Pimping and Preview forum
polycounter lvl 18
Hello, i was wondering what sort of opinions do polycounters have about the Pimping and Preview forum. The reason i ask is to perhaps open up a discussion about how effective is the P&P forum.
Myself i am of the opinion that the forum is not adequate enough to handle the sheer amount of posts and there are so many that perhaps it isnt serving polycounters effectively. Perhaps needs some sort of posting criteria to reduce the amount of posts or to perhaps have the forum broken up into forums divided by categories, Such as Low poly art,High Poly Art,etc,etc.
I off course in no way want to discourage polycounters from posting work,but I feel there are alot of threads which are started which dont have and adequate amount of work that any polycounters can offer any sort of substantive critique or advice.
The sheer amount of threads in the forum sometimes leads to polycounters posting work only to have no replies at all and due to the sheer amount of threads sometimes a post can drop out of the front page so quickly that noone will ever comment on them.
Im curious to what sort of opinions other Polycounters have, perhaps im just alone in my opinion...
Myself i am of the opinion that the forum is not adequate enough to handle the sheer amount of posts and there are so many that perhaps it isnt serving polycounters effectively. Perhaps needs some sort of posting criteria to reduce the amount of posts or to perhaps have the forum broken up into forums divided by categories, Such as Low poly art,High Poly Art,etc,etc.
I off course in no way want to discourage polycounters from posting work,but I feel there are alot of threads which are started which dont have and adequate amount of work that any polycounters can offer any sort of substantive critique or advice.
The sheer amount of threads in the forum sometimes leads to polycounters posting work only to have no replies at all and due to the sheer amount of threads sometimes a post can drop out of the front page so quickly that noone will ever comment on them.
Im curious to what sort of opinions other Polycounters have, perhaps im just alone in my opinion...
Replies
Personally, I don't think we need to splinter the forum any more than it is.
I would agree with you if any of these threads without comments had zero views, but usually they have plenty of views and zero comments. This in itself is a pretty strong comment about the content.
I might sound a bit harsh though, but my reasoning behind it:
I don't have time to look at all threads, so I only click the ones that sound interesting (like a weapon, vehicle, spaceship.. my personal interests). I really filter the thread names when going through them. I might click because it has a ton of replies to see what's going on even though it wouldn't interest me right away.
So yeah... I sometimes wish i'd see more good stuff, but then again I wouldn't have time for all of that.
One thing I feel we could really benefit a lot from:
use a thumbnail next to the thread titles in the overview. Something like the first image posted in the OP, or the image attached to the OP. Ideally you'd automate this and allow users a way to update it..
I feel this could make a big difference in picking out threads. the amount of care and the quality of a thumbnail says a lot about the skill on display in the thread IMO!
I suppose it could be the case that the P&P section will be as good as it can be,but if there are paths to improving the forum it would always be a good thing to look into.
I herd this was in the works awhile ago. Id love this idea but havent seen anything since. Any say on its duability?
It's the issue of when you need help, people aren't interested enough to comment. But when you are so good that you don't need help, you will get much more replies, which you don't really need because you already know what you are doing.
In that sense, the P&P forum is lacking for me. I mainly use it to get reference images at this point. Which I am really glad that it exists for that. One thing that really stands out is maybe there should be a dedicated tutorial forum?? I dunno, but having some really kick ass tutorials constantly competeing in there is bad for the people who might benefit from finding them.
Your comment alone (not that you meant this) almost says hey if your not at such and such skill I'm not going to bother to look at your thread.
Perhaps a tag at the start of the thread by the poster? Set by default by the system, that you have to choose one of these:
Beginner - Average - Advanced - Talented: [title of thread] rating (by peers)*****
Under the thread could be what they need.
(Critic This piece)-(Check out my portfolio)-(Need help, guidance)-(Pimp)
Having more options would probably make things easy for everyone, the rating system is only allowed by registered users with a certain post count to prevent inflations.
The grape vine tells me there are some big changes coming to polycount, but i dont know specifics. From what little ive heard, your worries will be addressed though
hey now, hey :thumbup:
Love this idea. Well, I love the idea of having a minimum character limit. Even if its like minimum of 25-50 characters, so that it limits the "Awesome!" posts. Might make people actually say WHAT they like about it. Not just that they like it.
Also, it would limit cat pics. or severely increase them... lol
With any luck the person digs in and works harder and gets better. Sometimes they get discouraged pack up their GI Joes and storm off. Which is fine, if they are serious about this, then they need to improve or go find something else to do.
But yea, that's my experience, its tough to find the people that actually want help even though it seems like there are a lot of them. I'm not exactly sure what polycount could change to make that easier...
For example, maybe I'm in the mood for looking up props, and help people? Or maybe I would like to see some 2D art instead of 3D.
Or maybe, I had enough of seeing characters and want some pretty environments and go from there?
Something like "3D - Prop - SciFi Rifle" would do wonders to help filter out what I would like to see.
Yet for some reason, people are OK with putting in "ArenaNet Test - Type - Name" all the damn time. So if say 10 years from now, I want to look up any ArenNet threads, I can with ease, but for that one awesome guys making that one awesome rifle? I get to each a Donkey's Ass being sodomized through with lobster juice because all they typed was "Future Rifle".
A number of things have led to an influx of people, like the TF2 competition, Brawl Results getting posted all over the net, DotA 2 workshop... etc
Here's another idea I've seen on other forums. SMCars.net does it, cg-cars as well. They split their WIp forums in a few sections, and even have one for "advanced/higher level stuff". It's not like our Showcase since it's not THAT much of a pedestal and threads get moved there frequently (you cant start a thread yourself, they get moved there by Mods).
I'd prefer that system over what we have now, since anything is better than the current avalanche...
Edit: or you could do mandatory thread prefixes. Another forum I go to has this. There's a dropdown with thread prefixes. If you don't allow people to post with the default option (like give them an error when they haven't bothered picking something from the list), it could be a big improvement as well.
Why not have a students topics section? Or a portfolio only section?
So it should look like that:
Pimping and Previews: - WIPS
- Finished Stuff
- Artdumps
I think we could at least divide up the forum so there's 3 sections;
Environment Art,
Assets/Props/Vehicles,
Characters/Creatures/
I could be wrong, but I'm assuming that's how people usually browse through P&P. The forum is getting to such a size that I think it's necessary to divide it up like that
"what are you working on thread" is simply elegant and down to earth sticky thread Ive ever seen in cg forum.
separation in many section only make more artwork unnoticeable ...
if you are average joe, maybe you can spam on "what are you working on ", and put the link of your own thread to let people see more wip.
The P&P really sucks for that. It's mostly just people telling someone how awesome he is. Or if there is a crit, it's on something technical usually.
I tend to look at nicely named threads or thread where i know the OP is a beast. Most of the time i only look at waywo or sketch threads, and i know i miss awesome stuff.
We have the week recap which is always great tho.
Also, mmh maybe tags? I don't think i want really divided forums per asset category but maybe a simple way to filter, if users want to.
bit like foundation3d ?
http://www.foundation3d.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=7
or gmail labels...
As it is,the P&P seems too unorganized...
As for what to do about P&P? No idea. Having a minimum character count on posts and forcing new members to make a certain number of posts before being allowed to use IMG tags would help thin the herd, but it'd also present a wall for people who are interested but don't have a lot to say.
The bonus of this is less bogged down of work your not interested in. So if you have 200 threads a day, 10 are weapons 9 are buried beneath by 200 and 1 is on the front page. Filter to weapons, removes the 190 threads your not interested in, you can see all 10 weapon threads. (plus the older threads too ofc)
That way you can sort through WIP, Fantasy, Sci Fi, Art Dump, Sketches, 2d, Animation, etc etc.
Feel the exact same way. That is why I am such a HUGE fan of the weekly recaps. Gives me a chance to checkout awesome work I would have missed. And the links to there respective threads makes it easier to check out the rest of the work.
Edit: Its also why I mentioned in someones thread that they shouldnt name things so generic and uninteresting sounding. Because who is going to want to see that. The title was like "another temple scene". How many "sci fi corridor/hallway" threads are created each week.
Both would be a horrible fuckton of work, but I guess I just like to dream.
I already know their thread is a waste of my time because they aren't even motivated enough to name it something half-decent.
Now it's flooded with Mixamo and ArenaNET stuff. It's already tough to look at tons of the same thing when people apply for a job (art tests), I don't want more of it in P&P.
Also, it would be nice with some prefix standards for threads, might even make it as options when posting new post, so you choose the category you feel your thread is about, and then it would appear something like:
[Environment] Space corridor number 2533
[Script, Blender] CryEngine exporter for blender
[Character] Demon Dick on wheels
And add that to the WIP section as well:
[3DS Max] How do I get the UV to scale between islands?
[UDK, 3DS Max] Exportering to 3ds max make bad polys <--- although I would say if you choose UDK option, the thread would automatically be moved to the UDK forum.
Etc. And by having the category as something you pick in a list (which we then can expand at popular demand), you get something uniform you can search easier for, or maybe even filter.
And if people post threads titles like "I need help, Im lost", auto delete them :P nonedescriptive titles is a pain.
Say you post a sketch of a piece you're planning to take to a finished, fully painted state. Other members can comment on it and they can also do simple paintovers with a red pen. That lets them circle areas, draw lines, write notes, etc. It's all done in the browser. Once you post an update to your sketch, it goes in a strip of thumbnails that act as a visual chronology of your WIP that shows your previous iterations and any redlines that people have done for you.
Check it out: https://www.wipnation.com/
It's a super cool website and there are some pretty big names in the concept community posting. It's really too bad it doesn't get more attention from 3D artists; they could use it just as much as the 2D guys.
I think rather than dividing up P&P those simply need stricter thread prefixes,
Those can all just be properly named threads "UDK scene/env/char/props/veh, etc
Plus it would be more hassle having to go back and forth from multiple subforums.
I like the sound of adding tags to threads. perhaps more than thumbnails, I think they would be good but it could get cluttered, although I have to admit I often hover my mouse over the thread to read the first couple lines that appear in a pop up box.
I don't think adding artist level labels will work out in the long run,
1- artists can't label themselves unopinionatively
2- could make people ignore threads deliberately
I would like to see some drop down options during thread creation, that would ensure people adhere to correct naming conventions; eg
-UDK- Env - sci-fi - wip
-Cry- Char - fantasy- artdump
etc
WIP
FINISHED WORK
PORTFOLIOS
A facebook-style Like button maybe? Liking a post would be a good save against walls of 'good job', but those walls are great for many people, and this might work against that.
Tags like foundation3d look messy, a good thread title should grab someones' interest or describe the content, with bias towards the former. A icon/tag for WIP, Needs Crit, Finished Showcase, or Game Artdump would be handy.
Altho that could lead to considerably less critiques, and just more likes...
One user cannot make more than 3 Detailed Critique threads per year. This will help people to be careful about what they post there. And if they never finish a project that they start in the thread, then they will never be able to post in the detailed critique section again.
There would be about 7-8 of these mods to keep track of this forum and make the critiques.
I like this idea because for those of us without the skill to "PIMP" anything, what we really are after is quality critiques. And I once posted things before that I suppose people didn't like, and therefore it got no critiques to aide me in improving on it. But on the other hand I once posted something that people did say they liked. But there was no actual critique - it was just "thumbs up", "I approve". It wasn't constructive. Nice to hear, maybe. But it didn't teach me anything.
No. One of the things I like most about P&P is seeing the WIP and the final in the same thread. I fucking hate forums that feel the need to separate the two.
I don't think anything needs changed. I'd be cool with thumbnails for threads, but I think P&P handles itself really well right now. As Sectaurs said, the threads that don't get comments do get a fair amount of views, nothing is wrong there. And I feel like the WAYWO thread fixes any "flaws" it might have as a whole.
The WAYWO thread is basically a huge collection of a ton of the P&P threads in one place. I can go through the past several pages and if I see something I want to see more of, I can look at the users thread history - or often times people will make mention that they're cross posting, and give a link to the WIP thread. This combined with the weekly recaps give me all the direction I need.
I guess you could change stuff up if you want, but I think all we'd discover is that people aren't going to stick to the guidelines and then you'd have entire SECTIONS not getting looked at, because people would skip over them just like they skip over thread titles they're not interested in.
Edit: To elaborate a bit on that last comment of mine, I'll say that right now I think P&P is designed perfectly to broaden people's horizons and interests. I've accidentally discovered all sorts of things I would've normally skipped over if they were given their own section, and I'm really glad I encountered them.
Splitting it up would cause the user base to be split. Split the user base and you suddenly have a website where nobody knows who anyone is. You could be on here for a couple of years and then you'd see someone you're not familiar with. They have three thousand posts and you wonder why you've never seen them before, and it turns out they only hang out in the finished work subsection of the environment art forum and they're in a completely different timezone than you are.
That's terrible.
Tags yes. Separate forums no.
So post in WAYWO as a way to bring people to the WIP thread as well as show people what you're working on?
I think the main thing that is different for polycount and other sites, is that other sites seem to have a gallery section, just for the images and not the threads. Polycount is more forum then a full site with flashy stuff imo. More about knowledge.
And you don't have to go trough 5 different forum sections if you just want to have a look at what new works have been added in the last day or so.
So for that reason I voted "it's fine to me", but I would also like a prefix/tag system for the people that just want to focus on certain pieces (characters/weapons/etc).
Not only to have better thread titles, but just for the ability to quickly sort the threads by what you want.
(and stay away from the beginner/average/advanced/etc tags, since I don't see many people being able to accuratly place themselves within one of those groups).
If people would want more then that I guess you could also do a like/don't like system, or just a like system, so when looking trough threads you could easily see next to the thread title (+12/-3), so people with not a lot of time could easily pick out the better ones they just want to see, the people that want to give critique, can still look at that + the amount of replies and give feedback.
But obviously, that's opening a whole other can of worms (systems like this are kind of known for abuse), but it was just an idea I had.
I totally agree with this. I was just talking to some guys the other days about how I don't even look through threads anymore, I just go to the WAYWO. It's too time consuming to go through the all the various threads looking for interesting work. People expect instant gratification from websites now (myself included).
I really wish there was something like what is on Zbrush central and cghub, where you can see all the images that are posted and follow them to their own thread. Because, while WAYWO is cool, I don't like it when I see work there I want to ask questions about or see more about the process, but there is no corresponding thread. I know a lot of people have started cross-posting, but it would be cool to have something built in.
I just think it's weird that we as visual artists in this day and age are relying on text to represent our work outside of the WAYWO threads.
First off I think I need to mention quickly that we're listening and agree with a lot of the criticism given so far. P&P needs to be easier to navigate and find artwork you want to comment on, or even whether or not a thread is of interest to you in the first place.
Thread previewing is a huge deal to me and I especially want it to be a major feature of the site (among many, many others). I would love to see thread previewing on mouse-over for topics as I don't think thumbnails like other sites is very attractive.
I won't get in to specific ideas here on the forum, but I have talked about some of them openly during the Google Hangouts or if/when I livestream (shameless plug: www.twitter.com/adambromell I usually Tweet when I'm Streaming). We have a lot of things planned or filed under "We'd Love To Do" that we know you guys would love. It's all based around the notion of seeing a lot of art in a short amount of time and commenting on the ones you'd like to follow or offer your guidance for.
We do, however, have an issue.
Well, we have many issues, but they fall under one swooping problem: The current site, as it is, is difficult to update with features. It's one thing to simply drop in vBulletin plug-ins but its another thing altogether to tune them to our needs specifically at Polycount.
The problem here lies in how we did the update a few years ago, with Wordpress controlling our blog and vBulletin controlling our forum. 2 bridged CMS' has resulted in rather large pain in the ass for updates on features.
However, we're going to fix it - Polycount, that is. We're currently in the midst of figuring out exactly what we want to do to the site so that its the best it can be: Showcasing artwork, your articles (read: thoughtful forum posts), allow you to critique easier, follow artists you particularly like, a complete redesign of 'News' so that its a much faster drip of content (read: easier for us to push content out and Showcase our community better), introduce methods of letting Polycount be a 'home' for your artwork, and so on.
This, as I'm sure you can tell, isn't something we can simply do through vBulletin plugins and the like. It requires a complete redesign of Polycount in terms of the software we use to run it and what that will get us. Our largest hurdle right now is the content here on the site. Anything we go with must be able to maintain every post you guys have made, every blog post we've done, every PM you've sent to eachother, every image you attached to your thread, all of your avatars, and so on. We're massive, so the database is massive. So in addition to redesiging the site we need people who are capable of handling such a load of content management.
We need it to be professionally done. In the past its been us working with PC'ers who know how to code, friends who do side work, and so on. But now we're looking to have an agency actually handle some things for us. And this means money. This stuff costs. Since we never want to take your guys' money (seriously, don't ask how to donate or anything, we don't want it) we're workign out ways of getting what we need to get the site done. This work is expensive so it might take time.
I'm personally not in favor of band-aid solutions. Sure I could find a plugin for Thumbnails right now and install it, but thats a band-aid to a larger issue and I'd really not like to compact that sort of stuff on to us right now.
So there it is.
We're listening and I am personally extremely happy to see threads like this because it means you guys care and pay attention
So to paraphrase:
-Great ideas
-We'll do our best to address everything
-When? Hopefully soon. It kills me a little more every day that it doesn't happen.
-We're absolutely listening when you guys bring this stuff up, noting the great ideas and trying to decipher the intentions of the bad ones (<3)
-I personally appreciate this type of thread so please, keep the ideas coming and don't mind me if join in on the conversation.