CGSociety's CGPortfolio,

[EVIL]

We all know about CA3.0
but now CGSociety is coming with their kind of profile page/portfolio stuff
http://portfolio.cgsociety.org/
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?threadid=331181

Will it be able to compete with the great CA??

discuss people!

edit by jason: i changed the post title as it was inflammatory. CGTALK is a strong site and a great spot to see 3d work etc....it is simply different than ca. I would prefer to not have any battling going on.-J

[dogfood]

Technology doesn't make a community.

[Schlo-mo]

CA will be fine.. If anything I hope they take some of the more annoying members over to CGTalk.

[_Mario]

There is a site called deviantart that has the some of these portfolio features too. OMG CA will die!!!

Now a little bit more serious.
Will CA be able to compete?
Compete with what? The community (the people posting), features (all the cool stuff to click at), free stuff (space and bandwidth), what exactly?

The following explanation is a bit short but the very last sentence should explain it:
VW, Toyota, GM, and and some other companies are building cars but they still manage to survive. Why is it that so? Because different people have different needs.

[asoir]

I actually don't see what's so great about this feature... Pretty limited.

[Jason Manley]

First off, cgtalk is a great site...and by far the best place to find 3d artists on the net.

as far as whether they will grind ca to some sort of irrelevant submission....here are my thoughts.

1. they make you pay.

2. its slammed with ads to the point of not being able to tell the art from the ads. its a mess on the eyes.

3. they already tried to quiet down CA years ago. For those who don't know, they used to be our hosts. Then one day everything regarding conceptart.org was gone...deleted...servers taken to asia....no more conceptart.org. all artworks...thousands of posts...thousands of users....all databases gone. we had to rebuild from scratch. they refused to help us get things back up as well and simply apologised profusely. in their act of kindness cgtalk made a post to check out conceptart.org. :) Not even deleting all of conceptart.org stops conceptart.org. I am little worried about any features they add or the like.

I have been wanting their thumbnail features for a while. Are there any other features over there you all want here? :)

Our system is not even close to final. We still have months of work to do and that will continue to make our community unique. Right now we just added the tech. Once all the load balancing stuff is final we are doing the customizations which are not yet done. :)

I am very happy with what we have here and as stated..the software does not make the community. I feel CA has the best community feeling of any art site on the net. It is almost like a family. That cant be bought and that cant be destroyed...even if they were to delete the entire community. ahem.



jason manley

[Carnifex]

thumbnails system for new threads would be very helpful.
apart from that i see nothing.(i haven't looked that much at it)
oh and maybe a newsletter with "best works of this month" or something.

well said jason,but damn i hope this thing will never ever get deleted.

[loomer]

All what the others said but the big one for me and guys like DSillustration, Elwell, Dave Palumbo, poise,metalwinds, Flynt, Coro, Imphead, Manchess, Fischer (should I keep going?) ...Digital is not our primary medium!
ConceptArt is WAY more open to different mediums and honestly, all forms of art. That to me is the coolest.

[Gnosis]

Good points, Jason. CGtalk has never tempted me. I'm sure it has its uses, but it just doesn't have the same feel to it as CA has.

[Flake]

CGTalk and CA are both art related websites offering portfolio functions but I don't see them as being in any sort of competition since they focus/specialise in such different areas, for instance if I wanted help with traditional art techniques I'd post on here or studioproducts, similarly if I was looking for info on why my render passes aren't working properly I'd look on CGTalk.

(obviously there are cgtalkers who know a helluva lot about traditional art and there are 3d ninjas who hang out here, but you get what I mean hopefully..)

[egerie]

CGtalk promotes everyone, the good, the very good and also the hacks. I just wish they could make the difference because I'm fucking ashamed that SOME people give animators a bad name. uuurgh. </rant>

Anyway, dogfood said it best. Everyone has an agenda, but some are clever and have their priorities in the right order.

[Elwell]

Will CA be able to compete?


OH NOES! Hold me, I'm scared! :rolleyes:

[Kian]

CA doesn't have to compete. Because there is no competition.

Jason's right about this being a family. Whether any of guys agree or not. I definitley get the master & apprentice feeling whenever I post my art; and whenever I see other peoples art being critiqued. This, almost bond-like feeling I have never seen or felt anywhere else.

Plus, they don't have Dogfood ;)

[AngryScientist]

I'm a paid member and I visit CGtalk daily, but lets be honest, they send newsletters and try to brainwash you a bit too often. I love the paid membership forums because they feel a bit like this place.. it's stupid to fight over whether something is better or not - you get the same exposure in both places, just to different things and one looks more polished while the other has the raw but organised feel of a truely working community (and both communities work very very well indeed).


I want thumbnails in the gallery though! Just make them.. like really really big :D

[Red_Rook]

Plus, they don't have Dogfood ;)


indeed we are WORLDS apart. :blah:

[EVIL]

sigh .. thats the last topic I'l ever opened in the lounge.

[Eric Lofgren]

sigh .. thats the last topic I'l ever opened in the lounge.

Well, the thread title and opening post does come off a little inflammatory. Like you have a bitch with CA or it's owners. Jus' sayin'.

[EVIL]

:o .. I do not! there, that better? :)

[Carnifex]

nope....not suited for minors.

[EVIL]

Yeah carnifex, I'm sorry :P should have taken you into account. ;)
anyway, Its nice to see jason make post's like he did in this thread, Its makes me like / love this place even more, I simply started this thread to hear the thoughts about it, and to see if anyone would give up this place for better community communication software.

[Bsmith196]

I actually was a member at cgtalk for a long time before I discovered this place. While I'm more interested in visual effects, I still find this a wonderfuk place. The artwork I see inspires me beyond what I can even start to understand. Cgtalk has recently just gotten "to big" and jsut a lot of stupid people for me to handle anymore and I've found myself coming here more and more instead.

Also I didn't even know CA.org had a portfolio thing until I saw this thead. Interesting...

[Erilaz]

I visit each one equally. CGPortfolio is not going to crush anything.

CGTalk and conceptart will never compete with each other. There just isn't any point. Sure they have related fields, but They are essentially two entirely different places.

Jason, was the hosting situation during the cgchannel association days? I'd heard there was a vast schism back then.

[pogonip]

I have been wanting their thumbnail features for a while. Are there any other features over there you all want here? :)

1: I like how the user info is on the side as you scroll there . Here it's sideways so sometimes if you are quickly trying to browse a thread your eyes have to try and distinguish whats a post and whats user info .

2: I like the news section I read it all the time . I wish CA had that sort of thing other then the Lounge . Though im not sure how much Concept art related news there is out in the world, but I would guess it could be updated a few times a week at least with useful information . I also like that anybody can submit news threads .

3: Meet the Artist ! I love this feature at Cgtalk I wish CA would do it here as there are so many great artists here who have so much useful information !

4: I love the challenges ! CA has Thunderdome but I really like the way they have th challenges set up so that you learn so much as artists are required to show WIP stages ! Though they seem to be able to get lots of sponsers for awesome prizes, I think a lot of people would participate here at CA if maybe you got some kinda of special status for winning ..like maybe some kinda of cool Icon next to your name .

5: The thumbnails highlighting very good threads is a must I think . Most of all the major art related forums have it except CA . Though I like how Zbrush forums does it because it highlights more threads and there is always way more then 4-5 interesting threads going here at CA .

6: I like the Choice Award at CGtalk for making front page . It really means a lot to the people who get it and it also makes it easy to find pro level artists in threads and they usually give the best advice/critiques . Something like that at CA would be excellent !

Other then that CA is pretty excellent :yayca:

[daqu]

they do have some pretty crazy ass awesome people on cgtalk
i frequently check out the choice galleries...sweet stuff, CA regs have work over there too you know
The challenges(contests) over there produce amazing work too...
soooo CA and CGtalk cool and cool....right?

[dogfood]

For those who don't know, they used to be our hosts. Then one day everything regarding conceptart.org was gone...deleted...servers taken to asia....no more conceptart.org
You know, I didn't hear the whole story before. I used to come here a lot before the Fall (but only posted in the SP threads). Once things were lost, I thought it was all gone, so it took me years to rediscover CA (being at sea a lot also put a crimp in getting my internet on).

Yeah, this is my family. It doesn't mean there aren't some other nice families, but this one is mine.



And when your "sisters" are as hot as ours, why go anywhere else?

[Red_Rook]

I really like their news section with articles, tutorials,intervies n such all laid out really nice, i think that would be excellent, Im also totally convinced we have the user base and fantastic enough people to make it happen. I know we where trying to do that on the frontpage for a while before it broke, but it was very minimal, it could have been.... i dunno expanded, made bigger? visually apealing with pictures integrated? More like a short magazine article then an rss feed from a blog :):yayca:

[_Mario]

Well as people are somehow creating a CA.org/3.0 wishlist here.
Less images in the navigation, just use text for any menu, not picture-link-buttons. They may look "oh-so-cool" and satisfy some strange need for way to fancy buttons but for the basic navigation (or anything else) keep the buttons like the top row here: just text so it loads fast, is scaleable, and appears nearly instantly and doesn't wait until the picture (for the button) is loaded.
It's easier for the browser (less work) and bandwidth. And it makes navigations faster (especially on slower PC's). When the threads often have a lot of pictures then there is no need strain weaker systems. Just something that you should keep in mind from an usablility point of view.

That's probably the worst thing about the CG society. Their website looks like it was designed in a time when using tables for formating an page was cool and hip (Photoshop slice tool,...). They could save a lot of money by having an efficient designed site (especially when you think about the user number).