It’s very quiet here and not much of activity. Is the paint scene dead and gone? I remember a vibrant very active scene here during the FM3 and FM4 days. Tons of painters, a lot of teams with both tunes and painters releasing great cars etc. Different contests and a lot of other fun stuff.
What happend?
I think there’s a whole host of factors to be honest.
Pretty high up there is the storefront/ sharefront - nobody has to post in your thread any more hoping to get a copy of the latest work in progress/ release. So they don’t bother.
Forum rules have changed/ been tightened up over the years. Thinking back to FM2 days here - will always be the hey day of the forums. The contest winners had a gallery space to set up their galleries in. The rest of the forum was filled with works in progress & banter.
Gifting being no longer allowed means no more collaborations or sharing of logo’s.
We’re all older now than we were then lol - so some of us will have less time to invest in gaming or other priorities in life.
I don’t think the scene is completely dead, just tired lol. There’ll be a bustle of activity on/ around FH4 when that releases but it’ll slow off after 3-6 months.
I agree with all your points my friend but I do feel there are other factors at play. I remember about 11 months ago when I posted in the general forums about the greatly reduced payouts in F7 (downloads & likes heavily reduced payouts) and that T10 needs to show us a little love. It didn’t take long for me to realize that the community in general couldn’t give a rat’s patoo about it. In fact, most thought we made too much and shouldn’t be complaining. Nobody seemed to care that one could do a one lap race and make more then a 100 downloads on your new design that took 20+ hours to complete.
Personally, I love the painting & designing so I came back (for that, and the positive direction T10’s made over the last 9 months trying to imp[rove the experience). But apparently the community doesn’t care about fancy paint schemes - and are more concerned about getting the Frosty the Snowman Driver Gear (just who is the “target audience” for that crap anyway? I mean, if you’re over 9 years old and are really wanting Frosty… then obviously you should be turning in your man card. LOL) or whatever. I simply stopped trying to figure it out.
I’m sure everyone noticed the awesome job the mods here are doing by at least trying to get more involvement. Car give-a-ways, $1,000,000 credit prizes, special livery events, actively seeking input on what could make xxx better, ect. But they can only do so much… without more community support for the digital artists here, some BIG changes in payouts, adding all that was stated above… doesn’t really make one feel good about stuff.
And while I’m at it - may as well say this too… cars should not be allowed in the action house using other people’s paint. I’m sure I’m not the only one here that feels that way (and maybe yet another factor why people aren’t sharing/contributing like they used to).
RB
IMO, quality isn’t appreciated these days.
The guys who get the most downloads are like the one who spams that nauseating grey/green Monster Energy livery on every car in the game, or the one who does the same with his anime paint. Forza is rated E and the kids who download this junk are gonna boost these guys’ ratings very easily. Meanwhile, stuff that actually takes some effort to make doesn’t get the same love unless they win a contest.
Another problem is that Japanese cars get way more downloads, so there’s not much incentive to people who want to make money doing paints but aren’t into the tuner scene. If you want to live off your paints in the game, you shouldn’t pick an Aston Martin V8 Vantage, but an S15 Silvia. There’s an overabundance of paints for stuff like Hondas and Nissans and way too little for many other cars. The Z4M for example, as a unicorn, barely gets any attention. The only chance these painters of obscure cars have of getting bigger rewards for their work is, once again, to win the weekly contest and increase their awareness, which still won’t change the fact they picked an unpopular car to paint.
To top it off, I’ve seen people who are completely unaware you don’t have to buy a car in the AH to get that design unless the painter hasn’t shared it. This means that, as you said, there are tons of people who make money off buying cars for cheap, slapping on the dreadful Monster Energy paint, and selling them in the AH for a profit. People who have never painted anything worth a damn in the game! And I know players buy stuff like this because my attempts to exploit the AH to free a slot in my design storage have always ended in failure, lol.
I agree that Turn 10 should do something about this but, considering PG never did a thing to change the absurd AH monopoly by legends over the rare cars in FH3, I’m not hopeful.
I agree 11 years since my Forza 2 marathon of painting. Painting is just a lot work and time. I do want to paint but can’t get motivated to paint again. I have opened the editor and closed it, time for the new generation of painters to take over.
I feel like the Willy Nelson of painters.
contests are in the forums>community events section.
Another thing to realize is forums are the dinosaurs of social media. They’re web based, you have to sign in, use picture hosting, no notifications. Facebook, Instagram and twitter being app based are so much easier. Facebook has a decent painting scene, lots of groups. You’ll get lots of likes, not so much comments. But you alsohave to deal with opinions, memes and all the other elements facebook brings.
A lot of valid points about the painting scene posted above … for the scene in general. But probably the primary reason that things seem quiet specifically right now is that many painters are focusing on prepping for FH4 paints. I myself have not released a paint for FM7 in over a month now as I have been working on some paints to be released in FH4. I know quite a few other painters that are doing the same. This lull typically happens in the month or so before a new title launches every year. Things will boom once FH4 is released and there is a frenzy to get new content out.
Are the vehicle models the same across both games? Wondering if I can safely release paints created in 7 without checking them!
From my experience, about 1 in 10 will need to be redone as the models do change… (F6 to F7 did at least. Heard from some of the painters here that it also occurred from H3 to F7, F6 to F7). I won’t release any longer without checking because of that - but sometimes fortune favors the bold. It’s a toss-up
RB
Right, well I need to earn cash fast then!
I’m trying to get into the scene, here is a WIP that I’m preparing for FH4.
[Forza Motorsport 7 by Alexander Atkin, on Flickr]Mia K WIP [/img]
[ | Alexander Atkin | Flickr)Forza Motorsport 7 (3) by Alexander Atkin, on Flickr]Mia K WIP 2[/img]
[ | Alexander Atkin | Flickr)Forza Motorsport 7 (2) by Alexander Atkin, on Flickr]Mia K WIP 3[/img]
Dan hit the nail on the head with the its not dead just tired. myself being a Formula Drift Replica designer, am tired lol. I feel a lot of the good paint scene died out due to a change of platforms and no way to transfer any previous work saved. I spent countless hours in excel and forza 4 copying logos and a couple designs and after a while i just couldnt do it anymore. And yeah we’re all a little older with more responsibilities now so forza might not come first.
Im currently working on cars for the 2018 season of FD and its definitely taking more time with having to re make logos that i previously had and having to do with the NUMEROUS amount of paint glitches and other issues across various cars that previously werent there. For example the subaru BRZ wing cant be painted when it could in Horizon 3.
I also feel, (and this is just my thought) that many livery creators could be annoyed with different issues and requests that keep getting overlooked or ignored by turn 10, For example, Metallic effects and colors for layers, also ive noticed in FM7 that the design quality in multiplayer is just horrible and the logos look pixelated and gross.
Id have to agree with dan in saying the design community isnt dead its just tired, and maybe annoyed
Dan hit the nail on the head with the its not dead just tired. myself being a Formula Drift Replica designer, am tired lol. I feel a lot of the good paint scene died out due to a change of platforms and no way to transfer any previous work saved. I spent countless hours in excel and forza 4 copying logos and a couple designs and after a while i just couldnt do it anymore. And yeah we’re all a little older with more responsibilities now so forza might not come first.
Im currently working on cars for the 2018 season of FD and its definitely taking more time with having to re make logos that i previously had and having to do with the NUMEROUS amount of paint glitches and other issues across various cars that previously werent there. For example the subaru BRZ wing cant be painted when it could in Horizon 3.
I also feel, (and this is just my thought) that many livery creators could be annoyed with different issues and requests that keep getting overlooked or ignored by turn 10, For example, Metallic effects and colors for layers, also ive noticed in FM7 that the design quality in multiplayer is just horrible and the logos look pixelated and gross.
Id have to agree with dan in saying the design community isnt dead its just tired, and maybe annoyed
Hi to all friends.
Yes, the amazing days of FM3 and 4 are far now, was the golden ages, me and so many painters did many liveries and after 5 minutes we posted something there was comments or new post of other people, the forum was also the main social for the community. There was many painters, now also much “older” have stoppeed to paint.
I think there are many things to say about all and about reasons, you all in this thread told much, i agree at all, i would say my opinions too.
I would also say something that i was thinking from much time…the skills of many actual painters, old and new, are on top, i see really great artists and able to do stunning works (about decals, draws and liveries) but i think the “creativity”, the mad skill to do “original liveries” it’s a little bit missed.
During FM3/4 the originals liveries was sooo many and full of colors with various and never seen sponsors, now…are like rare animals…
I repeat, there are great painters there, replica liveries, original and fantasy are still there but the “joy” to create something original i think is lost, not full lost but surely is less.
Think that there aren’t so much people in love with “paint” at the moment, many users go to race and stop, i also think not much new painters around. IMHO
Last but not least i see that the “new” players are less interested on liveries, or not like before during the golden ages, IMHO.
By the way, we are still there and hope we do many other liveries, pictures, tunes and race in our loved Forza games 
Bye and Ciao Forza fans!
All the above is spot on, nothing else to add.
Its sad to see a once bustling and booming forum become so slow and to the most part dead.
Social media and streaming now the way to the audience (or giveaways lol)
I’ve considered bringing back a Community Voted livery thread, but with little incentive to reward it may be a no go.
[AB]
I don’t think there’s much of a “scene” these days; people simply post their work and share it on their personal channels without much of a greater community forming.
So long as new high-quality work is hard to discover in-game and there’s no gifting system in place, it’s not going to change.
I would like to see a livery thread like that, but I guess with FH4 around the corner the activity will be even less after that…
It’s sad really. We had great fun here back in the days. My personal view is that T10 must do two vital things to get things going again.
Bring back storefront
Gifting vinyls possible again
I really hope they consider taking these functions back. I might have misunderstood something now but can one even release a paint/tune together as a team for example as we did before?
I agree with just about everything that already been said.
One more point : The lack of time given to the community to develop. Between Horizon titles and Forza titles coming out so quickly, everyone moves on to the next game and into a new forum group. Therefore when you go in to post, you either have to post in multiple threads or leave some in the wind. I find it somewhat of pain to post in the H3 thread then go over to post again in the FM7 thread, then once again to H4 etc.
