Where is a better forum web site? CGTalk is dead.

#21

For me, the new update to the forum has all but killed people wanting to visit, simply because the way it’s displayed.

One of the biggest issues has to be the way thread titles appear on screen. In the past when visiting, thread titles become “highlighted” or brighter white, if you know what I mean, to show new posts have been added to the thread. This greatly helps let users know the thread has new posts. However, now once you’ve clicked on a thread, it stays un-highlighted or in a darker grey(once you’ve looked into a thread), without updating new posts have been added, making people not know if there’s a new post.

Next the thread titles are still too large, and people browsing have to do a lot of scrolling to reach the bottom of the forum, people hate scrolling, as they just want a quick glance.

The envelope icon next thread titles, don’t really meaning anything for most users, and most don’t bother looking up the meaning. So it’s a pointless icon, unless you understand the visual language. A more intuitive icon system maybe better. At the moment it’s like looking at hieroglyphics.

I feel there’s a limit to things to talk about, as it’s either just more trailers talks, not enough engaging conversations, that’s partly us members fault though. Be nice to have more conversation on, making a better living out of CG. Surprised there’s not some section for this kind of thing. Also discussions on how to get ideas into property making money, or from concept to say a TV series. The ways to get things like agents, getting financed and etc. People want to know the routes into such business.

Some of the new sections of the forum, I don’t check and just feels cluttered.

There’s one resource, that the forum could benefit from, and that’s a database of some sort, or a map based directory, of studios. Also to set it apart, is to have dates of when it opened and dates if it has closed down, etc. People will visit here more, if you offer them some sort of resource.

#22

I’ll second the notion of reducing the forums.

I said it before in that long thread looking for suggestions on improving the site. Participation is down, discussion is sparse, and the solution in this re-design is to create more random forums to split things up even further.

I actually think chatter box, general discussion, and news need to be one single forum.

#23

Yeah, and the challenge forums could be merged with WIPs, and the various software-specific forums merged into one technical help forum.

#24

Hi, I’m pretty young and new to this forum. I’m mostly interested in vfx but it’s difficult to find it in here from my perspective. I do spent a lot of my time on YouTube. :slight_smile:

Where is the thread for vfx anyways ?

#25

[quote=“Meloncov”]

Yeah, and the challenge forums could be merged with WIPs, and the various software-specific forums merged into one technical help forum.[/QUOTE]
And the separate WIP forums merged into one WIP forum.

Hmm, I really don’t know if there is a specific vfx thread. I suppose it would depend on what information you’re looking for. You could check the Houdini section.

#26

This kind of thing is the issue, see. There are way too many forums, and for someone new coming here it’s off putting. It also makes the forum appear more dead than it really is if everything is so divided. I really think a LOT of the forums need to be merged.

#27

please dont waste CGFeedback on this, it should stay clear of this downfall…

#28

Ok lets keep this thread positive. Give us ideas on how to improve the forum.

#29

this is totally irrelevant to the topic but as a student who is interested in vfx where is a good place for me to find more information about this. Maybe some websites, videos, etc

#30

Yeah, I agree. I think now that it’s been going on for a considerable amount of time, I’m not sure it was meritorious to have a General Discussion and a Chatterbox.

I can understand they didn’t like Art/CG topics that were too “Ivory Tower” being put in GD. But without the CG/VFX critiques and discussion about designs or examples, GD starts to look like “CG News Lite” and the Chatterbox seems too much like…an Artstation comments section?

I dunno…It seems increasing the number of forums has fragmented Attendance and you get the impression the place is more deserted than it really is. :stuck_out_tongue:

#31

In my humble opinion i think the site has never looked better but there is a kind of disjointed feel to it.

Not sure what i can do to remedy that. But i will say, the most exciting to for me, when i couldn’t wait to see the forums were the sketch modelling sessions.

Seeing tons of people spending anything from 1 hour to 8 hours or even a weekend on a quick subject. Nothing massive, nothing that required voting, it was a session, no one was declared a winner. So much of life is centered around competing, it was nice to see people chill and just share their art.

If such a thing were to happen it would need to be promoted, have its own thumbnail one of the front 2 rows otherwise people would miss it.

Just my perspective.

#32

I also think the thumbnail/shortcut grid at the top of the forum is confusing. They’re all images, but it’s a random assortment of cg workshop ads, articles, popular artwork in the gallery, etc. I understand what it’s trying to do, by highlighting the popular threads, but in the end I feel like it’s just kind of confusing and adds to the busy design of the site. I don’t think it’s a good idea to have an aspect of a site that somewhat shifts purposes depending on which page you happen to be viewing.

I love the redesign as far as the graphics and style of it all, but I still think there’s way too much information everywhere, way too many different sizes and bold/unbold, gray, light gray, dark gray text everywhere.

Does the “Before posting, please review the following:” paragraph really need to be there. I mean who really comes to post something vicious and then reads that and decides against it… seems to be it could just be in the sticky at the top of the forum and leave it at that.

Ranking a thread or post I think is kind of a failed experiment, I don’t really see how it helps.

I’ve always found the private message system to be a little too hidden. Sometimes I don’t notice the little 1 unread in the top right, because it’s mixed in with all these other numbers and info up there. I think that entire section could be gotten rid of, and up in the top where my username is, the upload art button, and the search tool, you could just throw in an envelope that changes color if I have a new message.

Anyways I could go on. I know it’s all negative, I actually think in a lot of ways this forum is headed in a great, new exciting direction. I just think the key to further development is simplify simplify simplify. Whether it be the ui or the forums themselves. I know we’re in a transitional period as well, but I hope as things resolve more and more people find the site welcoming and intuitive.

#33

I couldn’t agree more. The sketch sessions were massive fun and gave someone like me the kick in the pants needed to get productive.

#34

A few observations:

  1. I remember the sketching threads from way back too. Those were a major thing that caught my attention about this site, as far as I recall.

  2. The text for the forum and thread links being so much larger than normal feels really jarring to me. It might be because it now (after the redesign) feels uncomfortable because of the combination of various text sizes on the page at the same time. It seems like a small thing, but it really bothers me (on an almost subconscious level) to the point that I’m less inclined to visit. I would really welcome a return to the old, normal text sizes.

  3. It feels like way too many forums and subforums. I now usually come and check the News and General Discussions forums. There’s really not much happening in them, but I don’t feel inclined to dig through dozens of forums and subforums looking for interesting topics. Perhaps it would be possible to combine some of the currently less active forums?

#35

There’s another thing related to this. This forum has traditionally frowned upon self-promotion, but a lot of the more interesting personal projects, sketches, etc. are linked to some kind of online presence or other activity - like a Kickstarter campaign which is a big No-no.

This site only seems to be OK with people really showing off their work if they worked on a prominent AAA game or movie (look at the gallery selections on top: It’s dominated by Disney film work and Uncharted 4).

I think there should be more relaxed views towards people wanting to share and discuss work that is self-published without fear of being cut down. Of course, people showing art and animation related to a Kickstarter campaign should also exercise a certain modicum of decency, so that they make sure that when they are here they are talking about the work itself and not trying to sell it to all of us. :stuck_out_tongue:

I can understand why the mods don’t want the forum to turn into an avenue for self-promotion and of course the place can look polluted if it’s full of people hawking Kickstarter campaigns. But in the current self-publishing era of Media… who says something like this isn’t already the future? Your youtube channel is now your portfolio and embedding the videos into your own site is part of your presence on this planet as an artist. And what artist won’t be interested in asking others how they are able to do a little extra here and there through other means?

This should be allowed as “General Discussion” as it is important for artists to be able to discuss not just the renders and the animations themselves, but also how they are getting on in self-publishing and other things related to having the work up and getting it seen and generating more value.

#36

This site only seems to be OK with people really showing off their work if they worked on a prominent AAA game or movie (look at the gallery selections on top: It’s dominated by Disney film work and Uncharted 4).

Completely agree - double standards.

No crowd funding etc … why not? is it really such a bad thing? instead of saying; NO NO! you could just have a sub forum that is specific for such topics, that would have subjects such as self promotion, products and such.

I dont believe there should be any barriers, just organisation.

David

#37

Polycount is where the cool kids skate thse days

#38

I don’t think crowdfunding needs a sub forum. I really think we need to stop this mindset of subforums and splitting things up further. I mean how many people would really go into that subforum to check out kickstarter after kickstarter on a regular basis. I just see it being another massive desert of threads with 3 views and no replies. Would there be so many kickstarter threads in general discussion that it’d blot out everything else?

If that’s a concern I get it, and I understand not allowing it, I’m just not sure.

#39

I could be wrong, but I’ve felt at times that it was a “Post No Bill” issue. Kind of like how you don’t want people posting ads on your lawn fence or gate.

But I feel such concerns (if any) should not apply here. Inevitably, the artists who are any good (or any more determined) below Professional level would be doing some form of self-publishing and I feel that’s a niche CGTalk could fill. You obviously have “residents” from Naughty Dog and Disney, but imagine if we encouraged sharing from the people making Steam Greenlight titles and cool shorts as well and allowed both these factions to mingle without boundaries.

One of my most cherished interactions over here, albeit on PM, was the chance to exchange feedback on REVERSION with someone who did work on a major film. We talked about eye shaders, and he shared some of his own rigging ideas, about audience expectations when seeing CG footage…I realized without this forum or community, I would have had a harder time finding him.

And that kind of interaction improves everything: Artistic Sensibility, Technique, Industry Awareness.

It’s golden. But they have to set people free.

#40

I’d like to agree with the feeling of there being “way too much everywhere.” The forums could feel so much simpler and cleaner, and therefore more inviting to new visitors. Imagine I’m a first time visitor… on the splash page, I see a lot of news and workshop stuff, but the link to the forum is very small. Now say I do manage to get to the forum. What do I see in the index?

Thrust CG Society’s Challenge Gallery
CG Award Gallery
Featured 3D
Featured 2D
Featured Videos
Latest Entries
News
General Discussion
The Chatter Box
Recruitment
Education
Best from the Web
Meet the Artists
Site of the Month
WIP Studio Professional Feedback
WIP/Critique: 3D
WIP/Critique: 2D
WIP/Critique: Animation
Collaborative Team Projects
Modeling Challenge
Rigging Challenge
Sketch Challenge
FXWARS Challenge
Animation Challenge
Lighting Challenges
Digital Matte Painting Challenge
… and about 30 more

Now, it’s not bad to have several sections, but it’s very overwhelming and should definitely be cut down and better organized, and why aren’t critique and discussion forums at the very top?

Let’s say I’m a first time visitor to Polycount. Okay, the link to the forum is in slightly bigger text, but since the feed is of recent posts on the forum, I can easily click one and get drawn into a thread and engage in the community. And if I click the forum link and see the index, what do I see? First off, minimal visual clutter at the top of the site. And as for the forums, the first one is 3D Art Showcase and Critique. Below that, there is much more consolidation as well as some descriptions to help visitors know where to go.

I think you can look at a site like Polycount and study its design and organization. There are users like myself whose interests align more with CGTalk but would like to see it become a more vibrant community.