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How do I get criticism or comments -.-

polycounter lvl 4
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Tobi_dono polycounter lvl 4
I always like it to get some comments of what could be better /should be changed or so ...but don't know if I post my pics always at the wrong time or should add more tags something like that ? (not only polycount its meant altogether like Artstation sketchfab and so on)
so thats at least the feeling I get.

sometimes I have weird tastes so I want to check with the comments if other persons like this style also or if they only think it is weird :worried:

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  • jaker3278
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    jaker3278 polycounter lvl 8
    I wouldnt take it personally, some times you can post work that has taken months and no one will post or comment. Just keep doing what you feels best and keep posting and the comments will come but not on everything. 
  • Brian "Panda" Choi
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    Brian "Panda" Choi high dynamic range
    Be Succinct.

    Show off what you're doing.  If absolutely necessary, use words.

    Have a marketable title to your thread.

    Kind of don't wait on critique if there is none.  Just keep going until someone says otherwise.
  • Marshkin
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    Marshkin polycounter lvl 9
    Keep posting. 
    Keep working even if you are not getting replies.

    Chances are you're not bad enough to merit easy critique. Or you post things that are harder to critique. For example, I almost never critique character models because I have a harder time seeing issues with anatomy. 
  • lotet
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    lotet hero character
    Theres also this one. made by a user to long ago for me to remember who to credit for it. (sorry :()

  • Tobi_dono
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    Tobi_dono polycounter lvl 4
    by this graph my 3D would be in "this is weird..." or to lazy

    well I don't really post a lot of works more WIP because I work quite long and with a lot of detail .... and somethimes also overwork some parts afterwards ^^

    And In drawing I only post my sketches drawn on pc .... Im to lazy to take a photo of them even tought Im better in traditional sketching ^^
  • Joopson
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    Joopson quad damage
    Personally, I prefer this graph, for readability and overall message:

  • AtticusMars
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    AtticusMars greentooth
    Joopson said:
    Personally, I prefer this graph, for readability and overall message:
    This one is way better because it is an actual graph where as the other one was obviously an artists attempt to illustrate what they thought a graph looked like.
  • Tobi_dono
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    Tobi_dono polycounter lvl 4
    well I also dön't comment a lot with my only 1 year experience. because I dont think I have enouth knowledge right now. but I belive im also an Average joe ^^

    just so: got once in tv with friends by joining the "globalgamejam" ... and they from tv "there are a lot of

    experience people..." as we saw it online we: "lol pffft"
  • Joopson
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    Joopson quad damage
    I think you're misunderstanding. But I can't quite tell.

    "Number of replies" is about how many comments your work receives, not how many replies you leave on other people's work.

    So, people who are really new and bad get a lot of responses when they post their work. People saying things like "Keep it up, you'll get good if you just stick with it!" and "You can try this technique, it could help you!"

    The closer to the average you get, the less people reply to your work. Because it's not bad enough to put in the energy to comment, and not good enough to leave a "Oh my god this is amazing" comment.

    And when you're amazing, you get tons of replies just saying how awesome you are.

    So, few replies imply you're probably somewhere approaching the middle, or maybe you're posting WIP stuff that is hard to critique.
  • leilei
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    leilei polycounter lvl 14
    Given the excess render/embed showoff SNR in WAYWO nowadays, making your own thread in the Pimping & Previews3D/2D Art Showcase forums are your best bet. Just pray that someone doesn't deface your work with additional male genitalia for a supposed "funny" instead [spoiler]as such that occurred to my work, leading to years of procrastination of posting any more art on this board again. Humiliation is not tough love nor is it healthy for the artist or this community's reputation [/spoiler]
  • Jonas Ronnegard
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    Jonas Ronnegard polycount sponsor
    I think it is very important to ask for specific feedback if you want feedback,  I haven't looked at your work but as an example, when it's art that are anything but on a professional level usually all is lacking in some way or another, probably no part of the model is at a level where you can say that is ok don't change a thing.

    So it kinda feels like you have to mention everything or nothing, and most people don't want to write a book.
    so for every update you do try to think about what you feel the least confident about at that point, and ask how you can improve on that. It will make it a lot easier for people to comment.
  • m4dcow
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    m4dcow interpolator
    I would also say to engage other artists who are looking for feedback, even though you think you have nothing to offer in terms of critique it could still be a nice bit of encouragement to that person. Then when you are working on something that person might comment on your work.

    If you don't give any feedback you can't really feel bad for not receiving any yourself.
  • Francois_K
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    Francois_K interpolator
    Even if you don't get a lot of critique or comments. There's nothing stopping you from asking questions
    "how did you do this or that"
    "what made you achieve this results"
     "why did you make this part here and not like otherwise"
    etc.

    If you don't know how something was done , ask.
    This makes you more visible and shows you're being proactive and interested and people will go "Ah! It's that guy" and maybe help you out a little bit if they see you're new.

    My fiddy cents
  • PyrZern
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    PyrZern polycounter lvl 12
    @Tobidy
     You can also tag specific members who have previously given you critique after you post some updates as well. ... ...... 
  • jaker3278
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    jaker3278 polycounter lvl 8
    Do unto others as you would have them do unto you..... so comment on posts that have no replies. Look for 0 comments or 1 comment and help out those people in what ever way you can, literally any comment can boost someones mood or outlook about said work. 

    This is what i have been trying to do, and it works. Those "small time" "forgotten" people then comment on your work because they look through your recent topics on your profile. Its a win win situation, it helps build the community and no one gets ignored. 
  • miguelnarayan
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    miguelnarayan polycounter lvl 8
    Hehe, those are fun graphs... because they are true! It helps to take notes on what you think it's not working, how you'd like it to look like instead, be detailed on what you'd like to do and what is not working, if you're having a problem in particular topic, (i.e. anatomy) then someone  who does character designs all day may see an opportunity to analyze yours and help you
  • lotet
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    lotet hero character
    @Joopson  - Nice, that one is much better! gonna start using that one instead :)
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    I think the reason why people give less comments is simply because unlike a few years ago, there are now more places where one can see cool art ... in less clicks.

    People can log on to FB or Artstation and be bombarded with cool art. Whereas coming to polycount just gives people ... three pages of text links (2d, 3d, animation) to manually click one by one to finally reach art. It's unfortunate but the fact that people don't leave replies anymore is not surprising at all. 

    For instance, I personally check PC many times a week ... but in the past months I have only engaged with about *two* pimping threads total, and that was only because they popped up at the top of the list and their title got me curious. In contrast, GD and tech talk are much more direct - no need to click a thread title to know what it will be about. That makes these subforums more straightforward to browse because there is no "click gambling" involved.

    I know I sound like a broken record but I can almost guarantee that the day PC finally has thread thumbnails (and potentially, a picture wall showing tons of cool thumbnails in one gaze ?) things will change for the better.

    Lastly there might be another thing factoring into all this : the scope being so wide. It's easier to get a tight community engaged around a niche topic (for instance, custom ingame models like PC years ago, or a focus on sculpting like ZBCentral) rather than trying to cover everything. Now I don't think it is impossible and PC is probably the only online place that can still pull it off, but it does requires some more work to streamline things as much as possible (aforementioned thumbnails, making sure that the site loads just as fast as FB/Reddit/Artstation, and so on).

    Unfortunately the recent-ish layout update turned a lot of people off as the site suddenly became harder to read and browse. It has now been addressed and back to normal but maybe not everyone knows about it.
  • Melazee
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    Melazee polycounter lvl 11
    I second Pior's comments. Perhaps the issue isn't so much the work itself, but maybe it's the site design in general? It doesn't really work for an art based forum, thumbnails would be much better, because right now you kinda rely on some attention-grabbing title if you don't already have an established name, and we ain't no authors.

    But at the same time, Artstation has a great layout, but it's still really hard to get comments on there, so I dunno man. Perhaps times are just changing. 

    For me, I'm not likely to drop tips and advice to other people because I've got used to being bombarded by top tier artwork on Artstation, so I feel like I'm in no position to help other people. If that makes sense? Perhaps other people have this kind of mindset too?

    All I can recommend is to just keep plugging away at what you're doing whether you get comments or not. Don't even think about comparing your level of work to the amount of comments you get because it might not even be to do with your actual level of work. That chart might not even be that relevant anymore because times are different now. 
  • AtticusMars
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    AtticusMars greentooth
    Wasn't thumbnails considered at one point but shot down because people speculated that people would just click on the prettiest pictures while everything else was easier to ignore because you could see it before you clicked on it?
  • Melazee
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    Melazee polycounter lvl 11
    I suppose that makes sense. I'm personally thinking that people would be better off just paying for a mentorship really, if possible, to guarantee legit feedback if that's what you really want. Like, it sucks that it's hard to get feedback on Polycount like you used to be able to, but but at the same time, you are expecting people to take time out of their day to help you grow as an artist. I remember that if I ever end up feeling a bit put out by no comments/crits, it's pretty selfish of me to feel that way, because I'm essentially expecting people to give up their free time for me.

    I suppose this is why offering other people comments and crits works nicely, because then you are trading your time, and giving back rather than just taking.
  • AtticusMars
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    AtticusMars greentooth
    I could be remembering it wrong. There are thread previews (mouse over the magnifying glass on the right hand side) so maybe they're open to it.

    Guess I'm not as confident as Pior but I don't know how much of a difference it will make. I've largely stopped posting in P&P as well but its primarily because providing useful feedback can take a lot of time and energy. A lot of things are best explained with visual guides which I used to do more often, at one point I repainted someones texture and uploaded a video of it. Took 40~ minutes, person was grateful but I don't think I'd do that again. I also have a serious pet peeve with providing people with what I felt was valuable feedback then not even getting a reply.

    Admittedly I don't actually have to put in that much effort, I just feel compelled to because well... if you're gonna do something may as well do it right...
  • Biomag
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    Biomag sublime tool
    Maybe it's just me, but looking for amazing art I go to artstation. Looking for how people are developing, art dumps with insight into games, workflows/tutorials then I come to polycount. There are a lot of students and beginners around here, so I don't expect the quality level to amaze me each time.

    The reason why I don't give feedback is quite simple - I have only a very limited experience, I have far more questions than answers when it comes to quality, so I before I give someone a bad advice I rather shut up. When I think I can help or asked to then I also have no problem with spending time doing so. On the other hand based on experience I am no longer expecting feedback from polycount and this is also a reason why I don't always make a thread when I post something in the WAYWO thread. Those threads that I do create are more to cover all bases to increase the chance of gettting advice than expecting to get it.
  • Marshkin
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    Marshkin polycounter lvl 9
    I am actually on board with thumbnails and I do think they would help.

    I had 15 min to browse this site today. I clicked on 10 threads, which all had vague titles. All of them were character art. I never give feedback on character art simply because I don't really know much about anatomy, shape and form.

    If I could tell which pieces are environment art, It would be a lot easier for me to find and comment on the areas where I can actually provide some feedback. 
  • pior
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    pior grand marshal polycounter
    @Marshkin Yeah, and the irony is that the feature *is* here, it's just hidden under the cryptic magnifying glass icon that a lot of people probably don't use or know of (and it's not their fault since it's not clear at all, plus it probably doesn't work on mobile and is still slower than seeing everything at a glance).


  • PyrZern
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    PyrZern polycounter lvl 12
    pior said:
    @Marshkin Yeah, and the irony is that the feature *is* here, it's just hidden under the cryptic magnifying glass icon that a lot of people probably don't use or know of (and it's not their fault since it's not clear at all, plus it probably doesn't work on mobile and is still slower than seeing everything at a glance).


    ...... Oh, so that's what the magnifying glass is for.
  • Marshkin
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    Marshkin polycounter lvl 9
    pior said:
    @Marshkin Yeah, and the irony is that the feature *is* here, it's just hidden under the cryptic magnifying glass icon that a lot of people probably don't use or know of (and it's not their fault since it's not clear at all, plus it probably doesn't work on mobile and is still slower than seeing everything at a glance).


    You just blew my mind. I had no idea, but this is fantastic! 
  • Eric Chadwick

    How the Magnifying Glass Works




    • If you hover your mouse over the magnifying glass icon, you'll see a thumbnail from inside the thread.

    • It shows the first image in the first post. If you want you can edit your first post to keep it up to date. Make sure your new image is the first attachment. (when you edit the post, the attachment order is shown at bottom left).

    • Youtube/Vimeo/Sketchfab won't show a thumbnail. You can force it though... take a screengrab, drag-n-drop it into your post, then backspace the embed. The image will still be attached, and thus used by the previewer. (incidentally, this is how we force videos to show up on the news page)

    At some point we hope to replace this system with a better setup, one that doesn't require mouseovers (see wishlist). But this is what we have right now, so might as well take advantage of it!
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