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Poser - OFFICIAL F.A.Q (Last Updated: 2024 Nov 21 6:06 am)
poser democratised the internet, in regard to 3D image creation of human figures. hence it's looked upon with scorn, and usually relegated to the bottom of the 3D food chain, because it opened up the 3D subculture that was previously the domain of just a few highly-talented individuals (at least in their own minds) :lol:
I can understand both sides of that argument. "The really funny thing is that art is about the end result is what matters" ..I'm beginning to think this statement is no longer true. How you get there is equally important. Try explaining CGI to someone who just spent 4000 hours carving his "art" out of marble. I don't pretend to have an answer either, btw It's just the new world we live in.
In this age of 'conceptual art', the process is just as important as the final result - in fact, often the process is MORE important. Having completed a deggree in Contemporary Theatre, where more weight was given in the grading to our presentations of our process than on our perfromances, I can verify this from a personal experience.
That said, to claim that something isn't art simply because you din't create every nub of it yourself is ridiculous. Again, many current artists are the creators of their work in concept only - the actual realisation of their portfolio is farmed out to others under their supervision. Or look at andy Warhol, who used other people's images or cultural icons as his base, and had people printing the work for him - his actual physical input into one of his 'works' was pretty minimal. Are people now saying that Warhol wasn't a 'real' artist?
I could say more, but frankly, these people bore me and aren't worth the time or effort.
jonthecelt
I really like pose rbecause the ability to do so many things quickly is just amazing to me. I wish I would have had this in college when I was doing set design - perfect way to plot lights and determine sight lines! Why would anyone want to do something the difficult way - it makes no sense - I hope to learn how to design props and clothing so I will be creating objects from scratch.
Poser is affordable and easy to use (in relative terms) and with time and practice, one can create some decent art with Poser.
I think the 3D artists who denounce it are annoyed by the fact that the "unwashed masses" are starting to step on their toes and they're doing it by spending considerably less on software while possessing generally less 3D computer graphics experience.
The fact they refuse to see is that although Poser is built on a foundation of pre-built objects, environments and textures, creating art in Poser is still far from "turn key" process. As much as those 3D snobs would like to believe, it still requires artistic talent to produce decent results with what's available.
In that way, Poser shares something in common with photography. Photographers haven't always created what they photograph, so does that mean they're not real artists and what they produce is an inferior form of art?
Art is always going to be subjective period!
2 components of Art, What the artist thinks is art and what the looker thinks is art!
You'll never get agreement on what is art, ever!!
To me Poser art is better than that other "ART" where some guy exhibits dead bodies and calls it art, it's not to me but I guess it is to some, likewise an "artist" exhibited a scruffy untidy bed with litter on it as art [Pfft].
That said I would never ridicule peeps for calling it art, because to them it is! Fine but by the same token I don't expect them to say my art isn't art either!
Don't let some scum sucking biased arsehole tell you your art isn't art, if you think it is and other like minded peeps do, then it is, period!!
Injustice will be avenged.
Cofiwch Dryweryn.
I read the thread and thought he was been pretty reasonable and measured for an elitist.
You have to admit first off you're going to face a little of that elitism in any art venue real or digital, and that you can accumulate some of it yourself if you don't check yourself from time to time, because you may just well earn it.
And second, he did give a response that told you what customs that particular site has for the art they post and share, and he wasn't in any way insulting about it. You should not be taking it to heart, but instead taking of value what you can from the advice.
Btw, I'm in no way associated with the site nor do I consider myself an artist, I'm actually just one of the hobbyists he's referring to in that critique. I actually started using Poser to lay out set and lighting designs for film school projects, then learned to animate with it, and just sort of fell into a passion for what I can render.
Content Advisory! This message contains profanity
Please don't ever allow some butthead to discourage you from creating. Just because you don't model ever single detail in your scene(s) doesn't make it less yours.
Some 3d snobs tend to forget that dang near EVERYTHING we have these days has been built upon something else someone did at one point or another. (Unless it is indeed the first of its kind).
There are a lot of Poser users who have mastered the program that they started out using for fun - who decided to go on to other more intense program. And guess what - they bloody well succeeded in making some amazing things.
Just enjoying the Vue.
:0)
lol, and theres other sites to avoid if your image has incorporated Poser at any point, but I don't think I can mention them as its probably against the TOS ...... you'll find out soon enough and just spare yourself the grief.. Though repainting a Vogue magazine shot, comping lots photographic bits in , calling it something like "Elf Queen" seems to pass muster in those parts. Whatever. Some people even have a problem with others using photographic references... " What, its not all totally out of your imagination ??? " I've also seen Vue come under fire as another "What you haven't crafted every single polygon yourself and dare call this ART" " Your just assembling other peoples hard work and calling it your own" app issue. Jeeze, some people just need a life beyond their own narrow views. Use Poser, and anything else that catches your fancy , ENJOY and IGNORE !! Concentrate on pleasing yourself.
" Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good
book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live
together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and
nations."
-Monty Python
taking the other view for a second, and trying to be objective... if you looked through the entire Poser gallery, what percentage of it do you think you would consider of a high quality, top-level artwork? Whilst I'm not about to denigrate anyone's work in particular, there are countless pieces in there which really have just been thrown together without proper consideration for composition, lighting, texturing or so on. Lifeless eyes which gaze nowhere - void expressions - we all know that these exist, and are not exactly rare, either. So because of these slapdash efforts, Poser tends to get a bad press.
In part it's because of the way it was sold - the very strengths you guys have just been praising. Tell the masses that they can create beautiful works of art with a few clicks of the mouse (as Poser's marketing strategy claims), and you'll have people taking them at their word and producing pap.
Another reason Poser is looked down on is its, er... seamier side. Like it or not, there is a faction of Poser users who look at the naked figures on their hard drive and begin to conjure up images which make the mind boggle and the eyes water - and there is a good proportion of the populace who consider such work to be inappropriate for public consumption (as to where I fall in that spectrum - well, that's my own business). Combine these two factors - crappy qaulity porn images strewn across the internet - and it gets some people's danders up. And as with so many other things, it's the irksome minority who cause the rest of the user group/subculture to e looked down on.
Just a thought.
jonthecelt
You know I don;t usually get into these discussion for 2 reasons, I don;t concider myself an "ARTIST" of any type, I'm an engineer by training, and second I usually don;t think it's worth while arguing about what is "art" 'cause I only know what i like looking at. But if I see one more person write "Why don;t you make your own models", like Poser models come out of thin air! I MAKE Poser models, and sell a few here and there. I'm happy to do that because 1) I feel like I'm contributing to SOMEONES art, 2) It pusts a couple of bucks in my pocket, and lastly I just plan LIKE making models. In the same vein I wonder just how many pieces of ART that chap has made with 100% of his own models, backgrounds and HOME WRITTEN SOFTWARE? Poser's a tool, like a brish or a pen or the Friggin' SOFTWARE written by other people, that make ALL 3D ART possible! Frickin' arseholes should get a life and admire ART as the way ALL of the TOOLS are used and worry less about how made what tool!
sorry for the rant, I'm just having a bad night I guess. I would have written this over at that other site but any place that promotes that type of think ISN:T someplace I want to sign up for!
mike
Heh, not only do I admit I'm a hobbyist, I won't shy away from the description of my work as pornography. The reason none of it is posted here is because it's all at Renderotica and Raunchy Minds.
'Porn' and 'art' are subjective qualities for free expression, and I won't defend either as more valid than the other, but that site is populated by dedicated artists who developed their visions from the ground up, and not piecemeal from tools and props that happened to be near their vision. I think they deserve a bit of respect, and I'm not in the least surprised if they look down on someone who hasn't put that effort in.
As to whether they have any reason to denigrate porn, they are free to imply and explicitly depict murder as more acceptible than explicit sex, and they are also free to smugness in their hypocrisy.
Porn uses cameras and video cameras! My Gosh! We should all belittle people who use cameras and video cameras because porn and seedier photos use them! That argument doesn't hold air (let alone water)... ;)
So, even if 99.9999% of users of Poser were using it to create 'porn', who gives a shiite. The means don't justify the ends. The end justifies the talent by whatever means.
Every elitist should be forced to start by designing their own motherboard circuits, chips, BIOS, drivers, OS, hardware, software, and all of the content. Then they can snub their noses a little. Otherwise, they are cherry picking (more pornographic references)... ;D
C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the
foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, you blow your whole leg
off.
-- Bjarne
Stroustrup
Contact Me | Kuroyume's DevelopmentZone
I think many people here are looking at this the wrong way. This isn't a matter of art vs. non-art, it's a matter of craftsmanship. Arranging pre-made figures/props/textures in an aesthetically pleasing manner certainly requires skill, but it requires more skill to do all that plus make all those figures/props/textures in the first place.
In a production environment, the end result is all that matters. Get the job done on time and make the client happy so that you can get paid. If pre-made content will help you to accomplish that (and the license agreement for said content allows it) then use it. However, the websites that show the worst anti-Poser snobbery are meant to be showcases for those who create their own content (even if the site doesn't say it right up front). It’s not just the finished image that's important, it's the work that went into making it.
IMHO, painting vs. photography is an inaccurate analogy, because they are vastly different mediums. Painting is the art of inclusion, while photography is the art of exclusion (I can’t remember who said that). Perhaps a better analogy is fine scale modeling or model railroading. If you bring a model built from a kit to an exhibition or competition for scratchbuilt models, you'll get flamed. It's the same with pre-made vs. self-made content at those websites.
That being said, I do think those websites should find a more polite way to tell you that you’re not welcome.
Oh please.
Name one art snob who criticizes Leonardo Da Vinci, Rafael, or Michaelangelo (considered some of the greatest artistic masters of human history!!!) - among others - because they gulp employed apprentices to assist in or even finish their work.
Since they didn't actually do the work, should they receive any praise for the work of the others who actually did?
The end result is all that matters. One can have a site that praises the work in creating it - then you should announce it in big bold letters - because everyone cheats to some degree (poor saps).
ETA: As a point - consider architects. They can become renowned for their designs and engineering. But they used standard materials unforgivably manufactured by others. And an even worse offense - there were other people who did all of the work in managing and constructing the architecture. Forbid! This endless exercise in tormented artists is way dead.
C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the
foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, you blow your whole leg
off.
-- Bjarne
Stroustrup
Contact Me | Kuroyume's DevelopmentZone
Bottom line is, whether you or anyone else thinks my Poser or Vue "art" is crap or not doesn't matter a shite, what matters is that I have 2 publishers that think it's good enough to put on their book covers so I make a bit of money off it, sure I buy stuff, stuff I need to make the cover and that's no different than a painter buying brushes, canvas etc. or a writer buying a laptop to do his word processing, everyone in every filed of endeavour buys stuff made by someone else, that's how the World works!!
Take it to it's extreme, I need a new TV, what do I do, go and mine Tantalum first so I can start making a circuit board and components, then make the plastic box etc, I could go on and on but doesn't it sound so pathetic, yes!!!
Injustice will be avenged.
Cofiwch Dryweryn.
Wheeee! My second favorite subject! (My first favorite is censorship.)
Well, to beat a dead horse, here goes:
Let the babies have their bottles. Let them all pet and groom themselves like they are special. You are not going to win an arguement with them.
I've tried my hand at modeling, it's f*cking hard! I have a lot of respect for those who can make fantastic things out of polygons and nurbs and so on.
"Art" is the final product. If you feel that your final image conveys something perfectly and there is no way in which you would change it. If, in the end you feel it is done and does what it needs to do. then it is art.
If you did it for fun and you are reasonably happy with the result, then it is probably not art, but who cares, continue to enjoy your new hobby and never stop expressing yourself.
If you did something for a company under the guidance of their directors or production managers or whatever and it gets published, then it is probably "commercial art" and hey, congrats, you are making money.
If you create something form the ground up and manage to sell it, then who gives a rat's ass what the title is, congrats, you made some cash, made something you are proud of and made other people happy by sharing it.
Elitist this, and craftsperson that. Who cares? Let people create and express themselves. I see the most wonderful things communicated in the most amateur images sometimes. I've seen that most hollow thing in some of the best produced images.
Still, I am not one to judge.
Everyone has a right to express their ideas, feelings, fantasies and visions. I will not rob anyone of that right and I will always applaud everyone who is brave enough to put it out there.
F*ck those who will put others down for not being this or creating that. They are dicks and they deserve nothing for their elitist mindset.
Working in the TV and film industry, I once had a filmmaker brow-beat me for not using Macs! When you watch a movie can you tell if it has been editted on a Mac or a PC? Who gives a crap? More elitist B.S.
In the end you have to post where people understand what you do. BTW, I've seen many of these elitists slip a Poser person into their images, because after scultping cars, spacehips and buildings, they still realize that a premade human is much easier and better and will contirbute more to their final images.
Anyway, I'm ranting, it's been a crappy night. A cookie to anyone who actually read this!
'Those who would be critiqued by 'the masses', would best be served developing fusion-proof asses.' 'Meddle not in the affairs of 'Ahhtists'; For the arrogance is great....and maybe one in a thousand is actually as half as good as they'd like you to think they are.' A little wisdom from one of my editors-in-friend. Actually, to be fair, there are two kinds of art at work here; pure and practical. A purist can spend 6 months doing it all on one still. That is the whole purpose of the excercise. Practicals have real world conditions do contend with (Jobs, kids, $$$, lack of access to training, etc), and real world limitations (Job is only paying X amount, and is due in 4 days, that kind of thing). I'm a Practical, and make no bones about it. Poser's my animation solution, mainly because of the available content and the less steep learning curve. Aside from pleasure renders, the only other rendering I do in Poser is preview animations to check timing and so forth. I use Vue as my renderer for lots of reasons, including speed, network rendering, native Poser import, etc. I write on paper, then go to WordPerfect 8. Paper slows me down enough avoid the 'IgottaIdeaIgottaIdeaIgottaIdea' speed loop that leads to massive, painful rewriting and scrapping of vast swaths of text. I use Paintshop Pro because I'm not quite ready to try and grapple with Photoshop, and PSP does what I need done at the moment. I edit with Premiere Pro and do post in After Effects, with help from Particle Illusion. Scoring is either from the Magix Soundpool DVD's or Sonic Fire Pro 4, simply because sound adds so much to animation, and I can't afford an orchestra (or a couple of old farts on spoons and kazoo, if you want to get picky about it....). It's the old 'content vs vision' argument. My concerns are telling a good story. I could care less about bragging rights to intimate familiarlity to every polypoint coordinate. If there is a 'cheat' that helps me tell my story faster or better, then it isn't a cheat. It's a tool. Neither path is right or wrong, they are just different paths to the same place; touching another person with feelings, or making them stop and actually think for a moment.
Wow! What a can of worms.
I stopped posting at CG Network, due to the amount of patronising dick-headed comments that the use of Poser generated. Some guy even claimed that I was somehow "disrespecting" people who produce their own models by using it and daring to post it there. It's an age-old (well, as old as Poser) argument. I've got a degree in Fine Art and have never met a painter yet who ground their own paints (never mind mining the pigments form the ground) or made their own brushes - you use the tools to hand. I used to be a real-world modelmaker and special effects technician here in the UK and know for a fact that professionals use every trick and tool avaialble to them to speed up production. To my mind, the amount of effort expended to produce a piece bears no relationship to how "worthy" it is - it's about the end product, and how you produce it is up to you.
You never see any of the best artists on these sites stooping to mud-slinging about applications - I looked up the people who made the most denigrating comments about Poser on my posts - not one had ever posted a single piece of work, which to me speaks volumes. Archair critics and navel-gazers; like someone said, leave them to their toys.
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A lot of you seem to be reacting heatedly. George Tirebiter and Paul Francis both made clearly considered comments about process and result. That site does appear on the face of it to value the process more, and you can also see that the result is also in a much finer league. On the other hand, the ones who are most vocal about keeping that purity of content prove to be pretty useless themselves for providing it when you go to find examples of their results.
My degree is in film, where many craftspeople like to grant themselves credibility by calling it a 'collaborative art' when you really have too many cooks spoiling the pot and overvaluing their own roles when they're really less concerned with making art than having a gravy train. The only film works that could ever be called art were made by auteurs with a single, unifying vision that survived to the end by not allowing derivitive interpretations to distort it in production. It's not really a matter of how much effort you put into it, but how much responsibility you can claim for it when it's done.
And while many of you think the CG responder was being a dickhead, I do believe he had suggested that without making that claim of responsibility, no one viewing the image could know what credit the original poster could take. But the original poster, instead of answering the charge, simply pulled the image
Now I know some of you are going to crawl up my ass for what I'm suggesting here, but I haven't actually seen the results that started this ranting thread, nor heard how much of it the original poster did himself.
Photography is sometimes considered to be art and the photographer doesn`t make all the things in his/her photographs (usually).
Collages are considered to be art and a lot of them use objects and pieces of paper not made by the artist.
Sculptures are sometimes made using objects welded together or even just glued together and it is considered art.
Words of advice. First don't ever pull a post, ( unless it's an exclusive and your client wants you to ). Art directors lurk every where and you as an artist are in more demand than what you think. Second, " snobbery " exists everywhere even here. It's a tool certain people use to try and cut down on competition. Their words can't hurt you as long as you have your art as proof of your abilities. Third, post your work in 2D forums too.
Quote - To me, that picture is much better than a pile of bricks or an unmade bed or a cow cut in half etc etc. It looks like a science fiction book cover.
Where did you get the ed 209, if you don`t mind me asking?
sorry for the double post -
I will check when I get home tonite - I save all the zipped DL's I'm 99.9% sure it's an untextured 3Ds. but I can't remember where I found it
It is a nice composition, but it's also something someone without a BFA could've done, and someone without raw talent could've done with some experimentation. And even the least of these are looking more attractive to marketers and media makers.
Now you may value this democratization of art, I certainly wouldn't be creating renders without it, but consider those who spent years developing disciplines and putting their heart and soul into applying their hard-won skills just to see their efforts and results disrespected by the market because of the cheapening supply of pop-art.
I'm not one of them, but just imagining it makes me wanna be a dickhead on their behalves. Before you go complaining about elitism, consider someone may have clawed their way to places few have had the determination to.
Quote - Why doesn't anyone defend Poser on these other art sights?
Because it ends up being you against them. Not all the members of those sites are as nasty .. but I'd venture a good 90% of them are.
I'm just waiting to hear those who look down upon the use and users of Poser to start bashing those highly talented individuals who have made the models we all use. I personally don't care if anyone loves or hates my art. I don't make it (or rarely make it) for anyone else's enjoyment.
Just enjoying the Vue.
:0)
This explains A LOT! Okay, let me begin by saying freebies are great, it's like going through a clearance bin.
Now, poserites pull up your computer chairs because I have a story to tell. See, years ago some enterprising individual(s) went to 3dcafe and downloaded meshes, poserized them then sold them as their own. Well, this didn't go over well in the 3d modelling community. Lawsuits where threatened and said models were pulled off the poser market. Now, the 3D modelling communtiy was in a dilema " Do we continue providing freebies to study or not? " A solution was agreed on that freebies would continue BUT they would be catalogued and archived. Here is just one site http://shape.cs.princeton.edu/search.html This insures the 3d modeller gets credit where credit is due. In these communities anytime a freebie is spotted in artwork, and said artwork does not give credit to the 3d modeller, red flags automatically pop up.
This is also what gave poser it's rep, not porn or premade models, but ripped freebies.
Hi kathym,
This post is one of the reasons I model exclusives for Poser clients. The design is theirs, I model from that design and work one on one with them for complete customer satisfaction. And whats more, when I'm done the model is theirs and theirs alone. I don't even ask for credit nor do I blow my horn by saying " Hey, that's my model!" If anyone is interested in an exclusive you can contact me at chieftanoclan7@sbcglobal.net
Cheers,
Patorak
I think the mistake was to post it to a 3d and sculpture forum. that particular forum seems to be focused on physical and digital scupting (modeling).
I hope nobody bites my head off for this but Poser art (for the most part) needs to be critiqued similar to a photograph. composition, lighting, etc. Most "3d art" sites have people who model everything and are looking for critiques of their models as well as composition, lighting etc.
People who make such critiquest assume you modeled some portion of the scene and are upset if you did not.
At that particular site it would be better to post to Sketchbooks, Critique Center, or Sketches & works in progress.
If you still think you would get negative feedback for using poser, you could negelect to mention you used poser and specificly request a critique of your composition, lighting etc.
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Quote - It is a nice composition, but it's also something someone without a BFA could've done, and someone without raw talent could've done with some experimentation. And even the least of these are looking more attractive to marketers and media makers.
I'd like to see you do such a render, with any program, and have it look just as good. It'd give you something to post on your gallery here to give us no-talent hacks an idea of what a "good" image is. :rolleyes:
And not just anybody could do a composition like that, it requires knowing how to get a final image that causes the eye to focus first on one area, then move on to the others, even if the other areas take up more space in the image. Sure, you see the ED-209, but you focus on the woman first (or at least, I do).
________________________________________________________________
If you're joking that's just cruel, but if you're being sarcastic, that's even worse.
Marcus of Queensbury rules. No side fights!
Here is the reponse to johnfields ConceptArt post. Quote-
*Not many professional artists (in my experience) respect Poser, or poser "artwork". In most cases, it tends to be the equivalent to cutting out pieces of other people's work and pasting it into a scene. Maybe you could give us some more details about what specific parts you're responsible for. As an example, did you model that Ed 209 robot, or is this art theft? What about the ships in the background?-they look familiar
I'm not trying to be a dick, but if you want to work in 3d, you'd best be served by making your own models. -both for practical learning purposes, and artistic credibility. If you're just a hobbyist and just having some fun, then I suggest taking it to a poser specific forum.
Sorry if I've been harsh, but if I didn't say this stuff, someone else would have stepped in and done so.
*It seems to me they are calling in to question the freebie models he used, not the artwork itself.
Lets see if I can remember the bits and pieces
turbo squid - ED-209 - re textured with Worn leather matl and colors changed , details added in p-shop.
Daz -V3- re posed and added new skin textures
Project Lara - gunbelt - modified and re textured
RDNA- helmet and goggles- re textured and modified
she hulk tunic
Background - small piece used from a freebie jpg. here on R'sity
Cannot for the life of me remember where the back ground ships came from -I think as a resource from Deviantart - heavily modified and detailed.
Background and ED-209 were rendered and saved as a tif. imported into p-shop and cleaned up and detailed then imported as a background in Poser and the figure was rendered matching the light source and color from the first render. Changed the camera to a more amorphic lens size to get the "heroic" look, applied careful depth cueing to get depth of field .
I do not think you are required to have a BFA in order to do this - on the contrary this program did not exisist when I was in college ( I graduated in 1987) The point I tried to make - (appearently not too well) is that the basics of all art training apply to digital as well as traditional (analog) art . Color theory , perspective, form,symetry ,composition are all important - poser is a tool nothing more -nothing less. I kind of regret starting this thread cause it seems to get some a bit fired up- sorry however I have learned a lot about the history of poser .
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Wow -! I posted a piece of my work over at conceptart. and I got 1 comment-
www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php
I deleted the image instead of getting into a pissing contest - wow! I am fairly new to Poser and I guess there are some people that really don't like it. I have to laugh because I have a BFA in Fine arts and have a very traditional art background. The really funny thing is that art is about the end result is what matters. Lots of highly respected artist use "found" images. I fail to see how a figure that has to be posed , clothed and lighted as welll as intagrated into a scene is "art Theft". My major was in theatrical design (sceneography) and we used every resource we could from light boxes to tracing to reference photos in order to complete the design and maqette.