Although it had been a shadow its former self for years still
a bit Sad… Alot a fond memories of the place from the first decade of the 2000’s
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I do not think it surprises anyone, the site was completely neglected by the staff and user concerns were ignored. It is almost as if the intention was to eventually shut it down after enough users got tired of the spambots and the lack of moderation (because whoever bought it was simply not interested in a standalone forum despite its history).
This will be yet another loss in the battle to keep community sites from becoming nothing more than a collection of Reddit, Discord, and Facebook pages, and I do hope the traditional forum format makes an eventual comeback.
The final thing to note is the way they handled main-page art submissions, people were not even allowed to post actual critique and instead had to choose from a list of canned praises (positive-only ideology run amuck since they apparently did not trust people to actually write their own feedback). It was the polar opposite from the days where the mods did not even let your piece show up on the board unless it met their standards of ‘finished’.
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Long ago I looked for CG forums/sites to join. I liked cgsociety’s high standards and the level of ability of most members. My impression was that it was the place for accomplished professionals and talented artists. That gave me motivation and ambition to improve, learn, practice, grow so that someday I might earn a place among the giants.
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The “giants” is also how I’d describe some of the names (eg Robert Chang, Stahlberg) back in the day. There was so much to gain just by being a wallflower and reading (I don’t think I ever posted).
Eg, Chang wrote a post dissecting the various “categories” of artists (and artisans), it took me years to fully appreciate how much wisdom was in that one post.
The other thing was how these guys knew the limitations of the tools, yet somehow broke said limitations, eg Stahlberg shared how he used low-poly cages as deformation wrappers for hi-poly meshes, which is essentially the multi-res system we have today - and this was before “digital sculpting” was even a term.
Oh well, I’m kinda glad I got to experience that era of learning, and sad that I can’t find something like that anymore, because everything needs to be shoe-horned into the “social media” paradigm.
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Do be honest i’m not 100% sure if this site was one of those big 3D sites which i looked into when i started to be interested in 3D… mostly just looking at and admiring those incrediable portfolios and never imagined that there could be any software which does not cost some thousend dollars…
But for sure in the past few years… it was… well… if you look into there webpage ( and just to be clear about what i’m talking of: cgsociety.org …i even hope i got it all wrong… )… then you do not even find the mentioned message… 
of there shut down…
And in the WIP category there is:
- New 2D/3D WIP 2019
- New 2D/3D Sketchbooks 2019
I really only looked occasionally to maybe discover some old hidden treasure gems… but in the forum… …the “activities” are… weirdly shuffled and in forum → news… (not mainpage → news) the first pinned… CGSOCIETY Portfolio Update… has a very disturbing last post from september 2022… 
In fact i thought they paid for some years in advance and it was already “abandoned”…
So i really do not know when they stepped aside… to let others take over… ??? But they surely did…
So i’m glad there is still something like this (which one of it’s most famous threads):
…and of course this here… 
( Ohh and wasn’t there something that 3dtotal.com also seems to “abandom” some of their tutorial/info section… ??)
That’s too bad, I’ve been recently feeling like forums need a comeback and instead they’re disappearing 
I hope all the valuable info that’s still on the forums can be saved somehow.
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That’s quite sad, in more ways than missing the site itself. It was already no longer very active for a while, but the links still worked. When the site goes away, thousands of references across the web will go dead. I really wish such major sites would just close, not get deleted. It would take a fraction of the cost to just maintain the static site, but by the time they close down maintainers are usually too burned out to create a fund raiser for long-term preservation.
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Yes sad but no surprise takes not only community engagement but money and people freely giving of their time too maintain alongside moderate, as well.
Probably only two pearls of wisdom I’d salvage from this site, that fostered many a career or simply inspire an enthused amateur 
Robert Chang aka: @Lunatique
the other…I’m busily screengrabbing atm before it blinks out of existence which I’ll keep for myself as a mechanical HS modeler, to merely marvel over.
Andre Canteral aka: @ACanteral - MI-24 - A Russian Aviation Icon
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It would be an excellent idea to archive as much valuable content on this thread as possible, like you have here, so everyone can benefit from it
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There are some surface level site “captures” by the way back machine going as far back as 2005 Actual sub forums links all seem dead though 
Discreet studio max
Alias Maya
PMG Messiah
Hash animation master
LOL !!! 
its like some sci fi alternate universe
Where Autodesk did not own nearly everything
Looking over those old sub forum headings makes me really wish there was still a decent CG filmmaking community somewhere
I mean actual 3 act ,CG Filmmaking, Story structure etc
not just endless boring 90 second tech demos with no stories like you see from these “virtual filmakers” using Unreal
or people on Blender twitter/X who love to bang on endlessly about exotic rigging but never actually animate the rigs much less tell any stories with them… but I digress.
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Indeed great idea!
I’d lurked for a while then signed on, was active for 10yrs until 2015 so we’ll see once I get through picking over Andre’s thread, I’ll hunt around a bit for more gems.
And totally agree, would be an absolute shame for such a resource to shutdown without making an effort saving what one can.
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Nostalgic thread. CGTalk was a great resource 20 years ago.
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Hmmm… just stumpled about this… from 2019:
…interesting… and i always thought (and see every day) that those mentioned “responsable” social media platforms and also this Question&Answers sites… are more filled with futile discussions but than real info… (even good answers are buried in this… “Why is my answer downvoted… Question already exists…”)
Some are indeed “grabing” art from others and re-post them and in fact some users reply with “Tutorial please !”
(Also “learnt” somewhere else that it was called CGtalk in the past… ? )
Many people have attributed the “death “ of traditional general CG forums to the rise of social media which is likely true to a certain extent.
But the 3D/CG software landscape is changed so much since the early 2000’s
There are so many options from the hobbyist to the pro industry levels even in specific software eco systems and communities.
With so many softwares competing for people’s attention and money I have noticed it is harder and harder to find a good community where you discuss
how to complete a project in one software.
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I was around back in the days when cgchannel came onto the scene; I would look at a few bits of art and discussion, but never took part in them myself. To be honest, I thought it had a bit of elitism that was just a bit off-putting.
Like many others, I do tire of people with utterly lazy questions and newbie posts like “I’m new to 3D, how can I recreate this thing from a movie I just saw that took 8 people 6 months to do? Is there a plugin for that? I’m using Poser.” And, cgchannel was the opposite of that. But nonetheless, if it felt to me like a club that wasn’t worth “proving myself” to join, even if i’d have been accepted.
CGTalk, though - that one was great. Good balance of “ok, RTFM” and “here’s, we’ll explain how it’s done.” BA reminds of of that.
As someone mentioned above, it’s no surprise CGS is closing. The moderation is non-existent, and it’s just a dumping ground for spam now. There’s literally no reason anyone with an interest in 3D would have to go there. The veterans with knowledge either aged out of wanting to be on forums all day, or they’ve just gone elsewhere.
I think there’s a lesson to be learned there - a forum only continues to thrive if the discussions continue to have worth. I think BA does well with this. Part of that involves proactive moderation; users with actual knowledge who are willing to share it, is another. Take both away, and you either end up with CGS… or reddit, and I’m not sure which is actually worse.
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I saw a bad attitude toward less skilled people. Not everyone of course but enough to be “off-putting” as Thorn wrote. Naive newbies, delicate snowflakes, “unruly kids”, can be annoying but either set high requirements for membership or be prepared for “parenting duties”.
In assessing my opinion of my skill I compare my ability to others, especially those with much accomplishment; consider the critique, advice, and opinions of others; and note the level of people who treat me as an equal or worthy. Participation in a group helps gather that information. Acceptance into a group with high membership standards would indicate skill but I don’t think CGS was one of those.
I’m a medium skill hobbyist hoping to become a highly skilled hobbyist so professional tactics like boosting a resume with exclusive memberships is not a factor.
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CGSociety under the old guard did in fact feel elitist with very strict staff (who sometimes moderated according to their personal opinions as opposed to being fair).
Though it least bustled with activity and provided a lot of useful info on new technology and techniques. Somehow the people who aimed to create a kinder, gentler, less judgmental version of the site managed to quickly run the place into the ground instead of making it stronger with increased activity (as users previously chased away or kicked out come back).
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IMHO, I think another nail in the coffin for focused forums of the past - the ratio of “hobbyist” and “professional” numbers.
Let’s take the hypothetical topic of “UV mapping a sphere”
- A professional would likely word it as “What are some of the ways to UV map a spherical object to be used for XYZ?” and probably be looking for a comparison of sawtooth v. globe map v. seams hiding, etc.
- A beginner would probably word it as “How do I UV map a sphere?” and expect the “Map Spherical” option.
20 years ago, there was far more appetite for the former and barely any today, I’m guessing a few reasons being:
- Technology was far more limited, solutions were still being discovered via workarounds (eg lopoly wrapper cages, faking SSS using ramps).
- The industry (and technology) was young and knowledge was concentrated in the professional circles, especially working knowledge.
- Having a (very) high bar for posting artwork probably helped maintain the overall quality, because being rejected reminded you that you had lots to learn.
Today:
- Software & Hardware is way more accessible and most hobbyists aren’t requiring a novel solution.
- There’s an abundance of resources/tutorials
- Let’s not go there
(having been recently rejected for a submission)
The above are just observations, it could be that today’s world no longer needs those focused, traditional forum formats.
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I think it needs it all the more… because if you want to learn more… then i think it is a poor decision to just ask in that non-threaded q&a and/or chat platforms where your answer is already ask, should be more precise (when you descriped it very precisly), is unsuited (for whatever reason), answer is about the believes of the replier (because his/her imagination is bigger than the knowledge) …
…this said i also think it’s somekind of “un-nice” (netiquette) behaviour ( or better: unefficient ) for people to register here just to ask a question… which is indeed already answered… and they aren’t able to use the seach function… or do look into the manual… but then non the less those questions are answered with some hints to other threads or the manual or just about beeing somekind of unclear…
…so the can “evolve” and discover interesting information in the forum.
I mean just look at the name of the software used here and one other "popular* one :
- discourse (self hosted forum)
- discord (webplatform)
Also additional for the later… “groups” in
- stackexchange
Sometimes users are “banned” because some “selfpronounced founder and moderator” or even the platform itself does so… ( ← even banning moderators)…
Well… on selfhosted special topic webpages (like for 3D software) this also can be true… but the operator mostly want’s to make enough money to host and manage the site… and it would be a waste of lifetime to fight to much… additionally someone can read the FAQ and About us pages and also read into the forum to see if (s)he thinks it’s friendly enough… before asking the first question…
Ohh and by the way… do not make big (data grabbing) companies bigger but…
…sorry… but i couldn’t resist…
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There was a particular female moderator who ruled CGtalk’s/General Discussion like her own petty fiefdom and would quickly ban anyone who legitimately defeated her in a debate with objective facts.
she expressed open hatred of anyone who held any religious beliefs and targeted (and later banned) one fellow after she found he had clips ,in his Demo reel ,from some “bible stories” he had animated for some christian clients.