A recent forum containd a rather sniffy remark about the superior status of those who construct Poser objects from scratch as compared to those of us who merely use those products to produce Poser renders, sometimes doing it well enough to be called "art".

I greatly respect those who can invest their time, training and talent in creating the objects and characters that the rest of us can download to use in our own creations, but fail to see that one aspect is superior to the other.

True, without their creations the rest of us would be using crayons and butcher paper. But as far as I can find out, Bach wasn't required to build organs before he could compose his music, nor Mozart pianos.

Rembrandt, I grant you, ground his own pigments but I doubt that he had to weave his own canvas.

At any rate, my contention is that the creators of Poser objects and those who use them to create artworks should equally be considered "creators" - neither superior to the other.

Fetter

Silly arguement. It's like saying people who build their own cars are better drivers than people who buy their car from a dealership. It's like saying someone who made their own clothes is more stylishly dressed than someone who hired a taylor to make their $1,000 suit. It's like saying someone who grew their own vegatables is a better cook. And so on. A person could be great at building models but have a lousey sense of proportion and composition, no knowledge of correct lighting, no grasp of color coordination, and just in general poor at creating true art itself. OTOH, someone else who is all thumbs at creating models can be extremely talented at all of the above.

A recent forum containd a rather sniffy remark about the superior status of those who construct Poser objects from scratch as compared to those of us who merely use those products to produce Poser renders, sometimes doing it well enough to be called "art". The Poser community is unique, in that its users range from those who have never used 3D software before, to those who push Poser to its limits, including creating their own content. The only difference between the newbie and the more advanced user is the skill level. It doesn't make one type of user any more superior than the other. That is the beauty of this community, though. Those who CAN create content are getting enjoyment out of that process; and those who USE the content are getting an equal amount of enjoyment. As for one being more "artistic" than the other, it all depends on what you do with it. And there, the skill level varies widely as well. But I think that has more to do with knowledge level than anything. The renders I did five years ago are very embarrassing as compared to the renders I'm doing now. The best way to improve is to keep trying new things and experimenting with every aspect of Poser. 8-)

... and ... remembering to delete the (five year) old stuff so that ya don't get embarassed! ;=]

ROFLMAO ... ain't that the truth 8-)

I'm egalitarian, I don't believe in caste systems. Thus I don't recognize claims to superior status. That said, those who create content for Poser are doing something different than the manufacturers of brushes and canvas. These pieces of content come closer to being art in and of themselves. While some brushes and some canvases may be better than others, the skill of the object builder, for example, has a far greater impact on the final picture that is created. Creating a picture with Poser is a far more collaborative process than painting on canvas. I don't mind acknowledging that, because I don't make pictures to boast, I make them to entertain. Besides, art has evolved since the 16th century. It took more than one person to model and animate Shrek, movies have directors and camerapersons and film editors (not to mention story writers and script writers and script doctors and actors who change lines), novelists have editors, and Prince doesn't even play all the instruments on his own albums anymore.

I still think of myself as very much the noobie. Even after a year I know that there is still sooooo very much to learn. As Deecey said, the Poser community that I've been fortuneate to have come into contact with has just been... I dunno... amazing. I cant say thank you enough to the people that I've come to know. I personally haven't run into the "I'm the all knowing Carnak" personalities, but I'm sure they're out there. Everyone has been, "ok, here's how you do this or that" or, "You'll love how you do this" or "this is how this works" and it's just amazing how passionate people are about this and how much they want to help others out. makes note to self about 5 year old renders ;)

Hey, Da Vinci and Michelangelo did not paint 100% of their own paintings, they had hordes of apprentices filling the boring (to them) parts, so in that sense it has not changed that much. However, I agree, teamwork essential and intrinsic in any form of art and human endeavour.

My grandfather was brilliant at carving things out of wood and painting them, and sometimes making plaster casts from the things he carved. He didn't know the first thing about computer generated art but he always wanted to learn it. I however don't know the first thing about carving things from wood or making plaster casts. But both of us are artists, each skilled in our own fields. I regret that I never took the time to learn from him how to carve or cast, or to teach him how to create 3d models or work with programs like poser or photoshop. He passed away in february of this year and took all his knowledge of the things i wanted to learn with him. But the point is whether you're the one that constructs the 3d meshes, or the one that uses the mesh to create renders, its still art, and in this environment they're both equally dependant on each other.

There is no single user that can master everything in Poser. A few may come close, but for the most part we each have things we're good at, and things we aren't so good at. Those who can help those who can't. That's what a community is all about.

Those are the kind of responses I'd hoped for. Just one big happy family. Fetter

Let me guess Epilogue? CGI? lol Those people drive me batty.

Those courageous" builders" who construct thier own meshes. Did they hand Code and compile their own 3D modeling programs?? or did they cop out and buy someone elses canned prepackaged modeling app like lightwave or 3D MAX ;-/

Let's compare this all to the movie industry :

Poser objects constructors are building the actors...
Poser users are directors...

You need both to obtain a great movie :)

Message edited on: 06/17/2005 14:46

Yea this is the new argument since "Poser isn't ART" has no merrit

Maybe it's "Poser isn't art, but artists use Poser to make art"? I like the movie analogy. And we have actors we don't even have to pay "scale"! (Sorry - I'm in L.A.) Fetter

Hmmmm, I can make pretty good props, and have been doing so for years, but to be honest I can't make decent renders for toffee. The nuances of lighting are totally lost on me:) It takes me ages to do promo images for my products:)

" Silly arguement" Agreed. Let's carry it to a different form: A friend of mine from college years ago was a good enough musician that he did some training at Julliard. He could play a lot of classical stuff very well and even went on to tour with Sheena Easton for a few years. When he's playing Beethoven I guess you could say he lacks imagination and talent because he's not playing music he wrote himself. shrug. It is indeed a dumb argument. Do whatever you like. When you see posts from trolls like that just remind yourself that he's a simpleton and you have no interest in whether he approves ;)

I have to admit that when I discovered this marvellous little world that is Poser, I was quite stunned that so many people seemed content to buy props, clothes, textures, light packs, poses etc and 'just' put them together. I used to build plastic scale models as a kid, mostly from kits but often "scratchbuilt" using plastic card, wire, balsa etc from photos and drawings. And this 'pre-made' poser thing seemed like the equivalent of buying an expensive kit ready-painted and almost finished. It seemed like a dumb hobby. It's not that I felt it had less merit from a creative point of view, I just really couldn't see the point of it. I thought that if one is doing this for fun, then why pay out (more) money so you can skip over a big part of the fun of doing all the base stuff yourself too. So, not wanting to miss out on any fun, I learned how to do just about every aspect from scratch, pouring an utterly absurd amount of time into it, and I wised up a lot in the process. I certainly came to apreciate the work in the products in the marketplace! I learned that it isn't worth trying to master everything, there just isn't time in life. Have a go by all means, get the basic idea, but then focus on the aspects that you enjoy most and put your time into those. My thing is modelling, poser is a vehicle for that, and finished renders are a spin-off of that. I've produced very, very few finished "art" renders, the pictures I make seem to be nice test pics of my models, but I'm happy. But if my primary aim was to produce lots of finished pictures, learning modelling and mapping would be a pretty daft and circuitous way to go about it. Ob

Have a go by all means, get the basic idea, but then focus on the aspects that you enjoy most and put your time into those.

By jove, I think he's got it. 8-) Actually, to continue ... I used to be one who bought all the stuff and made renders. The more I rendered, the more I enjoyed it. Then, one day, I thought "Hmmm ... I want to change this texture a little." And so I did. Then "Hmmm ... I wonder if I can make some morphs." And so I did. Then "Hmmm ... I can't find a dress like I want. I wonder if I can model it." And ... so I did, but not as quickly as I would have liked. BUT, I was bitten. I found out that I enjoyed that whole process, including the frustration of learning all about it. I have one more bridge to cross (joints) and then I will be satisfied. But THEN, you get the urge to be an innovator. A shaker and a mover. I'm not at that level yet, but it's the challenge of the whole process that keeps me going. I can't even remember the last time I did a full scene render, just for the fun of it. But I sure do get a thrill whenever someone uses something that I made. It makes all of the learning and headaches and late nights ALL worth it!

Message edited on: 06/17/2005 17:35

Hehehehehe, thanks Geep! ;-)

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12356&Form.ShowMessage=1651754

I think that the closest similitude can be seen in photography: even though it is considered an accepted form of art, the photographer isn't actually creating nothing - it's just taking a snip of things that are already there - all that he do is deciding on the angle, exposure and similar things - but this makes him/her no less of an artist. When working in a studio, the similitude is even greater, since he decide on his own "actors" poses and such, but still it isn't physically creating anything - it's just artistically creating something :) Hope this is understandable! Sometimes i wish i actually studied english! LOL! Bye, Grim

I come from a graphic design background, where we use whatever is available to get the job done. Stock photography, fonts, clip art, etc. No graphic designer that I know makes all their own fonts, all their own clip art, takes all their own photography, etc. Fact is, the clients couldn't really give less of a sh*t what you used, so long as it's legal and they get the end result that they want (and some don't even care that much if it's legal sigh).

I see Poser images much in the same light. You're using objects/items you've licensed to create an end result that is pleasing and unique (more unique than lots of graphic design; how many ways are there to construct a pamphlet? ;-).

These days I'm primarily a 2D artist (as I've always been, really) and a web designer. I use elements I've rendered in Poser to create an end result, whether it's an illustration for my projects, whether it's a book cover or a uniquely-themed website or some other illustration or design. I do put a great deal of my own effort into it, painting, color correction, compositing, etc. etc., as do many other people who use Poser, but when you get down to it, I'm still using pre-made content to create an end result.

I have no problem with this. I'm not ashamed of what I do, nor do I feel I'm "cheating" by using Poser as a tool. I don't have infinite time and energy and money to invest in learning how to model my own objects (although I do think being able to do simple things would be helpful). I have deadlines to meet and a real life away from the computer.

I sometimes suspect that people who think it's "not good enough" unless it's all modelled by the user are people who have no deadlines, no life, no clients, or some combination of the three. ;-)

bonni

Message edited on: 06/18/2005 02:07

I've scratch-built a few physical models in my time, and made a few for Poser. And textures. Also photography. Poser does let you create a picture without needing to do more than a few mouse-clicks. Pick the pose. Pick the MAT-files. Pick the lights. But they still need to be the right mouse-clicks. It still needs some sort of artistic eye. We may need less manual dexterity, but without the eye of the artist, all the craft skill in the world is useless. (And look at some of the modern furniture that gets sold. I'm tempted to take it apart and turn those lumps of planed timber into carpentry, at least.) There's a hell of a lot of people who can't see, and some so-called designers seem to exploit that. This whole argument about Poser is trivial.

Great point GRiMAge, I'm more from a photography background than else, so I compare Poser to studio/nature photography too: and if you don't have the right "eye" for an image, you CAN'T produce something that is more of a simple boring postcard... Photography is an accepted form of art (Newton anyone?), so should be Poser.

I'm just wondering if I could emulate one of Bill Brandt's nude photographs in Poser... Extreme wide-angle is possible, but I'm not sure the poses needed would work.

I have yet to see a mesh from the so-called "pro modeller" ready to accept the bending that human body is possible of... :)

Then the scientists said to God... "Hey, we figured out how to make a man. Who needs you anymore?" God says... "Ok, show me how you do it." "Sure," says the scientists, "first, you just need a little dirt..." "Hold it!" God interrupts, "Get your own dirt." Point > no one makes anything from scratch. 1 Corinthians 4:7 (New International Version) For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?

Amen.

Anyway, MAYBE there are superguys who can do everything. I for one, even while beign a mere average mortal, prefer having quality time with my girlfriend than spending my time in front of the computer or whatever. Be it paying for someone that washes my car (which I can do, probably better than the guy who does it) or paying for a prop, hair, thingy which I could do myself (someday), I'ld rather spend that time with my girlfriend. So paying someone to do things for me is worth it. And it helps bring home the bacon somewhere. So, programmers, content providers, texture gurus, modellers, car washers, etc etc, I am in your debt, thank you for making my life a happy life.