There's a difference between criticizing someone that needs improvement but is honestly trying to make art, and criticizing someone who made a no-effort, bucket fill pack to get attention. The difference is that the former actually helps people, and the latter just fuels the bucket fill pack creators need for attention. Of course we should try to help people that are actually trying to make art, but I see absolutely no point at all in trying to offer helpful criticism to someone who doesn't want it and will refuse to use it.
The thing is how do we tell the difference between someone who makes a bucket fill for art (thinking, although naively, that it is an original and constructive idea) and someone who makes a bucket fill for attention? I agree we shouldn't feed the trolls, but how do we easily see who is a troll and who is just naive?
[Just a little input which worth what it worth...] I-snip-
Wholeheartedly agree here. On a similar note with organization, something that I think would help to clear things up (coming in the new Forum, you can view it in its beta form here) is the option to add a tag/prefix to a post title. I think in the case of Resource packs, it might be a good idea to have people use prefixes for what their pack is (Fantasy, RPG, Simple, Themed, etc.), and then you would have a much easier time finding the bucket-fills among the serious work.
WIP is a very grey area; as Cynips and many others have stated, a pack will always be a WIP, all the way until the day the OP decides to discontinue it. Even those that are 100% complete (like Alvoria's Sanity) are always improving. So I think the idea of a "WIP packs go here" section is kind of flawed anyway.
Also, unpopular opinion incoming, but am I the only one thinks that the forum should have an age requirement? It seems to me that a larger majority of bucket-fills are posted by the very younger crowd.
Also, unpopular opinion incoming, but am I the only one thinks that the forum should have an age requirement? It seems to me that a larger majority of bucket-fills are posted by the very younger crowd.
It probably wouldn't matter if an age limit is put in place, many younger users would just fake an older age when signing up.
It probably wouldn't matter if an age limit is put in place, many younger users would just fake an older age when signing up.
It helps more than you would think. Last year there were tons of people looking for work-arounds to view YouTube videos marked as "Adult/Mature Content/18+". We already have a feature to let us set what our DoB is on our profiles; so I don't see why we can't make it something required for new accounts.
Also, unpopular opinion incoming, but am I the only one thinks that the forum should have an age requirement? It seems to me that a larger majority of bucket-fills are posted by the very younger crowd.
No, I'm against this. Yes, the worst offenders are often children (but not always! One from the other day claimed to be 24 in his profile), but we also have a lot of very promising young artists here. I've seen posters claiming to be as young as 11 post worthwhile packs. I'm not willing to exclude them just to keep the forum clean. Sorry, but some measures are just not worth it in my opinion.
Great idea, ban everyone from the forums who is younger than 21, because from my experience you can only expect half-baked, childish and generally inferior content from this crowd. Oh wait, this includes you as well? That´s bad luck I guess, but let´s be honest here, it just takes that much time and experience to develop some artistic sense and acceptable manners to hang out around these forums. See you in a couple of years then.
No, I'm against this. Yes, the worst offenders are often children (but not always! One from the other day claimed to be 24 in his profile), but we also have a lot of very promising young artists here. I've seen posters claiming to be as young as 11 post worthwhile packs. I'm not willing to exclude them just to keep the forum clean. Sorry, but some measures are just not worth it in my opinion.
Okay okay, I see the fallacious logic behind it. Thanks.
But yeah, I think it should just be so that moderators check every pack and if it's an X-ray pack, a clear bucketfill, stolen textures, or somehow breaks a rule it should be sent back to the creator with a note that says what's wrong.
This is a must at minimum.
I swear these packs are rising fast. Whenever I see a new RP over the past month or so it is either:
-Plagarised
-Bucketfill
-"PVP" which is the above two mixed in with crappy default edits.
I think the last good pack we had was either Noah's Sillicraft or Cynip's Synthia. The rest fall into one of the above three categories.
Wholeheartedly agree here. On a similar note with organization, something that I think would help to clear things up (coming in the new Forum, you can view it in its beta form here) is the option to add a tag/prefix to a post title. I think in the case of Resource packs, it might be a good idea to have people use prefixes for what their pack is (Fantasy, RPG, Simple, Themed, etc.), and then you would have a much easier time finding the bucket-fills among the serious work.
WIP is a very grey area; as Cynips and many others have stated, a pack will always be a WIP, all the way until the day the OP decides to discontinue it. Even those that are 100% complete (like Alvoria's Sanity) are always improving. So I think the idea of a "WIP packs go here" section is kind of flawed anyway.
Also, unpopular opinion incoming, but am I the only one thinks that the forum should have an age requirement? It seems to me that a larger majority of bucket-fills are posted by the very younger crowd.
I think this is a very bad idea. I think one of the great things about the internet is that it can mask age. People are judged by their actions, and the kind of person they are. Yes many children are immature, and may be more prone to making a bucket fill pack because they want the attention. But many children are capable of behaving maturely, and their youth often makes some of them more creative than even some of the older and refined artists. Remember Mozart started his career at the age of 5, if we're going to take measures to stop bucket fill packs from popping up then let's judge our artists for their art, and their ability to behave maturely in the community, instead of discriminating against people because of their age. That would just be prejudice.
I think the last good pack we had was either Noah's Sillicraft or Cynip's Synthia. The rest fall into one of the above three categories.
I think you will find that my pack prime adventure was created around the same time as those other two were and it is most certainly not stolen, bucket-fill, or a pvp pack.
I think this is a very bad idea...-snipped for brevity-
Yes, I realize it now, error on my part. Just to clarify so I don't seem like an evil person who hates anyone younger than me, I'm only coming from the standpoint that, just as I think young children generally shouldn't be exposed to online chatrooms (for so many reasons, not just for the age-old idea that kids will reveal private information to predators online), I'm also of the mind that young children don't need smartphones, 18 year olds have no reason to binge drink as much as they do in college;
It's not that I think of myself as an elitist and think that everyone who is younger than me doesn't deserve anything; it partially stems from having worked with tons of children myself over summers and during the school years when I was in high school, and seeing that in general, children below the age of 12 often just aren't developmentally ready (and shouldn't be expected to be ready) to take on the internet and the whole world of people regardless of their (read: the rest of the internet's) mental development and maturity levels. I'm not saying everyone under a specific age is this way. I'm only saying that I don't think it was much more radical an idea than the other things posted in this topic.
EDIT: My second post on the next page says pretty much the same thing, but is much shorter. Please read that if you don't feel like reading a novel. I can be long-winded sometimes.
I am very against having forum staff in charge of deciding what is or is not "good enough" to be posted on the forum (even if some of it is complete garbage). I agree with Moozipan, that problem seems to mostly take care of itself. Sure, there are dozens of those kinds of packs posted a month, but how many of them stay alive for longer than a few days? If a bucket fill pack is posted, most of the comments are people saying how bad bucket fill packs are, and the thread usually dies after a few days and the OP disappears, never to be heard from again. Of course, there are some exceptions to this (and they are usually a fantastic clusterfudge of terribleness and stupidity), but those are few and far between.
So my question is, would the cost outweigh the benefit? I know bucket fills are a pain in the butt for some of us, and those of us who have been around for a few years are going crazy from seeing them so much, but is it really that big of a deal? They're not hurting anyone, and they die off quickly. If the OP gets their feelings hurt and can't take criticism, so what? It's more than likely that they'll just leave the forum altogether and never come back.
So all that said, I don't find it necessary (or even appropriate in a public forum like this) to require forum staff to regulate what gets posted on the forum. Requiring staff to decide what kinds of packs are and aren't allowed is a really bad idea (even if some packs are pointless garbage). That goes for any method of it; whether it be individually approving every post, or having a separate "staging area" that requires moderator action to leave.
... and nearly all of them have the OP crying 'OMG HATE FLAME TROLLS' to whomever tries to help them and give them advice. Anything that isn't out right worshiping the flat colors they chose is seen as trolling and hate, spam and yada yada... Very few, I mean VERY few, only THREE that I have personally seen sense 2011, have acually taken the feedback to heart, dropped their bucket filled ways and come back to make ok/really good packs...
That's another thing. I'm of the idea that requiring all this gobbledygook to get your pack posted is going to scare away a lot of people that could have otherwise turned into something really amazing. If the response to a new pack that's a bucket fill is an automated message that says "this sort of thing is not allowed," as opposed to comments from users saying "this could be better if you blank," they're never going to move past that point.
If you don't have experienced users commenting on these bucket fills and giving criticism, your number of reformed artists is never going to go up. I would personally not mind sitting through another ten thousand bucket fill packs if it meant another three or four artists could turn themselves around and discover something that they could be good at.
[Epiphany starts here]
I've started to realize that the bucket fills are almost necessary to the continuation of the texturing community. I know for a fact that I am not the only person on this forum who started with bucket fills and was able to completely reform based on comments from other users. And I certainly hope I won't be the last. Without people offering criticism on bucket fills and default edits and all that crap, new artists aren't going to spring up anymore. Sure, we'll still get new users, but they'll all be experienced artists who already know what they're doing. If we want to create new artists who are just discovering art in general, we've got to let them start somewhere.
I'm sure every person here can find some stuff from when they were just starting out that looks like absolute crap, and would shame them to be seen today. That's how I feel about my first pack. It was crap. But that was back then. I've improved a lot (obviously), but I never would have if a moderator had removed my post, or if all the comments had been along the line of "this is crap, you should just stop right now."
Naturally, there are going to be a lot of people that are not quite mature enough to take criticism to heart and will just lash out at anyone who tells them they're not perfect. But the point here is that there are some people who can take criticism, and outright banning all bucket fills and default edits is going to stop them before they can start. They'll never get the help they need to improve.
@SamohtJ
I agree with your sentiment, I long ago said I'd gladly sift through 100 bucket fill packs to see one more SamohtJ come out of it, and I stand by that.
That said, not every new artist comes in with bucket-fills. We'd still have people getting into digital art largely through minecraft. I started out like that, and so did Alvoria.* I'm not bringing this up to say your wrong, but to say you're not entirely correct. Bucket fills really aren't necessary to the continuation of resource packs, the only thing that really is necessary is the continuation of resource packs,** alongside the continued ease of access that minecraft offers.*** I think part of that ease would fall under having a place to easily post it, one that gives something back.
At the time, I believe MCF is the only place like that, because PMC surely isn't, and I've not even heard of any other sites, bar those russian sites of theft and deceit. We're a higher quality for resource packs at the moment,as well as the artists behind them. We can't ruin that.
*Huh, the purple/green twins have similar backstories...
**Oh boy, I-don't-entirely-know-what-to-call-its-because-it's-not-quite-a-paradox!
***This part is probably the most at-risk. Adding all these models and CTMs and whatnots. Sure, the basics are still there, but making something ______to par is getting harder and harder, and packs as a whole seem more and more complicated.
Uh... no I didn't. I've been doing digital art since I was 14. I started doing pixel art back when Geocities was a thing, and Dogpile was still one of the big search engines on the world wide web. No, Minecraft didn't get me into digital art... it just made me better at it.
Not sure where you got the impression I was a newb at the art portion when I first came on the forum...
This has little to do with the discussion at hand. I just hate misinformation about me.
@SamohtJ
I agree with your sentiment, I long ago said I'd gladly sift through 100 bucket fill packs to see one more SamohtJ come out of it, and I stand by that.
That said, not every new artist comes in with bucket-fills. We'd still have people getting into digital art largely through minecraft. I started out like that, and so did Alvoria.* I'm not bringing this up to say your wrong, but to say you're not entirely correct. Bucket fills really aren't necessary to the continuation of resource packs, the only thing that really is necessary is the continuation of resource packs,** alongside the continued ease of access that minecraft offers.*** I think part of that ease would fall under having a place to easily post it, one that gives something back.
I think what I was trying to say with all that imposing wall of text was that sometimes a terrible bucket fill is actually just a future great artist taking their first steps, and locking out some of the kinds of things that people make when they're just starting out (i.e., bucket fills) is going to stop a lot of potentially great artists in their tracks. So I might have overstated the importance of bucket fills, but it's still important to see less-than-perfect first attempts.
That said, not every new artist comes in with bucket-fills. We'd still have people getting into digital art largely through minecraft.
That's me. Actually, that's how I started doing pretty much everything on the internet.
Although, about a third of my first pack was bucket fill anyway.
-sn and some of your newer post too even though I started writing this before it and the forum didn't tell me people posted it still applies ip-
There are a few major problems with this:
The first..... We're (at least I'm not) claiming to want bad packs alone gone, just a specific genre of them.
Bucketfill packs inherently are made in such a way that would suggest it was not made by an artist, and not by someone who wants to improve at art. They generally don't have any creative originality (at least mature ones that make sense). They don't design, they don't color, they don't shade.
Imagine you see someone painting a picture, and they've just printed out a picture of the mona lisa, painted a mustache on her and random brushstrokes of red, green, and blue. Would you say this is a serious approach at art, and that they will become a famous painter one day? Probably not. So I don't think bucketfill packs are comparable to what we did-even if they were horrendous they were our little abominations-we had our own designs even if they were "bad art" with flat colors, reliance on filters and tiling errors. We didn't try to backpack on default. I highly doubt that any one of us started out making a true bucketfill pack, meaning one that uses default designs (with only minor, erratic deviations) with a stupefied color scheme. We set out to make the game look like ours, not a flat mess.
As an example, I wouldn't classify this as a "true" bucketfill pack, or one that should be removed if such a system were added. The difference? It deviates from default, and has new designs. Things look a bit flat, but that's because the contrast is too low and it relies on patterns rather than details. Actual patterns, not just scribbles!
The second..... MCF is not a content-centered site, it is a forum, a community. In contrast, PMC is centered around content.
While the community aspect is good for those who wish to improve, most bucketfill people don't have the desire to improve. They had a goal, and they completed it.
The problem here being it's not original work. Most people who like bucketfill packs make bucketfill packs, so the supply is WAY higher than the demand. Remember how I said MCF is not a content driven site? Well, that manifests in that the resource packs subforum is treated like every other part of the forum: no way to sort by user votes, no way to sort by popularity within a relevant timeframe, no way to sort by pack versions,tags don't even work. Oh yeah, and let us not forget that the way you have people see your post is by the last time someone has replied to your topic. Genius right? Perfect idea, unless of course nobody has seen your pack before, and there is nothing particularly driving people to post on your topic before you get steamrolled off of the front page (which doesn't even have the lifespan of a day, sometimes as short as hours) by new packs or big fish (which always get bumped to the front by everybody and their grandma who uses it already).
PMC, in contrast, has all of those in some form, and gives pack exposure when they are updated rather then when people respond. You can filter game version, resolution, as well as other sections with different sortings (what's hot, most popular), and I'm assuming that people use this as there is an actual amount of downloads when not recently updated, even though it's quite low, it's more than I ever got on MCF. At least when I DO update on PMC I get TONS of downloads for a little while, on MCF getting replies didn't really equate to many downloads, and there sure wasn't a chance of them when it was past the first page.
What I'm getting at is that bucketfill packs likely won't improve, aren't wanted by the community, and are a hindrance in a forum setting that is used for distributing content even though it acts like a forum still. They cause debates more than anything, which causes more attention to the pack than it would normally receive if it were better, people try to help a lost cause, it's almost like trying to rob a homeless man.
I'm sure there's something more that could be said (something something mustaches) but I'm nearly out of words, I suppose.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I'm an outsider by choice, but not truly.
It’s the unpleasantness of the system that keeps me out.
I’d rather be in, in a good system. That’s where my discontent comes from:
being forced to choose to stay outside.
My advice: Just keep movin’ straight ahead.
Every now and then you find yourself in a different place."
-George Carlin
Bucketfill packs inherently are made in such a way that would suggest it was not made by an artist, and not by someone who wants to improve at art. They generally don't have any creative originality (at least mature ones that make sense). They don't design, they don't color, they don't shade.
Imagine you see someone painting a picture, and they've just printed out a picture of the mona lisa, painted a mustache on her and random brushstrokes of red, green, and blue. Would you say this is a serious approach at art, and that they will become a famous painter one day? Probably not. So I don't think bucketfill packs are comparable to what we did-even if they were horrendous they were our little abominations-we had our own designs even if they were "bad art" with flat colors, reliance on filters and tiling errors. We didn't try to backpack on default. I highly doubt that any one of us started out making a true bucketfill pack, meaning one that uses default designs (with only minor, erratic deviations) with a stupefied color scheme. We set out to make the game look like ours, not a flat mess.
That's certainly an excellent point, I hadn't really thought about it like that. Now that I think back to it, even my terrible first pack was all original designs, not just default copies. I guess I've been lumping "bad packs" in with bucket fills, when they're really not the same thing. In packs like mine and the one you linked, the artist was actually trying, whereas in most bucket fills, the artist isn't putting in any effort or thought at all.
The second..... MCF is not a content-centered site, it is a forum, a community. In contrast, PMC is centered around content.
While the community aspect is good for those who wish to improve, most bucketfill people don't have the desire to improve. They had a goal, and they completed it.
The problem here being it's not original work. Most people who like bucketfill packs make bucketfill packs, so the supply is WAY higher than the demand...
...What I'm getting at is that bucketfill packs likely won't improve, aren't wanted by the community, and are a hindrance in a forum setting that is used for distributing content even though it acts like a forum still. They cause debates more than anything, which causes more attention to the pack than it would normally receive if it were better, people try to help a lost cause, it's almost like trying to rob a homeless man.
Well, when you put it like that...
Even so, that makes a lot of assumptions about the artist. Who's to say they couldn't improve if they wanted to? Though I guess you are right, the bucket fill that you describe isn't a very good starting point, and they have become somewhat of a menace. I could get behind a pinned topic showing what NOT to do in a resource pack, with bucket fills and default edits being high on the list, but I still am not fond of the idea of a forum rule change or mandatory moderator review. Of course, that would probably not be a very effective deterrent, but at least we'd have something to point to rather than just our personal opinion or experience.
One thing to keep in mind is the people whom come here and post these simplepacks a good chunk of them have already posted the same pack on PMC before coming here, and receaved a lot of praise for their work by either
1. Friends
2. People wanting to advertise their own packs.
3. Other simple pack makers.
Then they move over here and find they are not being worshiped for their creation, but rather either getting flamed, or more then not given honest feedback. Then they cry and wine and play the whole 'stop hating on me, you're trolling/flaming/spaming' nonsense that just ends up into a bigger mess.
Then again we have the people making 'cubeworld' packs, that are again just bucketfills that if gone by any other name would receive the same fate as other bucket fills, but due to the name it gets a big hype from fans of that game.
Not many of these bucket filled artists want to improve, one on PMC had posted a handfull of nothing but bucket fills, each with a slightly varrying color choice. Thankfully Mods got some sense in them and removed all but one. But it is that badly out of hand. No most rather think you'll worship the flat colored ground they walk on.
The thing is how do we tell the difference between someone who makes a bucket fill for art (thinking, although naively, that it is an original and constructive idea) and someone who makes a bucket fill for attention? I agree we shouldn't feed the trolls, but how do we easily see who is a troll and who is just naive?
As Einstien once said: “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
Never. Ever. Underestimate our species ability to lack knowledge.
Wholeheartedly agree here. On a similar note with organization, something that I think would help to clear things up (coming in the new Forum, you can view it in its beta form here) is the option to add a tag/prefix to a post title. I think in the case of Resource packs, it might be a good idea to have people use prefixes for what their pack is (Fantasy, RPG, Simple, Themed, etc.), and then you would have a much easier time finding the bucket-fills among the serious work.
WIP is a very grey area; as Cynips and many others have stated, a pack will always be a WIP, all the way until the day the OP decides to discontinue it. Even those that are 100% complete (like Alvoria's Sanity) are always improving. So I think the idea of a "WIP packs go here" section is kind of flawed anyway.
Also, unpopular opinion incoming, but am I the only one thinks that the forum should have an age requirement? It seems to me that a larger majority of bucket-fills are posted by the very younger crowd.
It probably wouldn't matter if an age limit is put in place, many younger users would just fake an older age when signing up.
It helps more than you would think. Last year there were tons of people looking for work-arounds to view YouTube videos marked as "Adult/Mature Content/18+". We already have a feature to let us set what our DoB is on our profiles; so I don't see why we can't make it something required for new accounts.
Okay okay, I see the fallacious logic behind it. Thanks.
This is a must at minimum.
I swear these packs are rising fast. Whenever I see a new RP over the past month or so it is either:
-Plagarised
-Bucketfill
-"PVP" which is the above two mixed in with crappy default edits.
I think the last good pack we had was either Noah's Sillicraft or Cynip's Synthia. The rest fall into one of the above three categories.
I think this is a very bad idea. I think one of the great things about the internet is that it can mask age. People are judged by their actions, and the kind of person they are. Yes many children are immature, and may be more prone to making a bucket fill pack because they want the attention. But many children are capable of behaving maturely, and their youth often makes some of them more creative than even some of the older and refined artists. Remember Mozart started his career at the age of 5, if we're going to take measures to stop bucket fill packs from popping up then let's judge our artists for their art, and their ability to behave maturely in the community, instead of discriminating against people because of their age. That would just be prejudice.
Edit:
I think you will find that my pack prime adventure was created around the same time as those other two were and it is most certainly not stolen, bucket-fill, or a pvp pack.
Yes, I realize it now, error on my part. Just to clarify so I don't seem like an evil person who hates anyone younger than me, I'm only coming from the standpoint that, just as I think young children generally shouldn't be exposed to online chatrooms (for so many reasons, not just for the age-old idea that kids will reveal private information to predators online), I'm also of the mind that young children don't need smartphones, 18 year olds have no reason to binge drink as much as they do in college;
It's not that I think of myself as an elitist and think that everyone who is younger than me doesn't deserve anything; it partially stems from having worked with tons of children myself over summers and during the school years when I was in high school, and seeing that in general, children below the age of 12 often just aren't developmentally ready (and shouldn't be expected to be ready) to take on the internet and the whole world of people regardless of their (read: the rest of the internet's) mental development and maturity levels. I'm not saying everyone under a specific age is this way. I'm only saying that I don't think it was much more radical an idea than the other things posted in this topic.
EDIT: My second post on the next page says pretty much the same thing, but is much shorter. Please read that if you don't feel like reading a novel. I can be long-winded sometimes.
Click here for epiphany
I am very against having forum staff in charge of deciding what is or is not "good enough" to be posted on the forum (even if some of it is complete garbage). I agree with Moozipan, that problem seems to mostly take care of itself. Sure, there are dozens of those kinds of packs posted a month, but how many of them stay alive for longer than a few days? If a bucket fill pack is posted, most of the comments are people saying how bad bucket fill packs are, and the thread usually dies after a few days and the OP disappears, never to be heard from again. Of course, there are some exceptions to this (and they are usually a fantastic clusterfudge of terribleness and stupidity), but those are few and far between.
So my question is, would the cost outweigh the benefit? I know bucket fills are a pain in the butt for some of us, and those of us who have been around for a few years are going crazy from seeing them so much, but is it really that big of a deal? They're not hurting anyone, and they die off quickly. If the OP gets their feelings hurt and can't take criticism, so what? It's more than likely that they'll just leave the forum altogether and never come back.
So all that said, I don't find it necessary (or even appropriate in a public forum like this) to require forum staff to regulate what gets posted on the forum. Requiring staff to decide what kinds of packs are and aren't allowed is a really bad idea (even if some packs are pointless garbage). That goes for any method of it; whether it be individually approving every post, or having a separate "staging area" that requires moderator action to leave.
That's another thing. I'm of the idea that requiring all this gobbledygook to get your pack posted is going to scare away a lot of people that could have otherwise turned into something really amazing. If the response to a new pack that's a bucket fill is an automated message that says "this sort of thing is not allowed," as opposed to comments from users saying "this could be better if you blank," they're never going to move past that point.
If you don't have experienced users commenting on these bucket fills and giving criticism, your number of reformed artists is never going to go up. I would personally not mind sitting through another ten thousand bucket fill packs if it meant another three or four artists could turn themselves around and discover something that they could be good at.
[Epiphany starts here]
I've started to realize that the bucket fills are almost necessary to the continuation of the texturing community. I know for a fact that I am not the only person on this forum who started with bucket fills and was able to completely reform based on comments from other users. And I certainly hope I won't be the last. Without people offering criticism on bucket fills and default edits and all that crap, new artists aren't going to spring up anymore. Sure, we'll still get new users, but they'll all be experienced artists who already know what they're doing. If we want to create new artists who are just discovering art in general, we've got to let them start somewhere.
I'm sure every person here can find some stuff from when they were just starting out that looks like absolute crap, and would shame them to be seen today. That's how I feel about my first pack. It was crap. But that was back then. I've improved a lot (obviously), but I never would have if a moderator had removed my post, or if all the comments had been along the line of "this is crap, you should just stop right now."
Naturally, there are going to be a lot of people that are not quite mature enough to take criticism to heart and will just lash out at anyone who tells them they're not perfect. But the point here is that there are some people who can take criticism, and outright banning all bucket fills and default edits is going to stop them before they can start. They'll never get the help they need to improve.
I agree with your sentiment, I long ago said I'd gladly sift through 100 bucket fill packs to see one more SamohtJ come out of it, and I stand by that.
That said, not every new artist comes in with bucket-fills. We'd still have people getting into digital art largely through minecraft. I started out like that, and so did Alvoria.* I'm not bringing this up to say your wrong, but to say you're not entirely correct. Bucket fills really aren't necessary to the continuation of resource packs, the only thing that really is necessary is the continuation of resource packs,** alongside the continued ease of access that minecraft offers.*** I think part of that ease would fall under having a place to easily post it, one that gives something back.
At the time, I believe MCF is the only place like that, because PMC surely isn't, and I've not even heard of any other sites, bar those russian sites of theft and deceit. We're a higher quality for resource packs at the moment,as well as the artists behind them. We can't ruin that.
*Huh, the purple/green twins have similar backstories...
**Oh boy, I-don't-entirely-know-what-to-call-its-because-it's-not-quite-a-paradox!
***This part is probably the most at-risk. Adding all these models and CTMs and whatnots. Sure, the basics are still there, but making something ______to par is getting harder and harder, and packs as a whole seem more and more complicated.
Not sure where you got the impression I was a newb at the art portion when I first came on the forum...
This has little to do with the discussion at hand. I just hate misinformation about me.
Aww shucks. :3
I think what I was trying to say with all that imposing wall of text was that sometimes a terrible bucket fill is actually just a future great artist taking their first steps, and locking out some of the kinds of things that people make when they're just starting out (i.e., bucket fills) is going to stop a lot of potentially great artists in their tracks. So I might have overstated the importance of bucket fills, but it's still important to see less-than-perfect first attempts.
Although, about a third of my first pack was bucket fill anyway.
There are a few major problems with this:
The first..... We're (at least I'm not) claiming to want bad packs alone gone, just a specific genre of them.
Bucketfill packs inherently are made in such a way that would suggest it was not made by an artist, and not by someone who wants to improve at art. They generally don't have any creative originality (at least mature ones that make sense). They don't design, they don't color, they don't shade.
Imagine you see someone painting a picture, and they've just printed out a picture of the mona lisa, painted a mustache on her and random brushstrokes of red, green, and blue. Would you say this is a serious approach at art, and that they will become a famous painter one day? Probably not. So I don't think bucketfill packs are comparable to what we did-even if they were horrendous they were our little abominations-we had our own designs even if they were "bad art" with flat colors, reliance on filters and tiling errors. We didn't try to backpack on default. I highly doubt that any one of us started out making a true bucketfill pack, meaning one that uses default designs (with only minor, erratic deviations) with a stupefied color scheme. We set out to make the game look like ours, not a flat mess.
As an example, I wouldn't classify this as a "true" bucketfill pack, or one that should be removed if such a system were added. The difference? It deviates from default, and has new designs. Things look a bit flat, but that's because the contrast is too low and it relies on patterns rather than details. Actual patterns, not just scribbles!
The second..... MCF is not a content-centered site, it is a forum, a community. In contrast, PMC is centered around content.
While the community aspect is good for those who wish to improve, most bucketfill people don't have the desire to improve. They had a goal, and they completed it.
The problem here being it's not original work. Most people who like bucketfill packs make bucketfill packs, so the supply is WAY higher than the demand. Remember how I said MCF is not a content driven site? Well, that manifests in that the resource packs subforum is treated like every other part of the forum: no way to sort by user votes, no way to sort by popularity within a relevant timeframe, no way to sort by pack versions, tags don't even work. Oh yeah, and let us not forget that the way you have people see your post is by the last time someone has replied to your topic. Genius right? Perfect idea, unless of course nobody has seen your pack before, and there is nothing particularly driving people to post on your topic before you get steamrolled off of the front page (which doesn't even have the lifespan of a day, sometimes as short as hours) by new packs or big fish (which always get bumped to the front by everybody and their grandma who uses it already).
PMC, in contrast, has all of those in some form, and gives pack exposure when they are updated rather then when people respond. You can filter game version, resolution, as well as other sections with different sortings (what's hot, most popular), and I'm assuming that people use this as there is an actual amount of downloads when not recently updated, even though it's quite low, it's more than I ever got on MCF. At least when I DO update on PMC I get TONS of downloads for a little while, on MCF getting replies didn't really equate to many downloads, and there sure wasn't a chance of them when it was past the first page.
What I'm getting at is that bucketfill packs likely won't improve, aren't wanted by the community, and are a hindrance in a forum setting that is used for distributing content even though it acts like a forum still. They cause debates more than anything, which causes more attention to the pack than it would normally receive if it were better, people try to help a lost cause, it's almost like trying to rob a homeless man.
I'm sure there's something more that could be said (something something mustaches) but I'm nearly out of words, I suppose.
"I'm an outsider by choice, but not truly.
It’s the unpleasantness of the system that keeps me out.
I’d rather be in, in a good system. That’s where my discontent comes from:
being forced to choose to stay outside.
My advice: Just keep movin’ straight ahead.
Every now and then you find yourself in a different place."
-George Carlin
That's certainly an excellent point, I hadn't really thought about it like that. Now that I think back to it, even my terrible first pack was all original designs, not just default copies. I guess I've been lumping "bad packs" in with bucket fills, when they're really not the same thing. In packs like mine and the one you linked, the artist was actually trying, whereas in most bucket fills, the artist isn't putting in any effort or thought at all.
Well, when you put it like that...
Even so, that makes a lot of assumptions about the artist. Who's to say they couldn't improve if they wanted to? Though I guess you are right, the bucket fill that you describe isn't a very good starting point, and they have become somewhat of a menace. I could get behind a pinned topic showing what NOT to do in a resource pack, with bucket fills and default edits being high on the list, but I still am not fond of the idea of a forum rule change or mandatory moderator review. Of course, that would probably not be a very effective deterrent, but at least we'd have something to point to rather than just our personal opinion or experience.
I went to upvote that, but then I realised that I already had.
1. Friends
2. People wanting to advertise their own packs.
3. Other simple pack makers.
Then they move over here and find they are not being worshiped for their creation, but rather either getting flamed, or more then not given honest feedback. Then they cry and wine and play the whole 'stop hating on me, you're trolling/flaming/spaming' nonsense that just ends up into a bigger mess.
Then again we have the people making 'cubeworld' packs, that are again just bucketfills that if gone by any other name would receive the same fate as other bucket fills, but due to the name it gets a big hype from fans of that game.
Not many of these bucket filled artists want to improve, one on PMC had posted a handfull of nothing but bucket fills, each with a slightly varrying color choice. Thankfully Mods got some sense in them and removed all but one. But it is that badly out of hand. No most rather think you'll worship the flat colored ground they walk on.