Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=649049&Start=1&Artist=Latexluv&ByArtist=Yes

I am a minimalist. I like to see what I can push Poser to do and reserve Postworking for smoothing out a bad joint like knees or elbows, and occassionally a special effect (though recently I've been collecting some Poser props that are special effects, fog, fire, lens flares, ect). I am entrhalled by those who can hand paint hair on their figures after rendering. But at the moment, I'm learning the usage of spotlights. I have astonished a few people in the gallery with a couple of my images that came right out of Poser, required no post work, and all I needed to do was place my logo on the image and convert from tiff to jpg (I always save in tiff format out of Poser). Stealth1701, if you'd like to see what can be done and posted as a Pure Poser render, please follow the link. Though I love some images that I know are heavily postworked, the Poser program itself can produce some cool work without a bunch of bells and whistles. Liz Pope Latexluv

You know it really amazes me how many people read an original post and COMPLETELY miss the point!!! All I was saying is, it would be great if we could separate out pure 3d renders from postworked ones. Its plainly obvious that in the production of art you are totally free to use what ever combinations of packages you want to produce your final image. However, there are some of us who are facinated by the computer generation of realism and some of us that want to learn how to use the package better and want to see producers of these packages continue to develop them. I for one would love good 3d artists to explain how they made hair look so real, or how they achieved that certain lighting effect within the package - at least I could then have half a chance at reproducing it. PLEASE can we stick to the original question and stop defending your right to produce art by whatever means you desire - that fact is taken as read! In conclusion, (and this is a question for the moderators), could we have a separate gallery that allows us 'purists' to display their work. Instead of the genre, we could maybe select the package we used. Just one measly new gallery, PLEASE....?????

"All I was saying is, it would be great if we could separate out pure 3d renders from postworked ones." That's a damn good idea, actually. Of course, to make it work there would have to be double the amount of Poser gallery categories; everything we have now, plus a non-post version of every category. Even so, I'd be willing to upload to the correct ones as necessary.

There's a lot to be said for poser purism. Not so much in creating the final image, but seeing what the program is capable of. I've spent countless hours myself tweaking around in poser and have discovered quite a bit. And if you can do something inside poser, why postwork it? Thats generally my approach. So all you tweakers, geekers, twiddlers and fiddlers, go get some! Get your own genre in the poser gallery and show us what you got. :)

If it was important to you, couldn't you just mention that your image contains no post work in the comments? Wouldn't that basically accomplish what people want to accomplish by having a separate gallery - an indication that no postwork was involved? Just a thought. Unzipped

Right on unzipped....

Here's my 2 cents - If I render an image in Poser, I post in the Poser Gallery. If I render an image in Vue, I post it in the Vue Gallery. Do I post work? Yes, but not a lot, because I don't know photoshop that well and I don't know my tablet that well. HOWEVER, if I were to render an image in either Vue or Poser and then the BULK of it was Photoshopped, then I would post it in Mixed media or 2d. IMHO, as soon as you save your render to an image file, it's now a 2d image that reflects a 3D world.

Oh and let's not be dissing Manilow! ;-)

Manilow what?

I wonder if it's possible to post-work music.......?

MungoPark,
Have you ever looked in the Mixed Media gallery? It is mostly the home of some excellent artists that do photography/traditional/digital work combos. There are those that do combinations of 2D and 3D, but their program range is usually quite larger than "postwork in photoshop." I post in Mixed Media quite a bit, but only for the ones that really do not have an overwhelming percentage of usage by any particular program.

Putting 90% of the poser images in Mixed Media, and from the other genres is going to leave little in their original galleries and flood the poor MM gallery, shoving out the people that are already there. While I'm sure this will certainly help the 10% who do no-postwork, it's very impractical. I can just imagine the upheaval that would come if Rosity suddently decided that images are no longer welcome in Poser from some of Poser's most elite artists because they do postwork?

The way I've always understood it, the gallery separations are more guidelines than hard and fast rules. They keep the galleries fairly organized, but still allow for some play, which in my eyes is the perfect system. It allows choice for the artists, does not overburden the moderators with having to move images that may be postworked a bit, and allows people to stay where they are known and often experts in the software, postwork or not.

I think the best solution would be either to put "No Postwork" in the image notes as was suggested, or to put a flag (like nudity/violence) for no postwork. If you create a genre, than you rob the artist of the chance to put his image in it's proper conceptual genre (for instance, if one puts Non-Postwork, they can't put Romance). A new gallery would not be anywhere near as popular and would wind up being a disappointment to those that post there, until they were back posting in Poser anyway. Not only that, but if you give Poser a pure gallery, you have to do so with every other gallery.

My 2c
ShadowWind

well I consider the 3d program or the 2d program as tools, just like a brush or pallete knife, they are to be mastered for what they add to the creation process. Each artist controls the "technique" they use, if one uses a fine brush to paint to look like the larger wash type brushes then they have applied one tool differently from the way others apply the same tool...the end result well that is what you are creating after all...so if one is wanting to use only one brush or one color to create their work it is a style, a technique they employ not any better or worse than any other technique or style available...in other words if I can achieve the "impressionistic" style with brushes, and oil paints or the same with 2d or 3d computer art programs ...I am still intending to create in that style. I am not sure we are able to call 3d a "style" or 3d with or without post work a style or technique... rendering is itself a variable in many programs...Poser has a sketch render choice of output...does that make a poser render using the sketch output 2d or 3d?.... This argument seems to make a lot of assumptions about "programs in general", without defining or separating the ability to model, to pose, to render ... what 3d computer programs and 2d computer programs require in my view are a series of artistic results...modeling like sculpturing within the 3d environment...texturing is a new thingy within a 3d environment using 2d techniques and some intermediate programs...texturing is almost an artform in its own right...projecting images onto shapes...atmosphere...all of these things are thought out differently in 3d/2d environments... all of these "tools" expand our ability to create...if it is not the end result it is the exploration of the technique...the bottom line is it should be what each individual expresses that is the end result, the steps, the tools, the techniques well those are extensions of the creative process....DaVinci had the right idea...

AFAICS this thread was started fairly innocntly (I CULD be wrong!) by someone who sees a set of categorised galleries and wonders, at leats in part, why the categories as stated are not the categories that we actaully USE them as. AFAICS he has no beef with people doing postwork, or people doing prework for that matter - but has some conceptual difficulty in working out why the galleries are split by application (or "tool") in name but not in use. If we REALLY object to splitting our art up by the tool (or the major tool) in use then why don't we regularly see threads demanding that the walls are broken down and that Bryce, Vue, Lightwave and Cinema users etc. etc. all post to combined "Landscape","SF","Romance" ec. galleries among the posr aristis doing the same? Are the other 3D programs not equally "just tools" to be used one way or another? Cliff

Hi Cliff! I was thinking the same thing while I was reading Lorraine's post (and I agree with a few things stated). Maybe the if the galleries were set up by genre? SF, Fantasy, Romance, Adult, action, nature?

What a pointless argument. Why would you limit yourself to just one tool when you have a bag full at your disposal? Purists spend all their time arguing about the "correctness" of this or the minutiae of that. Everyone else just gets on and creates stuff, using all the tools available to them. Purism in CG is a furphy anyway, as the whole thing is one big fake reality.

postwork was not tolerated That's what we need. More intolerence, dammit! ;-P bonni

What about the other way round though? If someone rendered a Poser figure in Cinema 4D and posted it to a Cinema 4D gallery, do you think that visitors might feel 'cheated' if they subsequently realised that it was a Poser figure, as they might origianlly assume it was a mesh created in Cinema? What are we displaying in the gallery anyway, art created MAINLY using a particular program or showcasing the abilities of a particular render engine? Should Poser 5 renders be split between P4 renderer and Firefly? Oh yes, and I create my textures in Photoshop before applying them to my Poser people, does that affect the 'Poserness' of the image?

Well, let me answer one question here. Several people above have said something along the lines of, "If purism isn't important, why are the galleries arranged by application, then?" The answer is, because the gallery arrangement is moronic. It makes as much sense as sorting short stories according to those written using Word, those written with Star Office and those typed on a traditional typewriter. I'm sorry to speak bluntly, but this business of "showing the capabilities of the software package" appeals to a sort of anally retentive class of people who like things like collecting matchbox labels. It is nothing about art. MungoPark wrote: "This is beating a dead horse because most of you dont get the point. It is absolutely not about showing off the capabilities of a software or Poser or whatever - its about the creation of virtual reality in a 3d environment. The fact that you fix an elbow later possibly is because you are not able to deal with the 3d anatomy and its limits." Virtual reality? Really? With the fancy goggles and all? Hardly. In so much as a 3D app allows you to create an imaginary environment, you can only communicate this via images until someone makes an affordable 3D printer, and if you want to show off your images in public you make them as good as you can if you have any pride in your work. Having to fix an elbow is nothing to do with the limits of 3D anatomy, unless you mean the limits Poser applies. Having to "deal with" those limits would mean never showing a character drinking a glass of water, even though that is easily accomplished by a real human. Imposing that sort of limitation on yourself I would find deeply repelling - no kneeling poses because Poser can't do knees, and so on. I don't actually do a lot of postwork - only as much as I need - but the idea of sorting images by postworked and not-postworked is deeply silly. In many cases I couldn't tell if you a picture of mine was postworked or not.

This image was postworked. What did it look like BEFORE it was in photoshop? It was two different images and you couldn't see her body for the most part. Before someone tells me this is MY fault... It's not. This was a commissioned work for which I got 45$. What's postwork? Everything from the tips of the wings to the floating head in the background to the waves under her feet. I airbrush my images with dodge and burn because that's what I enjoy doing. Did I /significantly/ alter this image from what it looked like, before? No. Except for the tattoos and the background, everything in this image was there before, it was just in two seperate pieces. Postwork isn't bad, postwork isn't GOOD. People like Trekkie/Ern amaze me. They can push Poser to its limits and then push it further. Me? I'm an artist for commission. That means I want to get it as done as quickly and as good as I possibly can. Which often means postwork when I can't do something in Poser.

"this business of showing the capabilities of the software package appeals to a sort of anally retentive class of people who like things like collecting matchbox labels. It is nothing about art." Phantast, I can appreciate your concern, but I think you're going a little far. I like CG photorealism, that is my main interest in poser. Surfing the galleries here has become quite a chore, having to sift through thousands of fantasy airbrush fluff pics to find the occasional gem by an artist like Dash or TwiztidKidd. But maybe thats just me and my taste. Everyone else seems to enjoy looking a paintings of fairies sitting on giant mushrooms with a rainbow in the background. So I do postwork myself, but I tend to prefer viewing pics without a lot of postwork, or at least post-painting. I'm feeling both sides of this argument, but I'd hate to see it taken to far.

Maybe just a button you can click? 'Did you postwork this image?' and it gets a unique indicator that there's postwork, or you can turn non postworked OR postworked off..?

Oh cr*p.. I just wrote a long reply and the server ate it :o( Anyway, first: Thanks for the kind words, Khrys. Even if they aren't true ;o) The main reason why I don't do a lot of postwork is laziness. But also that I'm not THAT good with PS. I know the basics, but that's about it. I guess I'm a Poser Purist at heart, but sometimes )I like to play with my pics in Photoshop and see what comes out, like the "babee" pic here. Besides most Poser pictures are at least somewhat postworked. I know a few who render their sig too, but in general at least the sig is postworked. so should THEY click the "postwork" button too? theoretically they should becourse where do you set the line otherwise? Is smoothing an elbow ok? Smooting an elbow and a knee? brightening the picture? I don't know. I usually write below my pics if there's no postwork, but of course that's not searchable :-)

Oh cr*p.. I just wrote a long reply and the server ate it :o( Anyway, first: Thanks for the kind words, Khrys. Even if they aren't true ;o) The main reason why I don't do a lot of postwork is laziness. But also that I'm not THAT good with PS. I know the basics, but that's about it. I guess I'm a Poser Purist at heart, but sometimes )I like to play with my pics in Photoshop and see what comes out, like the "babee" pic here. Besides most Poser pictures are at least somewhat postworked. I know a few who render their sig too, but in general at least the sig is postworked. so should THEY click the "postwork" button too? theoretically they should becourse where do you set the line otherwise? Is smoothing an elbow ok? Smooting an elbow and a knee? brightening the picture? I don't know. I usually write below my pics if there's no postwork, but of course that's not searchable :-)

Ern, you know I love your work. Especially your BSNVIATWAS.

"Purists spend all their time arguing about the "correctness" of this or the minutiae of that. Everyone else just gets on and creates stuff"... Errr... who are these foolish purists aruing WITH, then? "Phantast on 4/23/04 02:31 Several people above have said something along the lines of, "If purism isn't important, why are the galleries arranged by application, then?" The answer is, because the gallery arrangement is moronic. It makes as much sense as sorting short stories according to those written using Word, those written with Star Office and those typed on a traditional typewriter." I'm glad that more people seem to be picking up this half of the point (it seems to me that a lot of people have instantly assumed that any query on the topic is a personal affront to their religeon). "In many cases I couldn't tell if you a picture of mine was postworked or not." I'm not ENTIRELY sure that this is an argument for or against post-work, to be hoenst :) Cheers, Cliff

I think you should remove the word "foolish" in your post. Nobody is arguing that postwork is bad, so why defend yourself ? The only argument was that some people like it plain, others dont. It is also not about showcasing an app. Its about how close you can come to what you have imagined in a 3D environment alone, thats all. I work in 3ds, Maya and also Poser. I like Poser because its simpler to use, although the renderer is not so good and it took me almost a year to get something decent out of Firefly. Just recently when I was going through my notes, I realized that I was closer to what I wanted at the beginning - the way I was exploring was the wrong one. I think its an art by itself understanding and using a lightset and its simulated physics. If you want to do this with Photoshop you can do it for me this is no challenge.Period. PS: My stuff is printed because I dont make post.

I LOVE this thread!

So, tell me....have we reached a conclusion yet?

Just how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Seven. If you add an 8th endless argumants ensue (so a pinhead is not so very different from the internet). IMHO I shouldn't remove the word "foolish" because I was quoting a self-contradicting statement. Is implication was that purists MUST be foolish because they were the only ones arguing - everyone else was off elsewhere creating art. Therefore everyone in this thread MUST be a purist who is anti-postwork by definition...erm... were that accurate I know that I would find it pretty foolish! I'm also not defending myself as I'm not a purist. The problem as I see it is that each "side" (for want of a better term) is definisng the contents of the thread in entirely different terms. One is saying "when the rules say apples, why do so many of us eat oranges?" while the opposing side say (I will darn well drink cola if I like and don't ANYONE dare to tell me to drink milk!". Which kinda leaves the discussion at something of a stalemate, I feel :( Cheers, Cliff PS there is the occasional misguided member in the middle who tries to see both sides, but that can easily drive you insane!

"I'm sorry to speak bluntly, but this business of "showing the capabilities of the software package" appeals to a sort of anally retentive class of people who like things like collecting matchbox labels. It is nothing about art." I agree somewhat, however I for one do like to know what is possible with Poser, and some people really do some innovative stuff with it sometimes. In those cases it's nice to have a notification that what was done was done just with Poser (for the sake of this example). It's nice not to have to guess in the cases where you're wondering if the artist achieved something with or without postwork in consideration of how to reproduce a certain effect yourself. It's not so much an artistic appreciation angle as it is a technique/skill angle. But as I said before, you only really need to say something in your comments for the image in that case - I still don't see the need for categorization by technology (subject matter would be a better categorization I think). I hope that made some sense. Unzipped

I suppose one reason to categorize the galleries by the program is to cater to the people who sell, buy or use a particular program. When I first bought Poser (yikes Poser 2) I immediately looked for others who were using the same program to learn how they were getting results...mine at the time were ...well...sad...I was stuck for a week at least with the head and arms twisting up and the feet stuck to the floor...there are many levels of learning a particular program...and I have yet to wrap my poor brain around the modeling aspects.... It took a while to learn that I could move the poser stuff into Bryce to improve the "render" and to get more interesting backgrounds...or to make backgrounds that I could use as backgrounds in poser. The community has grown, there now are many more programs, but I suppose the community may have grown beyond the "wow look what this program can do" approach, we see more and more combinations of different programs. Including strictly 2d and photography. I like the idea of re-vamping the galleries to just allow us to browse through the results...but change is hard especially when there still are many who are finding the galleries a place to learn what they can accomplish with one program or the other or combinations of different programs. I see the entire experience in Renderosity evolve and grow in response to the community wants and needs. perhaps it is time to look at the gallery as a gallery of art and to use the forums as a means of finding those people who use the same program by artist search... But I still sometimes look at something and think wow, I wonder if I can re-create that in Poser...rendering is still variable to my view, some programs recreate reflections better than others...so we ship our figures into that program to take advantage of that improvement... I can see the point in terms of using a program without post work, it is sometimes a short cut or a crutch, but it also is a legitimate tool. There is a comment section where the artist can explain and often does explain that they did a lot of post or not so much... For me it may be a moronic way to organize the galleries but it is how it has evolved...from a group of enthusiasts who started with one program and shared techniques on how they expanded the one program to include other techniques... maybe it is time to change the organization...but we are thankful that the databases are set up at all allowing us to narrow down our "perusing" ...or not...

If you hit upon a clever trick for doing some effect in the app that you are using, it's fair enough in such a case to make a special mention of what you did and how you did it. But this should be the exception, not the rule.

"IMHO I shouldn't remove the word "foolish" because I was quoting a self-contradicting statement. Is implication was that purists MUST be foolish because they were the only ones arguing - everyone else was off elsewhere creating art. Therefore everyone in this thread MUST be a purist who is anti-postwork by definition..." Bollocks...........that's your interpretation, but not what I was implying at all. I never called anyone foolish. Anyway, the whole thread's just turned into a bunch of semantic arguments which, as I stated in my first point, is pointless.

This point has been pointless from the beginning.

Exactly...........heh. Enough said.

:)

Why is it that whenever anyone wants to discuss their ideas about something that other people have discussed previously, there's always someone leaps in and cries "beating a dead horse!" usually with a stupid picture or even stupider animation? If you were restricted in your communication only to ideas that had never been discussed by anyone before, how quiet the world would be. Philosophy? Beating a dead horse! Art? Beating a dead horse! Politics? Beating a dead horse! Have you not realised yet that beating a dead horse is beating a dead horse?

"as I stated in my first point, is pointless." "This point has been pointless from the beginning." "there's always someone leaps in and cries "beating a dead horse!" usually with a stupid picture or even stupider animation?" I was just trying to inject a little comedy into a discussion that has grown stale. I think you're this is being taken WAYYYYYYYY too seriously. Try not to be so humorless.

You'll need to think of a new joke if you want to inject any comedy, that one is REALLY stale. Oh, oh, a picture of people beating a dead horse. Like as in the saying "beating a dead horse" - geddit? Oh how funny. Oh how I'm laughing.

::laffs at people who take themselves too seriously.

Me: "IMHO I shouldn't remove the word "foolish" because I was quoting a self-contradicting statement. Is implication was that purists MUST be foolish because they were the only ones arguing - everyone else was off elsewhere creating art. Therefore everyone in this thread MUST be a purist who is anti-postwork by definition..." RubiconDigital: "Bollocks...........that's your interpretation," My apologies, I can only give my interpretation. RubiconDigital: "but not what I was implying at all. I never called anyone foolish." Nor, in fact, did I say you'd typed that word. I was however trying to point out, somewhat light-heartedly (too many thread sof late seem to be full of far too little humour) that your statement appears to be somewhat nonsensical. Please feel free to correct me. If the purists are arguing while everyone else is out making good art, who ARE the purists arguing with if not themselves? Feel free to assume that I typed that with a slightly wry grin, and that I'm a fairly easy-going chap who likes to puzzle things out and even discuss the oddities of the English Language - as opposed to the current norm of assuming that every second post is some form of personal attack (dunno whether to put a sad or a smiley here, so I'll play it safe and leave it blank). Cheers, Cliff

OK time out guys! Posts about the semantics of English phrases surely belong in their own thread, but maybe its a good lesson in how things can be misinterpreted. With that in mind, let me just restate my views about the original post just so that there is no mis-understanding or offense taken. 1/ I don't care What tool or combination of tools, you use to produce your art - if it looks good then I'll admire it for the great piece of art it is 2/ I would like to be able to give (and hopefully receive) credit for work that did not just rely on the artists 2D Postworking ability so I'd love an area where theres a Hot 20 for non-postworked images 3/ I think its important that potential buyers of a 3D package know exactly what the strengths AND LIMITATIONS of a package are. And don't tell me to go look on the manufacturers web-site! Go to the Curious Labs website and tell me hand on your heart that NONE of the images there are postworked (eg. Reflections by Drazenka Kimpel - great image but I couldn't do that with just my copy of Poser!) 4/ There's a certain challenge in producing a piece of work using only one specific tool to achieve the desired effect. Its not being a fanatical purist - just a facination in getting a 3D package to model the real world. Remember if an image is produced using only a set of repeatable algorithms then given enough computing power its a short leap to an animation, realistic movies rendered entirely with a computer, realistic virtual environments for games etc etc etc. I (and I'm sure a few others) would like to distinguish between these potential pictures and ones that included postworking. Thats it from me - I'm off to think of another Controversial thread ;-) Stealth1701

Thats it from me - I'm off to think of another Controversial thread ;-)

That's easy.

Start one about Poser models looking too young.

Thats it from me - I'm off to think of another Controversial thread ;-) How about, "But is it REALLY art?" ;-P bonni