Iv been away from Renderosity for some time. 
I just started posting again, and was surfing the renders from Div 3d programs,
browsing the beginner section i saw allot of people giving  tons of credits for work that
was realy badly done.
I know, they are new and need some moraly support. but people was saying "this and that" was "great", when it clearly is not. its like your first try at 3ds, and u place a box. render. and there u go. a MASTERPIECE.
I tought most people in here had some sense of art skills (or what to call it)
Most of the programs i/we use here are realy hard to learn. schooling and nights on end working with our models/landskapes.

i think its about time people start giving out the hard facts when a beginner post someting.
its not to be hard on him.. but to help him/her along the path.

When a post say Critical and non-critical. they want our opinion. and its unfair to them if they render a box in clay. and we say "WOW" did u make that?!?! forget my 100.000poly tank iv been working of for 3mnds, this box just blows me away!!!

i hope u all understand.

-Seather

I understand where you're coming from and I feel that in this forum we provide both critique and encouragement. I don't think I've seen many posts here that don't have at least one suggestion for improvement. Now as for the gallery, that's out of our hands really. It's just too big.  Too many people and it's impossible to go in and tell every one of them to give some critique. Besides, some artists here are writers and some are just hobbyists. To them, it's entirely possible that  a box with a fancy material and cool lighting would be considered a masterpiece because it's beyond their ability to understand how it was done. So we can't really police people into critiquing. We can only do it ourselves and hope we set an example for others, while doing our best to aide our fellow artists.

Also, you can critique without being "hard". The open hand works both to help and to hurt, the closed fist only can hurt.

I agree Teyon. Post wireframes in teh right forums or here and often enough you can get some sort of critique. Gallerys is mostly hugs and great. It seems to have a lot more to do with who you know and not what. Well there is always  going to other sites. I like a few of the forums here so I stick around.  but the galleries I just wait till soemone I liek posts soemthign there is just too much on the galleries to keep track of.

Why would a person need to critique a picture in here. They are all perfect. As long as you put , WOW, AMAZING. I LOVE YOUR WORK.What more do they need to hear? 

Seriously, I don't recommend saying anything less than WOW to anything done in POSER. If  there are a bigger bunch of 'LOOK AT MY WORK ISN"T IT PERFECT' artist, I missed the memo. Davici, Monet, Constable, don't know their butts from their elbows as far as the Poser crowd are concerned, and would be flamed off the site for pointing out little Mary's first attemp at a Poser image is anything less than National Gallery standard.

All the other groups I have encountered have a healthy exchange of advise and ideas. A search through the threads brings up plenty of tell me what you thing threads.
Poser only has. Is it AMAZING, TRULY AMAZING, or INCREDIBLE? And "why did you say I have improved? That is impossible. I was perfect to start with." 

Now I have that off my chest, I will climb off my soap box and return you to your regular scheduled program.

Well, I don't know about that. I'm a Poser artist too, I mean, I don't ONLY use Poser but  I make Poser content sometimes and have to do renders in it for my products. I've no problem with critique. I've also run into a few Poser only artists who are of a similar mind. 

I think the thing is, alot of people who critique don't actually critique at all, they just go in and say, "This sucks" or "Lighting's off" or some other vague thing like that. A critique should:

1.  Commend the artist on the merit of the work
2.  Point out specific errors within the work

1. Suggest possible ways of improvement

Most people will do #1 or #2 and leave it at that. It is rare, I mean RARE that I see folks doing all three. I think if more people were to do all three, there would be less of the type of attitude you mention and also less cause for it. 

My favorites is littered with Poser images. And everyone of the artists is like you say, prepared to listen and take on board the comments given. They are good because they know there is always something new to learn and they put in the effort to practise and learn. The problem is the ALMOST THERE cliques and their hangers on. A culture of OOOH and AAAAAH surrounds them and they EXPECT nothing less than a pat on the back every time. It has had a trickle down effect to the point where any bit of Poser crap posted get the obligitory cascade of WOW FANTASTIC AMAZING. 

I have seen your work and it is fantastic. At the same time I am prepared to bet you read every thing you can to improve your skills. Most Poser users will never learn anything past the basics to put a picture together, using the items ARTISTS like yourself create for them. It is a culture of buy  clothes, textures, poses, backgrounds and props put them together and get everyone to tell THEM how great they are. 

The powers that be tell me not to poke the Poser users, but most of them just annoy me.

I often try, but with poser - I don't use it, so I often can say, the arm intersects with the leg, or how about trying some Anti-Aliasing, but wouldn't know part 3 the actual application of it. But I always try and I always try to take on board hints and tips that I receive although they seem a little rare! 

WOW!!! What a great thread! I love it!
xoxoxo - hugs ;)

Seriously, 'Gallery' to me implies a place to show finished work. I don't post suggestions in gallery comments; just whether I like the picture. I actually don't comment very often at all; but I usually rate pictures.
Aren't WIP threads more productive for feedback and help anyway?
How about a WIP forum, like a workshop type?
Somewhere to make/take suggestions before finishing a picture and posting it in the gallery. I see most of the forums already have WIP threads; but those are only app. specific. They aren't like the 3d modelling forum, where users of many different programs can give input about a WIP.

I second that request.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOOXOXOXOXOXOXOOooooooooops.......  wrong environment

In case you guys didn't know, there's a critique group foming here on rendo, by people whom want objective and constructive feedback ... 
( well, every once in a while in addition to generous hugs and ego stroking)

Well for 3d modeling, you are more than welcome to post your wips here. It's a general modeling forum afterall. :) I'm not the type to gripe about that unless there's specific questions about a program we already have a forum here for and even then it's case-by-case. So post your WIPS.

Conniekat8 - where is this critique group forming?

My own opinion is that it's up to we who post comments to be kindly critical and set a good example.
I almost never post a gallery comment without trying to analyze the image, discuss what works and what doesn't and provide suggestions for improvement. 

Because so many artists PM me later to encourage this kind of critique and to request more of it, i think it has merit.

Of course it also helps sell my art skills ebook in the Marketplace here - so i'm not unbiased, lol.

As i write in that ebook, even when artists ask for crit, many people feel it's not polite to point out any failings - when actually it's the kindest move to make. And many viewers don't have the visual communication vocabulary or image analysis experience. To bad they are often too shy or in too much of a hurry to at least analyze their feelings about an image and report those.

Agree also that for many, the gallery is just a "hugz club". Maybe by posting many more serious crits, we could change that? 

Attached Link: Critique Forum

Thanks for that quick response - dvlenk6!

Yeah, and the group could use more critics whom have experience offerig art and 3D technique critique.
It appears there's a lot more people wanting constructive critique then those knowing how to offer it well!

There's also more people like that needed in the art theory forum. Thewre's a group of us right now wanting to create a little self guided workshop copying or creating something inspired by a specific classic masterpece...
The thread is titled 'possible interesting experiment'
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2703049

I'd like to get involved, but barely have time for my own planned projects.
Hope it takes off though.

Might be good for your self promotion to pop in there every now and then :)

[ Kitty twists JC's arm ;)  ]

Sure, that's a good idea and have been doing so in the Critiques Forum, from time to time. Just won't be able to build and submit scenes myself for the new initiative. 

To explain the message a couple above here, having gotten the link to the Critiques Forum, i realized it's the same one i've already been visiting occasionally, lol.

Guess it's easy to get kinda stuck in the forum of your favorite app and miss out on all the other good stuff in this community. It's good that folks (like you, conniekat8) go into other fora and let people know about these other opprtunities. 

oh, you're talking about the 'experiment' project, yeah, I hear ya on that one. I was thingking about popping in and giving us some words of wisdom... However, after I twisted you arm in here, and went to the critique forum I saw you already did that :)

Once we actually create some things and start discussing it, in the art forum, with the 'experiment' you're more then welcome to pop in and speak up. I don't think it will be limited to only those whom did the painting/drawing practice.
I don't mean just You, JC, but anyone whom has interest in art theory and expanding their art skills, or offering advice. (Yes, you who are reading this but haven't posted a word!!)

I have to say I'm really amazed at the Posing vs Modeling saga. I started in the 3D world only a few months ago, and before then I never even imagined there was such a thing as posing. I found out about Poser and started with that as it seemed like an easy way to get into 3D but it always bothered me to use other people's models in my scenes. It felt like cheating. To me it seems people use models they just downloaded, and then just put the lighting on and made a render then get compliments on the whole scene.

I make it a point now to have only things I made in my pictures. The only things I start from an existing base mesh are characters since I'm still starting out and if I try to start from a box they end up looking like crap, but I always take care to sculpt them up to create unique, identifiable characters. The end result will probably not be as good as someone using downloaded props, when the final images are seen side by side, but the other person is being congratulated for doing 1% of the work in that image. That's like a recent demo reel I watched which I found really good, that had 2 video scenes of people following CG fishes, then I realized it was a modeler, and the only thing he actually did were the fishes, he had someone else do the videos and the extensive compositing work. If they were shown alone on a white background it would have made the video extremely boring.

So how far can someone actually go and still call it "his" work? Do you need to have every object start as a box initially? Or somewhere in between? Or nothing at all. Certainly a lot of people seem to think so (the whole Poser community). How do you critique someone about a model if he didn't even make it and wouldn't know how to fix it? I know a lot of modelers look down at Poser people, but what I find even more weird is a lot of Poser people look down at modelers, for some reason. Uhm I guess I derailed a little bit here.

Quote - I have to say I'm really amazed at the Posing vs Modeling saga...

I never understood it myself.
I don't want to either.

I think sometimes people forget that people have to start somewhere. I know some feel comfortable in that starting point and never want to move on, others like elfguy and myself are dipping our toes in to this mysterious realm of modelling. I started out with poser/bryce/caligari etc as a way to visualise scenes/characters from the series I am  writing. I still use these apps for that but am 'dabbling' in wings3d to make my own stuff with help from a few familiar faces above.

I equate poser made pics like models on a catwalk, the girls & guys displaying other peoples creations. I have no problem with people (myself included) creating something beautiful from other peoples' models as long as they give full credit.

It is also worth noting that before you beat up on these people they are the ones that buy/use models & freebies that modllers make (I do know that I am not ia contributer to this catagory yet) so it is not wise to bite the hand that pays the bills I guess. Anyway is it really worth all that agro??? Jen