Negative feedback
interpolator
Disclaimer: This is mainly a rant so if you dont want to hear my complaining dont waste your time with this thread.
I often times get the distinct feeling that people actually Dont want to hear critiques where they get any type of negative feedback. As if we need to have a section on polycount that is: Look at my work and tell me how awesome I am.
Its my impression that anything in the pimping and preview section is up for debate or feedback of some kind.
You rarely ever see anyone outright say your feedback is wrong and my work is perfect, but you will get one word or sentence replies to a freaking laundry list of feedback suggestions. The reason this really sucks is the person taking the time to carefully articulate how something can be improved feels there time has been wasted, and is less inclined to help others that actually WANT to improve and get good feedback suggestions.
Its possible that I could be imagining this all, because almost no one ever straight up says my work is perfect your feedback is wrong, but I get the distinct impression people dont want to hear it as much as 10 or 20 percent of the time.
End of the day I dont feel completely empty handed spending the time on feedback because analyzing other peoples work helps me become a better artist myself, but it is very unsatisfying when this happens on occasion.
Does anyone else ever feel this way or am I just crazy?
I often times get the distinct feeling that people actually Dont want to hear critiques where they get any type of negative feedback. As if we need to have a section on polycount that is: Look at my work and tell me how awesome I am.
Its my impression that anything in the pimping and preview section is up for debate or feedback of some kind.
You rarely ever see anyone outright say your feedback is wrong and my work is perfect, but you will get one word or sentence replies to a freaking laundry list of feedback suggestions. The reason this really sucks is the person taking the time to carefully articulate how something can be improved feels there time has been wasted, and is less inclined to help others that actually WANT to improve and get good feedback suggestions.
Its possible that I could be imagining this all, because almost no one ever straight up says my work is perfect your feedback is wrong, but I get the distinct impression people dont want to hear it as much as 10 or 20 percent of the time.
End of the day I dont feel completely empty handed spending the time on feedback because analyzing other peoples work helps me become a better artist myself, but it is very unsatisfying when this happens on occasion.
Does anyone else ever feel this way or am I just crazy?
Replies
It does suck when people ignore your crits, you're not crazy, it does happen. But at the end of the day it just means you're getting more out of it than them, so f* em! Don't let people like that lessen the sense of community felt by most polycounters
Giving good feedback is a bit tricky on the other hand, you can't just tell people what you think, you need to form it in a way that both helps the artist and encourages him/her. I think Chris Holden has some good tips in this area;
http://chrisholden.net/tutor/feedback.htm
I take every crit to heart because I know that person is helping me grow as an artist.
I think this can be problem especially with us, who are not yet as experienced as some other dudes here.
So i guess what happens is, you make something, you make progress (in your opinion), you become happy with it since it's the best you did so far, and then you get critic which is completely correct, but the critic comes out as somehow negative, because the critic points at a lot of stuff that needs to be fixed, stuff you were happy with, so people can get somewhat surprised, and not sure how to react properly.
It did happen to me when i started with modeling, and while eventually i did learn to take critic, i think it's this "surprise" that sometimes brings to this problem.
Of course nowdays, i always try to think about the critic and listen to it if possible.
Well, i hope that makes sense. :P
However I totally agree with you and all of those threads kind of make it really difficult for the people that really look for feedback to get it.
Remember a critique is just that one persons opinion. It is on the artist to determine whether the feedback received has merits and will work for there project. Not all feedback is actually good feedback. Sometimes a few people might think, "I think you should take things in this direction" when you as the artist creating the work dont want to for any number of reasons, such a style, something you are trying to challenge yourself and so forth.
It is always up to the artist to decide what is the appropriate feedback to take.
I have posted work up before, got some good feedback from people but it wasnt inline with the goals I set for myself/project. It wasnt in the direction I wanted to take things, not because I was lazy or wanted praise, but just because it didnt fit the goals I was trying to achieve. So I didnt make the suggested changes and kept to what I had. I made sure to explain why I decided to stick with the style choices I made though.
And remember not everyone gives a good critique/feedback. If you are active on PC there are people who you get to know from there work and whos feedback you hold in higher regard than others. Sometimes you also get feedback from people outside of the form post itself like at work, over IM, or in PM. So it could appear to some that your not taking any of the feedback given in the thread to heart.
But yeah, in the end a good amount of people just dont take the feedback given to heart and either ignore it or just half ass the changes hoping that will be enough to be told how awesome they are.
Which is making me wonder if maybe the days of online crits are over? It used to be back in the day that information was scarce. And if you needed to know something, like what a spec map is, good edge-flow, etc, you had to do it wrong, and have someone call you out on it.
But these days, is there really anything that you can't simply look up? The PC wiki alone would have answered 90%+ of the questions I had back in the day starting out. And for the other 10% you can probably look it up online, or find a DVD from a tutorial site that touches on the subject.
Where I find things lacking is in general discussion about overall art topics. Stuff that's more opinion than technical. Like Chris Holden says, Subjectivity vs Technical. And there I find that people are not really curious at all. That's why the vast majority of the comments are the simple "that's awesome" comment.
These and everything Autocon said.
I've been trying to give feedback but once it's ignored I pretty much ignore the user all together and let them do their own thing. I can't continue to critic their work if they just brush of the comments because they feel they are right and that's fine I had a hard time at the beginning to realizing I was wrong in my starting years and my art sucked/sucks its all apart of the learning curve with this stuff.
It is tough when someone tells you "Hey guess what that sucks, why you filling the store with bs half ass assets if your going to do something do it right and make it epic not just produce as much as you can thinking people will buy all or any of it", (my example/opinion)
^This is why I want to make a video tutorial for my next asset on my set to help everyone that wants the help and those that don't will ignore the video.
Edit:
As John states most of it is out there, they need to do a little bit of searching and reading and the answers they need are here already, but they want direct answers to their questions without even putting the effort into looking it up.
Edit2:
All you have to do is look at the critic you are given and decide if that works for you, will it help or hurt your design but at least try the feedback out and make a comparison shot of before and after and say hey I did what you mentioned does it look right or hey guess what you where right it looks better, don't think about it as right and wrong think about will It help or hurt my project, their is no right or wrong theirs progressing or not.
The pieces you work on later down the road will become obsolete and even then with all the feedback you'll be like, "what was I thinking".
Well, i'm not sure if i agree 100% with you here.
Sure, nowdays, you have whole lot more resources, but at the end of the day, sometimes, when someone is giving you critics, it continues in ideas being thrown back and forth, and as a result, artist will end up with a different view over the subject and a whole lot of new, fresh ideas. I'm not sure if books, dvds, etc. can replace that 100%.
I think the worst thing is, and I am guilty of this, check out my posting history, is 1 not finishing the work and 2, posting a WIP of what is pretty much 6% done and asking for crit for it. Its a waste of space for the forum.. so I would have banned myself a few times :P.
Honestly though ,Pimp n Preview is really filled with quality work to which usually only the top people feel comfortable enough to post, and with it being "art" it has a personal attachment for alot of people, which is hard for some to take when someone says "You need to really start again" etc.
Every now and then you'll get a thread where almost every critique is outright ignored or argued against, and it usually winds up full of popcorn gifs, but this isn't the norm. Sometimes people just aren't experienced enough to be able to see the truth in what people are saying - and this is a big thing, it takes a long time to develop your eye and be able to see "outside" of your own experience. Our brains tend to function on the same track over and over again. In the same manner that you can re-read a paper you've just written 10 times and not see some blatant grammatical error, it is possible to look at your own artwork and have your mind just sort of fill in all the mistakes, make you blind to them. Unlike that, though, with this it's not as simple as someone pointing out "this word is spelled wrong". I have a hard time faulting people for that, sometimes you can tell they probably won't be able to see what you're talking about until a ways down the road.
You may even get a negative critique here on polycount that is the opposite of what one of your friends said when you showed the piece to them earlier. Something is going to need to be ignored, at that point. And as Autocon said, sometimes critique can be valid, but also legitimately not coincide with what you'd wanted to get out of the piece yourself.
Trying to listen to all critiques is just as bad as not listening to a few good ones. I think it's a special challenge as an artist, to decide which critiques to implement and which ones to simply give a thanks for.
Some people take it as being a dick but at least I didn't give them a high five or not say anything at all.
Sometimes though if I feel the person actually cares/could use it I do give them a lengthy critique.
Even when I did crit more, so much of my time gets wasted giving technical analysis or describing techniques and tools that would help someone, and they turn around and normally get offended like I was telling them they where a worthless human being.
I wouldn't bother putting my time into helping someone out if I thought that and there isn't any reason for freaking out if someone suggests a better way of working or points out something that would need to be reworked to make something else work better.
Saman: Thanks for the link, that article by Chris Holden actually does a good job explaining why feedback is really useful as well. All around good info there.
Zocky: Yea I can see why it happens (I was pretty terrible when I first started posting here, so I know first hand). Although I was upset at times, I never let it get to me and definitely acknowledged people and stayed professional about it. Thats the beauty of online forums, you can scream at the monitor then post a nice calm response an hour later. :P
Bigjohn: thats an interesting point, but ya nothing beats a good critique imo because its specific to your work and unless you are simply copying someone elses work a lot can be easy overlooked.
Autocon and $!nz: Yea totally true on some feedback not being good and having to find whats right for you. The main thing that was irritating me wasnt that some dont take my specific feedback or someone elses. Its mainly when a person will take no feedback or its just very obvious that a person is only looking for praise as Nerf Bat Ninja pointed out. Its like Hey maybe this guy just doesnt understand what others are saying, and I can articulate it better Next day Oh wait, he just wants me to tell him hes awesome is all.
Vig: Ya, I am particularly interested in how veterans like you feel about the subject. I wonder how often you guys see stuff and dont reply because you feel burned one too many times. I actually pay pretty close attention to what you guys comment on.
Glad to see all the comments in this thread though. I certainly feel validated now, and can quit my bitching and get back to work. Haha.
Not to mention, quite a few peeps have a chip on their shoulder about what can be considered as realistic proportions that would fit from said style to style.
So it honestly is a very mixed bag, many people who give critic shouldn't exactly feel offended that the OP didn't take their advice, but at the same time, OP shouldn't be brash about it.
I still post my work, though (not on this forum, and not under this name), in showcase/wip sections. If someone critiques it, thats fine and I'll read it. What I'm really looking for however is the amount of unique responses. Did I or didn't I make the top row? (I expect to get top row)
I use this to gauge the overall success of the piece. For example, if I posted a thread with the work on a popular site (zbrushcentral or cgtalk) and I get a very small number of responses, that tell me something useful.
That's actually why I said this in my initial post:
Anyway, if you are posting in a showcase section like game artisians has, I can appreciate if someone didn't want critiques there. Personally, I wouldn't post something in polycounts "pimping and previews" section, if I didn't want feedback of some kind.
I suppose some artists can't take criticism of things they've put effort into, but also: they don't want their sense of capable production = result ruined. Nobody wants to make something in the full confidence that what they will get is exactly what they set out to do and then have some people tell them that it is not.
From my experience this is very true. There's a real process of learning to view art critically as well as create it. I know there were times when I down-played feedback only to realize later that I'd missed something important. These were still good learning experiences even though it took a while for the lesson to sink in.
Without peoples voices, the words on the screen are read in a way of that who is reading them. So, what the person may be typing as what they think is "Hey thanks for the crits." and actually means hey thanks for the crits, thats awesome!, you may read as little emotion and pissed because they didnt write a whole paragraph thanking you for what you said.
That's the first reason. The second reason is this. And I definitely fall into this category. I will admit.
I would say 95% of the time, what the person is working on is their best piece of art yet. So chances are, they are proud of it, and think yes! I am finally improving. Im getting better. I know its not perfect, so Im going to post it up for crits. So, they post it up, then people just destroy it with crits. Now, that's what the person wants, because they want to get better, and want to know how to get better. But, at the same time, you just destroyed something they were proud of. Its not that they don't like it. It's just.... Humbling. And when you have been humbled, you aren't exactly going to be writing a short story about how appreciative you are.
Obviously not everyone is like this, but I think a lot of the people who come across as ungrateful, or not actually wanting it, are like that.
Also, a pet peeve of mine is that everyone that ever gives a crit thinks they are right, and if the person doesnt change everything you crit, then that person is dumb and bad and whatever. This is the biggest F'ing horse shit. Creative differences play a huge part. The best thing you can do, and I do mean the best thing, is take every crit, and put your own spin on it. DONT follow peoples crits exactly. If you arent putting your own spin on it, you're missing out on such a good opportunity.
As for me, Generally when I ask for crits on my animations, if its a work in progress, I will try and change what I can. But if it's something Ive already called done, I wont change it. Not because I think you're wrong, but because I want the crits so I know what to look for in the future. I learn far more and improve way faster when I start something new, rather than going back and trying to tune up old pieces. I'd rather do something newer and better to replace an older piece on my reel than just tune up an older piece on my reel to make it look better.
It's kinda like having someone who worked on Halo, Metriod and Metal Gear Solid, for the past 10 years come in someones thread who is making more of a Borderlands, DOTA2 and Jet Set Radio kinda artwork, and telling them to change a great deal of stuff.
Neither party is right nor wrong, but both parties would be idiots to suddenly get a style-shock clash for something like this.
i recently offered feedback & criticism on the forum to an artist that many find very talented (which he is). at first the artist seemed to have taken offense to my opinions.
during this discussion one of his friends joined the conversation in defense of his friend, by saying comments that were entirely irrelevant to the conversation.
one of the comments (and the reason i am hoping to chime in for a moment to this discussion) was that perhaps i should link to my own body of work to, and i quote, "add weight to my crits".
if i may, i'd just like to say that this attitude is entirely ridiculous. whether i am a fantastic artist or a terrible one should make no difference to how you interpret my opinion. certainly, if someone you admire gives you feedback you're going to pay attention, but if i am a terrible artist does my opinion all of a sudden lack merit?
what did you think of this movie? sorry i cant listen to your opinion, you're not a professional film critic.
does this shirt look good on me? sorry you're not a fashion designer so i don't care for your opinion.
hey, here is my 3d artwork everyone what do you think?
selfish, positive affirmation (which i think is what asking that question boils down to) really should have no place when discussing such things. don't try and build yourself (or the point you're trying to make) up by hoping i have a poor portfolio for you to snicker over. heaven forbid it ends up being more impressive than your own, resulting in a blow to whatever level of ego you may have.
my interest in even bothering to offer an opinion comes from a mutual interest in videogame art. i mean, that is why we're here, right? to talk about game art. who gives a shit if we're seasoned veterans or 13 year old kids. if someones opinion resonates with you, its your responsibility to decide what to do with it.
I hate when threads turn into: please show me your credentials before I can accept your critique (no caring if you actually have a point).
Or "your folio is like shit, how dare you crit me?" - happened to me - actually I'm a tech artist with 7+ years experience working with EA, Ubi, Naughty. I think I know a little bit how production works and how good assets are supposed to look...but whatever. It just annoys me wasting my time with people like that.
When I get critiqued, I always make sure to mention I appreciate the effort the person took in pointing out my flaws. Seriously, sometimes it's just that one sentence of advice someone gives you that makes something in your head "click." It is hard though to reply to a huge list of advice; what am I supposed to say? I'd make the changes, sure, but I can't exactly waste peoples time with a massive thankyou letter. Generally it's tough to match someones critique in word count because there's nothing really to say other than "I agree, thank you so much! *pic*"
that said, i often don't directly respond to feedback... i work on it, sure. but i don't write up a response to it unless it's to give a reason why i'm NOT following it.
anyway, that's how i roll. sorry.
I love them, I think alot of people think that though but dont say it, its like if an environment guy tells me how to do anatomy.....should I ignore that or should I realise that they have eyes aswell!!!
seriously though my dad who works in a hardware store gives me better crits than most. You dont have to work in games to have eyes!!!! his fresh perspective and non attachment is actually quite refreshing haha, I should get him an account setup lol
I think Ive slowly given up on giving feedback. Its usually ignored or explained away in some silly way. In effect I have folders full of paintovers that will never see the light of day. Its good for training your eye so Im not annoyed about it. If I feel strongly enough about it then I will post it, if its ignored I will go and have a little cry.
giving and taking feedback in a professional environment is great and easy, but when its done as a hobby I think people find it even easier to ignore than start over or adjust their work, even though we have their best interests at heart.
Thus, at the stage where something does actually get a lot of views and replies, it is only time for nity gritty changes, and NOT key elements.
Tho, in many cases, I do find certain people particularly unreceptive to crit.
What a dick attitude! "add weight" to your crits, lol. Some people have this attitude that you 'don't have the right' to crit (or even post sometimes!!) if you so choose to not submit your work on Polycount. Man, there is some serious douchebaggery and egotism in game art and it's almost always the pups still in, or barely out of college, trying to act the hard man around what they consider to be 'the big dogs'. You rarely see the greybeards acting the knob-end like that. I have maybe posted work on here two or three times in all my years here, and I know some incredibly talented artists who have never done so, choosing to keep it to their blogs instead. Doesn't mean anything, and it certainly does not negate your ability to effectively crit someone.
Also the reason someone might ask to show your own work, can be because you act like a dick and maybe they started wondering how much knowledge you have about the subject, and not just talking bullshit.
On the other hand I always try out the critics I get no matter what kind of portfolio the person has, cause you don't have to be an artist to critic on art.
One more thing whenever I get reply's on my thread I try and answer everybody, even provide models, textures and walktroughs if anyone asks for that.
If there is one thing I don#t fancy is when you take the time to reply to someone and they don't even address you in the next post, just to show that they saw your reply, no matter if the took it into the piece.
That is where being able to step back and look at your work objectionably, and filter critiques for what they are regardless of where they come from is important.
pcuser99: "Hi there, I like xyz but I think you can tweak abc because it will cause a problem with..."
IizGr8Artz: "ROTFLMAO!! stupid noob you have 10 posts and no work to show I'm not listening to you!"
pcuser99:"sigh... actually I work at 123 and originally made the art you are attempting to copy."
IizGr8Artz:"..."
(true story)
You never really know who that "total noob" might be so pay attention to and think about the crits no matter where they come from, it might just be someone you are looking to impress. Even if they aren't someone might see you being a total fucktard and really not want that on their team. True the job is mostly about artistic talent in most cases but you want an artists who isn't a total fuckwad.
That doesn't mean people need to be scared of sticking up for their work or explaining why they might not take it in a particular direction. It's just as important for the person giving the crit not to take it personally when someone rejects their crit as it is for the person receiving the crit not to get all butt-hurt when they get it.
When I give crits I'm not demanding that the person fix it that instant and if they have a reason why they would rather not, I'm cool with that. But an explanation would be nice especially after someone puts a lot of time into a crit.
One of the great things about the boards is that more than just those two people see it so the crit might help out other people. Or you can link back to it if it pops up in another thread. So a crit might not be a total waste even if it appears to fall on deaf ears.
Most of the time things I bring up are mistakes that are made early on, and fixing it would cause a lot of rework, I understand that, I'm fine if people want to leave it as is and carrying that knowledge forward, I normally that in my crit.
Of course fixing the kinds of mistakes that cause technical problems further down the pipeline for animators and whoever else is part of the job so you do have to realize that your lead or boss isn't just going to let it slide like people do on an art board do.
It all comes down to communication and respect for your fellow human beings. You would be amazed how far in life that one skill will get you.
That's the problem though. When people stand up for their work, or even just try to explain why they did it a certain way, a lot of times, people think they are being defensive because thats how it reads. But that goes with my earlier post. They might not actually mean to be defensive. they are just simply trying to explain why they did what they did.
It really is a fine line.
Most people if they are honest will admit that there are things they would like to change or should do differently even if they are creating great looking art. I personally think everyone has room to improve and that there isn't a top of the mountain where you get to plant your flag, relax and enjoy the view. Everyone can improve on something and when we stop trying to improve, people get bored and complacent and then slide backward.
And this is what is so great, you can always improve.
That might scare someone of in the beginning, when you see that the ones you look up to are not satisfied with their own work, you will think "why the hell not", but once you get a better understanding of it you can understand what they mean.
"Yes, I know my post does not serve any real purpose, since Mark have said it all, but I'l talk still"
Yep, and the person giving the crit needs to be able to deal with having their critique rejected just like the original poster has to deal with their art being rejected.
A person who gets all butt-hurt over their critique being ignored is just as snobbish as the person who gets all butt-hurt over getting a critique. It's not a one way street, the person giving the critique needs to be a mature and reasonable person also. It's hard having someone ignore the time and effort I put into what I see as helping them out, but I can't get pissed about it, I can just lament about the lost time and hope that it helps someone else. The time lost is what keeps me from spending more time on critques but if they just say something like "thanks for that but", then it makes it worth it.
When someone just ignores the critique and posts a new WIP shot that displays all of the same flaws, what should you say? I just let it go and assume there is a difference in opinion and anything I offer up will just be more of something they don't agree with.
Either way, I think Pixar summed up the responsibility and the importance of a critic in Ratatouille... A critic is more than likely going to tell someone something that they already knew and hoped no one else noticed. The good artists are great at observation and honing the skills of observation are key to being a great artist. A critique might help them to see things they where blind to but that might mean that they need to work on observing and being more critical of their own work.
We can't always rely on outside forces to be our critical eye and in most cases the role of an external critic is a lot less important than the role of the internal critic.
- When giving critic, be constructive. Don't just say "It looks like a dick on a tank", but explain why it look like that, and what could be improved so it looks more like the intended Icecream truck.
- When receiving critic, don't take it as a personal attack or as an order to change it. It's critic to help giving a different perspective to your piece. Remember, the critic is from what OTHERS see your work, not how you see it. They might not understand what you are trying to achive, but that also means that your work might not properly conway what you want to show.
If you understand this, check the box and press "Proceed". Note that this will only appear the first time you post in this section. So remember...every...word!
Well, you get my drift
I do miss the older days of polycount though. I think with a lot of new comers (from all the contests, our industry growing, and just more awareness to us) that we have kinda backed off a bit. Maybe not.
Either way, after re-reading everything XYZ actually had some very good, valid and strong points that made me look back at the work again and actually post my own crits for Dave.
Anyways.. .that was my two cents.
I'm guilty of this quite often. I did it with my current WIP thread. My logic though is that I'd rather see something to completion, then hear what people have to say about it, and apply that to my next piece in the future. I don't like dwelling on one piece too much.
It's a normal thing, I have seen it happen on other forums that started with more of a "core" group, and expanded a lot over the years.
It's much easier to be more harsh to a person you know, because they know you don't mean it in a bad way.
And a bit around what mark said:
from personal experience:
A lot of the time when looking at my own work I'll think "It's not really what I had in mind/or not looking to great".
But because I am still just in such a early stage of learning I won't be able to pinpoint why or how to actually make it better.
(and as usual, in 2 months you will see what was wrong with it, like when you look at older work)
That is untill you start experimenting/learning, and when someone critiques it, you basicly benefit from someone having made all those mistakes/flaws already and sharing that knowledge.
So in that way I do feel like external critique helps a lot.
And I do hope that people don't back out because of some bad experiences, because when someone does listen and use it, it helps immensely imo.
And as the person above me said, that is also true for me (not changing it anymore because you called it finsished, and applying it would be almost restarting from scratch), but that doesn't mean (like on some recent work) where I'll go, okay whatever, got some feedback, and not do anything with it anymore.
Most of it, is actually on my mind (and actually remembering the person that said it) all the time when working on something similar.
And I guess it is similar for a lot of people, so maybe the critique you gave has actually done more than what you think.
I was doubting wether to post or not, but I did want to like sort of give my opinion/rambling on the good points, since the first page seemed so negative
Maybe I'll look back at this some day and think "what was I writing".
haha, good one. :poly121:
does someone know how a proper reaction should be if the artist self gets attacked and not the (sometimes really) poor made art?
for example describing someone as a child molester or "pedo" falls in my opinion totally in the category of serious trolling.
what would be the proper reaction to such harmful lies?