Sponsors, but also sold in the store when projects are complete.
3D Buzz has recently updated their website and also switched to streaming their video training. Purchased content, however, is still being distributed via DVD ROM, and the "content drop" system is still in place for current classes.
