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Forum Coordinators: RedPhantom
Poser - OFFICIAL F.A.Q (Last Updated: 2024 Sep 23 2:16 pm)
Subject: Want critiques?
Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2692451
in regard to using the art theory forum for the critique group, the co-ordinator (seven) has said it's o.k. (see attached link) in the past, during my participation in that forum, I found seven to be a well-spoken and mature individual whom the ptb might consider promoting to moderator, if that's amenable to all the parties concerned.
Karen said, "I'll send a note to Tommy and Nic to ask if it can be done. I don't know what else they have on their plate right now, though, so it might be something they'd have to "wishlist", so to speak." Tommy & Nic are supposed to be working on a way to enable comments in the Animation Gallery. [grin]
Before they made me they broke the mold!
http://home.roadrunner.com/~kflach/
kenernest63, j5keep6, Varnayrah, j5keep6 and any other new members- just to let you know, i personally will probably not add anyone to my favorites who doesn't favorite me. occassionally, i'll also check homepages to see if others in the group have been added (i.e., the new member is in the process of adding critique group members). many have voiced a concern over using favorites, and our recent domination of the art charts lends credence to some of those concerns. i don't want to force a system on someone that doesn't want to use it.
They're supposed to be working on a lot of stuff, Bobasaur ;-)
OK - I've added everyone up to this point.
I am going to be absent for the next 4 days as I am spending the weekend with my son - my ex is taking him to live in Wales in a couple of weeks so we're getting all the time together that we can :-(
I will catch up with things when I get back and in the meantime if you guys want to start some threads in the AT forum, go for it.
"you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love." - Warsan
Shire
We will be on our best behavior while your gone... I have a bridge, if you're interested.
By the way, I have breached the Art Theory Forum...
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2692582
Karen, can you edit the first post and add me to the "unjoin" area?
I have no problem with the whole concept, in fact I like it, however with the amount of emails that were coming through my hotmail account between here and all of the other sites I am a member of, it was overwhelming my hotmail inbox to the pont hotmail was bouncing some of my messages.
So I decided that since this has now become a very busy site for mailings that I would use my Outlook Express address for Renderosity and sort the mailings. And it was working just fine until a couple days ago when I started to get spam mailings to that address. I have never received spam mailings to that address in the 6 years that I have had it. Not a single one. The only site I have used that address is here and that has only been recently, otherwise it's kept for personal mailings and business purposes. I know that this spam problem started when some changes were made to the server to increase the mailing load, but it's causing problems with not only me, but some others that I have seen posting in the community forum.
I do not want to have to change my outlook express address yet again because of spam mail and I rarely check my hotmail account because it's an address that I use around the net when I need to create accounts, so it gets mostly spam.
Anyway, if this eventually moves into a forum where I do not have to rely on getting ebot notifications, I'll rejoin.
Sorry everyone :(
"It is good to see ourselves as
others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we
are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not
angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to
say." - Ghandi
You could create a Gmail account and use it in Outlook. That's what I do, it's really easy. It's free, it has lots of space (more than Hotmail) and they have a very good spam filter. And if it gets spammed heavily, you can always create a 2nd one. I find Gmail much, much better than hotmail, in all aspects. I use it for all non-business related issues.
Gmail accounts are only created by invitation but I can invite whoever needs one, all I need is any email address that I can send the invitation to.
Hmmm. I do have a gmail account, I forgot about that one. I'll try and find my username and password. Thanks for the tip!!
"It is good to see ourselves as
others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we
are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not
angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to
say." - Ghandi
Acadia I do hope you choose to stay with this. No comment on why you're just now getting spam but I hope you choose to stay.
I don't know why either. But I do know it is to do with something that Renderosity did to the mail server in order to increase mailings. Even people with @renderosity.com addresses are getting it through here. It's highly annoying!
"It is good to see ourselves as
others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we
are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not
angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to
say." - Ghandi
There's a pre-critique going on in the Art Theory Forum...
Cool, nobody's objected? I saw the coordinator there blessed it.... Hope nobody freaks out when 50-odd people start draging their stuff in there.
So the Art Theory forum is going to be the location of the critique group?
If that's the case I'll just use that forum and critique the images that people post there.
"It is good to see ourselves as
others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we
are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not
angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to
say." - Ghandi
Quote - Cool, nobody's objected? I saw the coordinator there blessed it.... Hope nobody freaks out when 50-odd people start draging their stuff in there.
Last I checked the coordinator was the only other one participating in the critique
For me I'll upload the image to my site and post a link to it in the Art Theory Forum. Get opinions, make changes and then upload the final picture to my gallery
"It is good to see ourselves as
others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we
are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not
angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to
say." - Ghandi
I dont think I would like to do that. When I delete, I also delete all the comments that people left there.
This just reminded me of something else: would this new process mean that the Critique Group members would stop posting comments in the pics themselves and only do it in the Forum?
There's still a lot of things to be defined before the new process begins, I suppose...
How about... we post wip in a wip gallery but with disabled comments and in forum a link to that image? Just a thought...
I agree with have to come up with some kind of process that would suit everyone.
OT1. I would like to thank for your comments guys. You spotted things I didn't notice, and you gave me some cool ideas about my pic - thanks!
OT2. I noticed some critical comments under my wip coming from non memebers. I also noticed few honest comments in 'main gallery' from non members as well. I think it's great! 
Bear in mind, there will be an average of 20-30 image uploads a day based on the current rate, and it will be hard to really stay on top of threads when there's that many. Plus, this many people with different outlooks and backgrounds - good luck trying to get them to follow any kind of guidelines ;)
Regular use of the forum is going to require that people are consistent about putting links back and forth. Since it's not obvious how to do that in the gallery notes side (HTML there, apparently UBBcode everywhere else) good luck with that too :) Probably a short readme stickied somewhere regarding putting links into gallery notes and into forum posts would help there (hint hint Karen :tt2: )
I still would prefer to use the gallery and hope we don't go so far as to to disable the commenting feature on gallery postings, one of the things I remain optimistic about is that straight up commentary will rub off on people instead of the typical "AMAZING FANTASTIC AWESOME".
i think if we decide to remove all critical comments in the galleries then it will very sadly send a negative message to the rest of the community. not only would it undercut the value of the critiques by sending them to a dark corner of the community, not only would it not induce similar behavior as Tissaia and others have mentioned, but it would send the message that the gallery is an inappropriate place for critical comments. i say dark because i see months worth of "post this month's images here for critique" in the art theory forum, and just about 0 activity outside of ours.
personally, i think we should each do what's most comfortable. and see what happens. we have a forum now, but i'd like to see how activity is in a few months when this isn't so new and the big push has stopped. after all, the forum isn't new, but until this method of critique was in place, it wasn't happening. conversely, if i ever complete a picture, i don't want to rely on links to threads which will change the next time the system changes just to re-read comments. but i think that people who want to discuss critiques should be free to, people who want to get feedback before posting an image should be free to, and people who want to post to the w.i.p. gallery should be free to.
Rutra - you want to leave the comments but keep the picture? but won't the comments be meaningless without the picture? well, you could do that by starting a thread with a link to the picture, then updating the image and starting a new thread when it was finished. then you would have two threads of critiques and one image. would that do what you want?
I think that it's important to leave the WIP versions of a picture somewhere, as a testimony to evolution. And also I think it's not very friendly for the kind people who spent their time to write something for us and then we just go and delete it, when we don't need it anymore. I think it's not nice, but that's only my opinion.
But I also don't like to clutter the personal galleries with WIP's. The ideal would be for the personal galleries to have two subgroups: WIP's and finished images. The viewers could opt to browse one or the other. I know it's complicated and a lot to ask...
So, my "ideal" process would go like this:
a) The artist posts a WIP in the WIP gallery. This is added to the subgroup "WIP" in his personal gallery. Anyone can post comments, from inside or outside of the Critique group.
b) The artist creates a new thread in the Forum, asking for critique to the group, with a link to his WIP.
c) Maybe a 2nd WIP or a 3rd WIP come, all handled in the same manner, with updates of the thread in the forum.
d) Some time later, the artis posts the finished version in the normal gallery (Vue, Poser, whatever) and this goes into his personal gallery, subgroup of finished works
e) The artists updates his thread on the forum, telling the group of the finished version.
That's it! The hard part is the creation of subgroups in the personal gallery, as we would have to "convince" the site managers to have this rather big change in the concept. If this isn't possible, each artist could do as he/she pleases: he/she could keep or delete the WIP from his/her personal gallery.
Another option is to keep WIPs offsite and put links in the forum thread only, as Acadia suggested. This has the big disadvantage that only the Critique Group members will see it, but that's up to the artist, of course.
Quote - i think if we decide to remove all critical comments in the galleries then it will very sadly send a negative message to the rest of the community
[...]it would send the message that the gallery is an inappropriate place for critical comments.
personally, i think we should each do what's most comfortable.
Hmmm... maybe you're right.
Those who would like to discuss their wips in details and show progress of an image could start a thread in a forum or... post in gallery and move discussion to a forum if needed?
So everybody could do what suits best for them at specific time/in specific case...
ok, let me ask you these questions: how do you see people using the galleries? how would you like people to use your gallleries?
i ask because in my experience, personal galleries aren't well trafficked enough for old images to affect the viewing experience of most people at all. i could have photos of my cats fill my gallery, and i don't think anyone would notice after i posted them. from a development standpoint, making 2 personal galleries would be a waste of time and effort if in fact most people don't view any but a person's latest image. rendo should have the numbers on that, and i certainly don't have any data myself (other than numbers of views and comments, of course). but i would be really surprised if traffic didn't mostly come from 3 different ways: different ways of browsing the galleries in general, notifications, and looking at the most recent image of the people who commented on your most recent work.
@ Rutra
Yes, you can start now. It might be a good idea if those interested in participating in the forum aspect of critiquing subscribe to the Art Theory forum, that way you won't miss new threads.
All in all, it's going to be cumbersome anyway you cut it.
I like the gallery method, but the one major drawback is that communication was a one way street... Artist posts, you comment, anything further was being handled in IM and Sitemail so was lost to the rest of the group. You could always copy your comment, delete the original comment, create a new comment and paste in the old comment with your edits... But there were times when someone had addressed something I said in the original comment and I assumed (no, I didn't test it) that my new comment would appear on the bottom of the comments there by ruining the flow and adding confusion.
As for the duplication of images... within Rendo, I don't much care. But occasionally I do give out the link to my gallery to outsiders and I don't really want them to view Image (take 1), Image (take 2)...
In the end, I think it's going to be a matter of both personal preference and your needs at the moment. I may have an image that I don't know what to do with and use the forum approach for advice or, on the other hand, post to the gallery an image that I think is finished... and you guys don't :biggrin:
Well, I'm still for the forum idea for the following reasons:
1. Being part of a group that commits to viewing and commenting on each others images is "cliquish" and undoly influences the most viewed and most commented images, even if those images do not make it into the top whatever.
- The comments and responses in the galleries is making the gallery more "forum-like". I also think that the long responses are making the comments look messy. Plus the "Critque Group" that some are headlining their comments with does look "cliquish" whether it's meant to or not...it really does.
3. Ability for only 1 comment per individual.
4. When an image is reworked some are editing and reuploading it. There is no "Before" to compare it to, just an after. It would be nice to see progress. I for one am not going to use up my daily 1 upload to upload an image that is essentially the same in order to show a WIP.
- I've always felt that a gallery is a showcase for finished images...not that those images are necessarily all good mind you. But you don't walk into a museum and stick post it notes all over every image and model in the building offering your "critique" on what the artist has done.
6. Not every image uploaded needs or wants to be critiqued. As it stands now every image uploaded is being considered "fair game", unless you upload it with the ability to comment on it at all.
A forum dedicated to this far outweighs everything else, because it counters all of the above.
I don't think it's unreasonable for each person to have their own ongoing thread in the forum that is being propsed for this group. When each of us has an image they want to have critiqued they could simply upload it or post a link to it in the thread that they have started for their images.
For those without their own website they can use a free picture host site such as Photobucket or something else. I'm not sure how Photobucket feels about nude images, but if they do not allow them, some free site does.
If needed I would be willing to create 1 common FTP account on my web server for those who require a hosting spot for their images for the purpose of critiquing only. It would be a common account for those in the group to use, so each would be on the honour system to not mess with someone else's image(s). And it would only be for WIP critiquing images, not for uploading and storing files/pictures, and once an image is completed, the WIP images would be expected to be removed and not stored there.
If anyone is interested in my doing this (1 common FTP account), just post here or send me a PM or email. If it's something that enough want, then I'll do this.
"It is good to see ourselves as
others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we
are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not
angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to
say." - Ghandi
I think there are so many people now that there is a lot of room for overlap, no problem. A combination of normal gallery use and forum use is probably a good compromise (some prefer the gallery, some prefer the forum idea). One thing, all these people posting at their normal rate will very quickly overflow a forum - another reason I prefer using the gallery, I can methodically review 25 images back to back (one typical day) and be pretty sure I didn't miss any.
I think i prefer galleries over the forum as the first point of contact between artist and critic. I think that nine times out of ten a single comment with however many suggestions is all that is wanted or even needed. If one part y or the other wants to take it further, say for example, the critic offers to demonstrate a technique hard to describe in text alone then a forum thread can be started with illustrations and the topic can be discussed more fully.
The really good thing about the way things are done at the moment is that crit group members get a notification from another member (ebot) saying 'hey, have a quick look at this and tell me what you think needs doing to it'. Using forums as the first point of contact invloves much more effort for artist and critic and ,lets face it, for most of us free time is short enough.
Have not read the whole thread but the first few pages.
This idea sounds very good so far.
One thing I want to mention is that it speeds up analysis if the artists leave some words on what
they noticed, what they think doesn't fit and what is done intentionally.
If for example someone has done some weird lighting/shadow in a pic and knows about this
issue, but doesn't know how to fix the problem, then it would be useful to know for the
commenter. If it's intentionally weird it's also good to know...
Otherwise it's always a lot of consideration from what the artist might be aware of, what he
won't change, what he can't change to what's his goal for this pic.
Regarding new users, a knowledgebase could turn to be an great addition.
I don't know about the Poser Manual too well, but the manuals that come with XSI, shade and
maya are not really that much of a help if one needs a quick solution for some specific problem.
For Poser the most obvious problem, if looking in some random galleries, seems to be that
people simply have no idea how to rig the figure. Next thing would be how to use lights. (This
"standing in front of nuclear blast lighting" syndrome)
There are for sure more things like these that can only hardly be explained within a few lines of
comment.
Now it's more than 1 thing but well... :p
My 2c
-tow
Count me in. I don't post much these days what with going to school part-time but it would be nice to have some decent concrit when I do. 
ETA: I usually create love scenes, romantic encounters, and the occasional side-trip into fantasy.
Brynna
"Occam's Razor: The simplest explanation is almost always that somebody screwed up." - House
Dell Desktop XPS 8940 i9, two 14 tb External drives, 64 GB DDR4 RAM, NVidia RTX 3060 12 GB DDR5.
Monitor - My 50 inch Hitachi TV. Works great!
Daz Studio - whatever the latest version is. Haven't decided if I'm upgrading to Poser 13 or not.
Photoshop.
I'm creating a Steampunk Tarot Deck. There's an older version in my Gallery, then a newer version.
A forum would be a super idea! After my latest picture I ran into a problem that isn't immediately solvable in a gallery. I'm not changing the light on the main figures of the piece because the main complaint was the lighting. HOWEVER--nothing is wrong with the lighting!
It's how the area is constructed. In a forum I'd post links to prior art showing construction of the shuttle in question to demonstrated where the light was coming from. Long story short, the two main figures stand at one point of a crusiform space, looking past them, out the other side.
In a forum post, I could explain it more....in real time? I don't know. It might work better?
I'd be willing to give it a try. This is all a new thing around here, and I'm not frustrated or defensive, just curious and excited! This is like being on the ground floor of a great structure being built and we need to build it one stone at a time!
This is just my 2p worth of lobbed stones. :lol:
I cannot save the world. Only my little piece of it. If we all act
together, we can save the world.--Nelson Mandela
An inconsistent hobgoblin is
the fool of little minds
Taking "Just do it" to a whole new level!
Ummm why again, can't there be a link in the gallery for images posted by those who are a part of the critique group?
I think it'd be really helpful if there was a link in the gallery, or a subset heading in the drop downs, so that when we click on that link we would then see only images that the folks in the group have posted.
"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.
Imagination is more important than knowledge." Albert
Einstein
Free the freebies!
new members: welcome to the group! if you want to use a forum, go to the art theory forum. sign up for the group if you want to post to the gallery and have members notified if you post, as well as being notified when other members post. if you want existing members to add you to favorites, the best way is to add them to your favorites with the note "Critique Group" or something like it.
you can use the forum, the gallery, or a combination of both. use it how you like, and if you have any problems or questions or opinions about how this group works, please don't hesitate to post. if you have any trouble resolving issues with other members, please contact karen1573 or another moderator. i believe we all want this to be as positive an experience as possible, so please let others know if you have a problem with the critiques you're receiving or if you're getting private messages you find hostile. i'm only mentioning this due to one thread i've read vs. the several positive posts i've read and messages i've received, but i thought it would be good to get out there.
OK folks, I'm back!
I've added the new signups over Easter.
I have a new article published today on the art of receiving critiques and how to get the best out of it:
http://www.renderosity.com/news.php?viewStory=13552
I have now updated the opening post to reflect the different methods for getting crits.
"you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love." - Warsan
Shire
And cobaltdream, thank you for such a helpful precis of information!
"you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love." - Warsan
Shire
I found my gmail information and have set it up for POP3. I have to go back and readd everyone again.
Sorry for the inconvenience but gmail really hadn't crossed my mind.
"It is good to see ourselves as
others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we
are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not
angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to
say." - Ghandi
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Ok, I think... please sign me in (although I am going on easter holiday right now and wont be able to make any comments until April 16th)