Quote - My thoughts on this haven't really ever changed.  Only when the bulk of the modeling is original should the work be posted in a modeling forum.  Otherwise,  renders should be judged by the same standards as a photograph; on their composition, lighting, "exposure" etc.  It seems ridiculous to me that I can take a photo of someone in a public place and call it art, but I can't render an image of a stock figure without being criticised for not modeling the subject.  I guess it probably depends on whether it is an art forum or a CG forum, but hopefully someday the art of rendering will get recognition apart from the modeling and rigging (whether or not done by the same artist) involved.

Yes, but all too often Poser is used simply to render completed scenes that have already been set up entirely by 3rd parties.  Nothing wrong with that, but when people post a render that has given credit to other people for not only the models, but also the textures, lighting, materials, etc., then someone in a CG art forum must wonder what was really done by the person who uploaded the image, other than positioning a camera and pressing 'render' (in Poser, render setting values can be just a preset configuration as well).  When you buy a scene from Daz, for instance, all you have to do is load the props into the scene, and they position themselves accordingly (usually).  Even character poses are a purchased item in many cases.  I don't think there's very many people using Poser who bother implimenting simulated photographic effects like lens flares, specular bloom, motion blur, or even so much as adjusting focal length or using DOF on the camera.

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Tools :  3dsmax 2015, Daz Studio 4.6, PoserPro 2012, Blender v2.74

System: Pentium QuadCore i7, under Win 8, GeForce GTX 780 / 2GB GPU.