Is the CGS area dead?

#201

I’ve got a good one to post. I’ll do it tonight after work.

#202

Hi ya Rickmeister

Sorry for the (oh man…Massive) delay. I’m just on the northeast outskirts of NYC. Though this is a large city, there are many places off the beaten path that many here don’t even know abt. And just round the corner (so to speak :-), there’s so much variety and history.
I remember once when I had gone away for a year and returned, I walked down the famous 5th Av, down blocks that I knew well, and happened to look up, and saw a whole new world of beauty. Not just the large buildings, but the architecture, the variance of details, the nuances of structure. Gardens, on the 30th floor. A whole new level of attraction. So, what is your interest? There’s the famous museums that everybody knows, and some nice ones they don’t. There’s seaports and waterviews that are amazing. There’s beautiful architecture that goes un-noticed. Nature hideaways that are rarely visited. There’s so much that gets lost in the craziness of the high-tempo life here. Tell ya what… you come here, we’ll have a few beers and I’ll tell ya all about it :slight_smile:

#203

Pictures!!!

I’m not sure exactly what these are called but I believe they are Cannas.

This is my favorite tree in the yard, a sycamore. This one is about 100’ tall. The bark starts out a light grey and slowly over the season it all falls off and leaves the shiney white underneath. The tree itself is increadibly hard (I’ve tried to cut this type before) so I guess this keeps it safe from rot.

This is one of its branches that has fallen after a storm. Better shot of the wood itself. The whole tree gets like this and its very smooth like its been sanded already.

Lastly its got these huge leaves. These are the smaller ones near the ground. Up higher they get 1 1/2 to 2 times this size. I don’t actually know this but it wouldn’t surpirse me if a tree like this inspired the Malorn trees from Lord of the Rings. Unless there actually is a Malorn tree I dont know about.

Alright last picture. Its been a long time coming but I finally got myself a new AX, WooHoo! Seriously, I’ve been using a 10lb. splitting maul for ages and its not exactly a cutting device. More for whacking the wood into pieces, lol. Later guys.

#204

Remember me talking about some film school I did apply to? Me thinking about a assignment I had to make? That is all behind me now for some weeks. I did do the short movie thing, and I asume they liked it because I am now one of the 8 lucky people whom got accepted to the VFX course of this year! I’m really happy about, though it shaked up my plans a bit. But that is a small price to pay for a (hopefully) good education.

Hehe, those things happen :wink: It’s a big place, you easily lose a thread or two out of sight.

My plans to visit New York (among other plans) have changed a bit, sadly, because i’m going to be a student again. This means I will be pretty low on cash and I’ll need to travel in school hollidays, and those are expensive travel dates. But i’ll be back! And that will be rather sooner than later. So it sounds pretty fun to meet, drink a beer or two and talk about good stuff.

Ofcourse I love the ongoing energy of the place. By now I’ve seen most of the tourist places, especially the popular ones. But as hobby-photographer I’d like to visit and capture some of the ‘hidden’ places. Places that show it’s true character, history; less fairytale like, those forgotten places. I liked Cooney Island, lots of history and old things that remained over the years.
Also I’d like to see the more ‘real’ New Yorker, instead of the milions of tourists rushing through town, annoying the Manhatten-New Yorkers.

I’ll let you know when I’m coming to town, and we will see around that time if we can meet or not. Thanks for the offer.

#205

No problem Rickmeister… good luck with your ‘new education’. There’s a special comraderie that exists between artists, that only artists can… feel…and I love to create, so it’s a open invitation. Just email me, and we’ll talk.

Wyatt - that flower I feel isn’t Canna…it’s, dang the word escapes me… it’s a type of lily i think… anyway… nice pics. And yes… there is somtin’ beautiful when an axe is in your hands. I know cuz I have felt it :slight_smile:

#206

Booyah Rick, congratulations. I know you were excited about it but hearing you speak about it today, sounds like you were planning on not getting in. Gotta love good surpirses. :thumbsup:

#207

Thanks, thanks. Well… Last year they didn’t accepted me, and its a tough course to get into. Only 8 or 9 people will get accepted so my chances where very small. I had to be realistic and look further than only this school. But it did come a bit as a suprise, to be honest :wink:

I’m still trying to manage traveling through the rainforrests of Malaysia for 3 weeks, so hopefully not all my plans end up on hold.

#208

Calla lily, isn’t it?

Back to HIV I go… (studying, not suffering) :wip:

#209

Looks like it could be a lily but not a calla lily. Got confused because the cannas are close to these plants. My mom will walk up and say “Oh look, your ***** flowers are coming up.” And then I’ll promptly forget which ones are which. :smiley:

#210

Lol, I must have a dirty mind- I read the stars as ‘insert swear word of your choice’. For a minute I was thinking ‘Your mother said THAT?!’

#211

Lol, thats why I made it 5 stars and not 4. I guess 6 would’ve been better. :smiley:

#212

So it seems the review circle is a bit dead…

We are actually back at the point when I started this thread.

I’ve just got a mail from CGS that my account is ending, and I’m seriously considering not to renew it… although I love the community, the CGS member ship doesn’t give me any benefits… I don’t make use of the discounts nor my portfolio.

#213

Rickmeister I just renewed mine to support the community more than anything. You are right, there are no real benefits. My other memberships offer cool exclusive things (another protected forum isn’t on the same level).

#214

Well, thats actually the reason why I got a membership in the first place, to support CGS and the community. But I don’t feel that they do something ‘usefull’ with my, and the rest of us, money. I have the feeling that the quality of the community is getting lower, and they don’t undertake anything to improve things.

I tend to believe that they make enough money allready with all sorts of things (banner revenues, the online shop, balistic books, etc).

#215

What precisely do you want improved Rick? We’re always open to suggestions. There is a tonne of work that gets done behind the scenes which may not be all that visible to the community:
http://mibus.cgsociety.org/blog/

#216

You guys do a great job here at CGTALK and it’s well worth the money.

How ever it would be great to get the servers back up and running and perhaps notify the community that ther is a problem as it was hard to find out whats going on except for a few small posts. Front page might be better.

Look forward to resuming business : )

Keep up the great work, we all owe a great deal to the work that goes on here.

I remember having to wait a whole month to get my next Computer Arts magazine just to get a glimpse of any worldwide 3d artwork. That was back in the early 90’s though ; )

#217

Well, in the first place don’t get me wrong, you guys do an amazing job of running this site. And I know there is a lot of work to do, especially behind the scenes, when running a community like this. Sometimes it seems like all I do is bitching about this site, but I don’t. I love the place.

But i’m a guy who likes changes, thats my personal thing. I like to see things changing for the better of it (ofcourse). I’ve been noticing that the society is getting bit more ‘harder’ to acces. Those who really need feedback on their work get a lot of times ignored, and the 4 and 5 star rated threads get mostly ‘amazing’ and ‘awesome’ reply’s to it. This among other things. Hopefully it makes any sense what i’m saying.

Considered the CGS membership itself… It would be nice if the society could be more alive. I’m not sure how to achieve this… maybe its with a chat service, maybe it isn’t.

Besides all this ‘bitching’ of me I’m about to go back to school and my monthly income will disappear. So i’m evaluating everything financially-wise right now. If I was in a more wealthier position right now I would most certainly renew my account without a doubt just to support the community.

#218

Well, to be fair, this is the result of a large community. It has been often discussed how to tackle the rising rate of fanboy “awesome” posts, but short of calling each poster out on their lack of feedback (which i’ve attempted many times), there’s very little we can do technically that won’t restrict users.

As to the critique, again, this falls back on the community. I’ve found the only way to get good feedback on any art forum is to have a tight group of peers who agree to regularly check up on each others progress.

We can post friendly reminders to the community to critique and comment appropriately on artwork, or we can harshly penalise people for single-line posts and only voting, but the fact of the matter is people will not listen. It’s one of the drawbacks of such a massive userbase.

#219

Don’t know what to say to that Rick except good luck to you. Sounds like you have already made a smart descision about your membership. I just recently renewed mine because I benifit from the CGS bonuses fairly often and I want to support this community (I also like being able to get rid of the ads).

I find that its best to get in with a group, one of the challege threads for example, get known by them and then let them know about your WIP. Its more of a personal invitation to check out your work then.

But no, you wouldn’t need a CGS membership for that.

#220

Hmm… I hate banners…

well, what the heck… I can miss a couple of bucks! Lets renew it.

I think you are right about that. Invest some time in it, and you’ll get it back.