Attached Link: http://www.cgnetworks.com/story_custom.php?story_id=1734&page=

I dont know how many of you saw this at CGtalk, but it has some nice stuff about making your picture evoke an emotion-its not as much as a "how to" as some good ideas to keep in the back of your mind. --but the main reason I am posting this is because some of the recent posts here about Bryce renders looking cheap or something, and many people brought up some good points about how it doesnt matter what software you use, it is the user...some people take Brycing or making 3d renders as a hobby, while others are serious in every aspect of it. my question to you is, is it the user? or can anyone who owns the right software become an artist? I guess i just want to here everyones opinion...

emotions in work is always good most lacking in posergallery pure beauty is boring just my 2 pence ;)

I think good art is innate - you either have a feel for it or you don't. It's the same with a musical instrument. You can make a pretty image or record a pretty song, but for that really DEEP emotion to be present, something that moves others, it has to come from within.

When I had my own company, I had to interview people when we ran an ad for a CGI artist (we needed the extra help at the time), there were some hopefuls and then some with no talent. I could teach those who weren't talented to use our graphics software, but I couldn't teach them to be an artist, I couldn't give them an imagination, or an eye for form and color, I couldn't teach them to see beyond the ideas to make them realities, to be creative....

However, those that showed promise had the 'spark', even though they were new to the tools they had the basis for great work.....

It's the old addage, 'just because you can follow a recipe doesn't make you a chef.....' you need that extra something to make it come together....

To me, software is just another 'tool' with which to do my art.....

"Is it the user? or can anyone who owns the right software become an artist?" I think a little stroll through the Bryce Gallery will answer this question. :^) And sometimes a little stroll through the Bryce Hot20 will give you the same answer. :^D John

tjohn, ROFLMAO!

Since I've been here and long before that, you hear people say they're having a block trying to create. Sometimes you can force yourself to start something and eventually get into a groove. Then there are those magical moments when you're in a zone & can't walk away from your project because everything you do seems effortless. I agree with tjohn, you can tell those that are created and those that just get churned out like an assembly line. Software, brush & canvas, welder, chisel & mallet. Regardless of your tools, if you experience the magic and share what you feel & know, it is reflected in your creation. Some people share more of their ID than others & it's reflected in their creations & percieved as more. Also consider that some which "have not discovered" their personal outlet for that "magic,juice,zone" may still be searching and practicing in the company of those of us which have. The creation of emotion is the human factor, but you have to "Dare to Share" from within. It will show. ICM

You can give a great artist a scrap of paper and a pencil and he can do something wonderful, whereas a talentless person with all the brushes and tubes of paint he could wish for won't make something as good. So logically, a true artist could make a better work of art with only Poser 3 than a hack could make with Maya, Max3D and a huge render farm.

Damn, that means there's no hope for me :-) I would say that a thing not to forget is also the ability to visualise your ideas, I often find that the idea I have or start with is frustratingly difficult to get out (either via digital or traditional medium). This is where technique, practice and learning come in, an app with better facilities can be very useful in this part. (For example I quite like the hairy mouse I created in a tut for one of the Max plug-ins however I could do much more complex stuff with a full version of shag for Max or with the full blown XSI hair that does things like succesfully creating hair based on a spline set and correctly UVW mapping the hair strands.) I have come across a few people who do better as a partnership, one with the ideas and another who is good at visualising that idea.

I would like to add that a little elbow grease is necessary to develop the talent you have (and I believe that everyone is born with SOME talent) until it begins to show in your work. You have to take the time to USE your tools so that your SKILLS can develop. Unfortunately, that means you'll be generating a lot of work that is average or even below average until you get those skills working for you. But NEVER throw anything away. As your skills develop, you can go back and improve images that weren't quite there before. It can be possible that a person was born with a lot of innate talent, but never used it enough to become skilled. (My brother is like this, he would occassionally sketch or paint little pieces through the years that showed a real talent, but he never kept at it until he gained skills, and does not create art at all anymore.) If you are one of the Brycers who claim to have no talent, that you can't even draw, here's some free advice. "Pick up a pencil and a piece of paper while your Bryce images are rendering, and learn to draw!" I truly believe that no one ever got worse at drawing by practicing. :^) John And now that I've given this advice, I'll try to follow it and draw a bit more, myself, LOL.

I have heard it said that it's not that some people can't draw, it's that they can't see.

I've been drawing with pencil and paper for nigh on 30 years, and I think there's a point where talent takes you..that I havent' reached. The reason I like CG art is that I have a lot more control over what I can do. You can learn to draw, but with that, and every CG program I have, I just reach a point where I don't get any better..but, who knows, maybe some day..;)

You have to have the talent and the skills to be able to express your visions. You also have to have a sense of pleasure in the creative process or else why would you stick with it. If you have the talent, you can acquire the skills IMO. Therefore I guess I am in the "it's the artist" camp. LOL pakled, got ya beat, first watercolour set at 5 (that's over 37 years ago).

Phantast, people who have not developed an artistic eye are said to be blind artistically and couldn't follow a curve much less extrapolate an edge from the real world unto paper or canvas. Artists must first learn to "see" the world around them with a creative eye. I believe strongly in what tjohn has said. I for one had won an artistic scholarship to attend Pratt Institute of Design while in High School. I was very good with pencil and paper sketching family and friend's portraits to their likeness. But I never envisioned art as a career and always imagined the concept of the struggling starving artist, not a very tempting prospect for myself. Although I continued some art studies in college, I began to focus on other career avenues and slowly withdrew from developing my artistic skills any further until the advent of computers capable of high-resolution graphics. As like with any skill thats not practiced, you tend to get rusty at it. You dont forget the skill, but you dont get any better either, you stagnate. Ive also studied photography for many years and there too it becomes apparent that the artist behind the camera must develop a seeing artistic eye to be able to compose a picture and snap just when the artist thinks the light is right to impart the emotional elements that had caught the artists eye to begin with. Yes, no question about it, it most definitely is the skill and the talent of the artist and not the tools that make the art.

Well, my thoughts are it is the user. And that users imagination. Skill is needed to pull of the ideas, but skill alone will only produce a "pretty" image with no real depth for the mind, just the eyes. I have also found around CG communities, that the images I do with the least amount of thought and inner feelings connected to them-get the most comments and are the more popular images for the most part. I suppose a lot of viewers that come to these galleries are looking more for eye candy, than to be stirred inside. Bottom line; Learning a program is merely technical. Using it to create emotional art is something one is gifted with and cannot be learned. It can be nurtured over time and brought out. But imo, it has to be there from the start. But what do I know??? :-)

Aye, emotion is often difficult for me to bring out in 3D. None can possibly feel the depth of emotion my last image's subject, the Choedan Kal statues, have driven into my black heart. I would go so far to say that reading the Wheel of Time has been the most spiritual thing that's ever happened to me, and short of giving birth to my son, the ONLY spiritual thing that's ever happened to me. Without reading the story, one cannot possibly feel what has passed through me over the last couple years of digesting this 10,000 page saga. But I made the image anyways, and tried using colors and shapes to give it a sense of the Power... Although I'm 27 and well past my experimental youth, the truth is that it was psilocybin ('shrooms) that drove me to 3D graphics. I used to look up at trees, high as a kite, and FEEL the natural fractals inside of them coming through. And I wanted to be able to MAKE that happen, artistically... The Tree Lab has helped me with that a bit, but I'll still never be able to evoke what a simple tree could show me in my altered state. But I won't stop trying! Thanks for the link, Woodhurst... Good stuff!

Thanks for the link woodhurst. Very very informative and I totally agree. Technique is just a bridge, expression is where wer'e trying to get to. It's really unfortunate that we sometimes stay in the bridge instead of crossing. ;-)

Alvin, the METAPHOR MASTER! (grins)