Best Of

The number of AI generated video ads on youtube is incredibly irritating-- and feel like the old days (current days?) of "You won't believe this one weird trick!" banner ads on your local news site. You would think youtube would try to limit this. It really devalues their platform. At least when it's an ad for geico or Factor, you know there's something real there.

Nah,.... It's just fine. Sure, it's not the same as it was, but none of us are. Still here, still a great place with great members.

I hope not, im not the most active member but its the last place on the internet i feel like interacting with these days

I would not say dying. Just changing (evolving). As mentioned people gravitate towards Discord and that sucks. Info just goes into a black hole that can't be searched.

As for me, my lifestyle has changed a lot. Back in the day I was pretty active because I only had me to worry about. Come home, play games and make stuff, learn stuff and post on PolyCount and GameArtisans. Now I have wife, house, kids and other responsibilities. I just don't poke my head in as much.

Also as mentioned, it's up to us to keep it active and in turn that brings the boys/girls to the yard.

Ashervisalis said:

 You're all like my dysfunctional family who gets to tell me why my art is bad.

we're supposed to say why? 

this place is still more useful than any discord server - primarily cos you can follow a thread and search it properly. 

Unfortunately there are plenty crawlers scrapping anything exposed to a search engine into datasets now.

Ashervisalis said:

Frequently, if I spend a decent chunk of time giving feedback in the 3D Showcase, I get no response back. Makes it so I don't really leave a lot of feedback on the forums like I use to. I still enjoy perusing the art though. I still check the rest of the forums here and there to see what you crazy kids are chatting about these days.

TBH I kind of like smaller communities. Everyone who posts here, I recognize them. Its sort of comforting. You're all like my dysfunctional family who gets to tell me why my art is bad.

Ugh, the "I want feedback but don't really" is right up there with:

Internet stranger: Wow that looks amazing! How did you do X?
Artist: *careful breakdown*
Internet stranger: lol that's a lot of work, I'm not going to do that

🔪🔪🔪

Hahah yeah. people asking for critique... and then actually getting some lol.

I think it takes some adjustment before people realize the power of what they can get here. 

I don’t think Polycount is dying — it’s more like it’s spread out. The 3D community hasn’t vanished, it’s just scattered across Discords, ArtStation, Reddit, and a dozen other places where things move faster and vanish faster, too!.

What keeps Polycount special is that it’s searchable, thoughtful, and built for real critique. You can actually track someone’s growth over time here, something you just don’t get from the fast-scrolling chaos of social media or Discord.

I honestly wish more students would post and engage here. Every time one of my students post they get incredibly useful, detailed feedback (Example Post) — the kind that makes a real difference. It’s a shame more people don’t realize how valuable that is until they experience it.

Maybe instead of calling it “dying,” we should see Polycount as a kind of quiet library in a noisy social media city full of flashing neon lights— its a less crowded café, sure, but still full of wisdom if you take the time to look.

Forums like this are still very relevant IMO — they just need people willing to slow down, share, and contribute. That’s what made this place great in the first place.