CDO Closing?

[Huronna]

If you bought a tube with a license, you continue to use that license forever, no matter if the company closes or even if some give group permission to groups after, as we have many of them

[Grassy]

Thank you Huronna!

[silk]

I have always used psp9 even with Win.11. Another factor in diminishing participant numbers is that many members have serious health issues that preclude them tagging so much.
Thank you for your explanations. Personally , I am missing my psp.
I have a verymany tube I want to use. Getting away from A1.

[Summer]

I haven't had a chance to look for my psp disc yet. My brother-in-law was put in hospice care and given at best 1 to 2 weeks. He didn't even have that. He passed on Monday, April 1st and it has hit the family hard. I will try to get back to normal as I can so I truly appreciate your offer huronna and Flagryl. Not sure what version will work. I have a Dell Windows 11 (hubby's choice not mine) and I have no idea what will work on this so there will probably be many call outs for help.

[Flagryl]

Oh Summer, I am so terriby sorry about your brother-in-law. I will keep you and family in my heart. Take your time.

I have a Dell w/Win 11 and love it...works great with PSP and AS. Some of the old plugins do not work w/Win 10 and 11 but there is a patch that works. Just let me know when the time is right for you. Best to you and family!!

[Smilyn]

Chiming in even though I come under the heading of not having made any tags in quite awhile:

I have not found anything at CDO that I liked much in some time, so the closure will not affect me personally, though I mourn the loss to the community and confirm the trend of a hobby that is narrowing in familiar resources and active members.

I was 51 when I discovered Red Fiesta's thread at the Park on eBay: "So you want to learn PSP8" Those were the "Free Range" days when animation was simple and there was no ©. The challenges were varied and intriguing at the same time; make shadows, draw freehand, create glitter, add an activity and pass it on. MetHome, Collie, Ffutz... I miss them. Then I heard of ©, hunted down AD and met Lainey, and through her bought my first tube; I had never heard of purchased tubes before. I didn't go to CDO until a few years back after a kind person emailed me a gift Cert to use there. I found some nice things at that time that I used mostly in auctions.

I am not fond of AI. As I saw it enter the scene I felt a foreboding. Perhaps it is becasue I am an artist and I ran a gallery for 14 years that I see AI as a great leveler; something akin to the drugs that even out spiking emotions into a neutral middle zone of: "That's nice". I do understand that it is fun to play with AI and how liberating it is to be able to do things unattainable beofre, and quickly too! Some people will be brilliant with AI and some grateful just to make changes to the things others have created and use that new "creation" as their own. I get it. But I don't like it. I much prefer the absolute uniqueness of creativity that has no AssIstance. That art has personality to me that AI artwork lacks. But that is my opinion, which will not stop the inevitable hands of time in any way.

My PSP8 program is open every day. You may find it hard to believe, but I even have materials downloaded and saved from challenges. Sometimes I even get a tag started, only to have to shut it when the PC says it has to close today (really!!) There just hasn't been time, nor peace of mind, to play steadily. Of course, that may change at any time. My life seems to be like that.

Sometimes I think this is a bit of "Canasta Club" hobby; there are few young people interested in something so time consuming and fiddly. AI makes pretty much all things possible much faster, and most young people I know now are more interested in creating visuals for a TT or YT presence (or a product line like a Tarot Deck) with the idea of making money. In today's world, who can blame them? Computer art for the fun of it seems to be passing along the same way afternoons with easels and watercolors by the seashore did.

In any case... I do hope to come play again and will be one of the dinosaurs using non AI elements and techniques as long as they are available. I am grateful AL is here (thank you Huronna, and Flagryl too,) and AD (thank you Lainey, and Huronna too;) the free tubes and other supplies, lessons and more available for me to play with at these combined sites is my anchor.

Grassy; I do have tubes from stores that are gone, and I do credit with that license - or I did. It's been awhile. I'm sure others can give you better data.

Summer; I am so very sorry.  Silk; yes.  That's sad too.  HUGS to both of you and to all of us who need one...

[Huronna]

I am in agree with you Milyn. I had my favorite CDO artists, only a handful, but over the past few years they either posted nothing new, or I just wasn't interested.
I was actually 54 when I got my first PSP program, while I was still in PR. It wasn't until I moved to Fl and started working only 3 and 4 days week, that I had more time to play.
And then came Animator and I was addicted, still am.
We have so many artist permissions, FTU, that buying tubes became a thing of the past. But now, many of those artists are starting to incorporate AI in their work. Some admit it on their sites, while a few others I've actually asked about it and they have admitted that yes, they are using it also. Many say to enhance their own work...who knows.

We have even lost great taggers doe to the addiction of AI. So many of the free AI site are run by people who used to write tutorials or tagged. The perfect example if Nickel, JustLeonarda, she is a most wonderful tagger, the only one I coveted , she was magical. Now for over a year, she had not made a tag, no auction entries, but great AI images that we use.
The newest Permission Emma, I met on a tut site, she is a fantastic tagger, no animation but does those intricate foreign tuts (that I love) and I questioned her tubes. and to make a long story short we now have her permission and use her tubes also.

AN I must admit, I play with AI also. Usually late at nigh sometimes I'm looking for a certain tube and on a rare occasion I can tell the AI program what I want and out it comes. More often though they wind up in my trash can LOL

Canasta (learned from my grandmother when I was in the second grade) Pinochle when I was a senior in High school and bridge after college. All addictive and played in competitions , usually in Italy. BUt now....no one plays anymore. Even on the cruise ships, they play some new fangles bridge that makes no sense to me.

Times change, ©compliant? what was that? DO you know how many sites I got kicked out because I made complaints about that? I lost count. Then PTU...The GILD with Anthony Guerra, then CLIM, then CDO and a zillion others. And if you notice PFD now when they send out their e-mails, most of the stuff is in the AI section.

I think in time you will venture back. I have some of your fantastic tags as others do also. I think you won the contest of who had the most different animations in one tag HA HA.
We await your return