We buy , we download, we make pictures or movies with stuff we bought.

I sometimes can't see it as being my creation at al.

HOw do you guys feel? 

 like when i show my parents my stuff for example, a super awesome Office scene( WHICH I BOUGHT) and a character( which i bought) standing inside of that..They go "Wooooow.. you're talented.."

but i didn't really do anything!! hehehe. i just posed it

 Depends on how much value-add you input to the ready-made items in your scene.  

If it's just plug and plug and plug and play, well, it's not really creative.

I see it more like composing then posing, I fill a scene with things you bought, downloaded or made myself. There is still a lot of creativity involved in that process, more comparable to a studio-photographer, who sets up his lights and arrange his own scene.
A music composer doesn't perform his opera, he still will need singers and players, Mike Oldfield is perhaps the only exception.

best regards,

Bopper.

Even the best models out there will look crap if you don't know how to light the scene you've put together properly. Also it's the little details that can make a scene and that your image will maybe tell a story, these are the things that make it a creative piece.
Sure there are those that buy everything, use the pre made scenes and poses and just render it with none of their own input into it, they're just fooling themselves.

I started to feel bad since DAZ started the inj/rem technique with Victoria 3.I got a lot of morphs with her.When buying new characters for her,in most cases I get an inj-pose file ,that sets the dials for me.I don't like it , because there isn't realy anything new.That might be ok as long it is free stuff ,but I refuse to buy that kind of content.I use to buy custom morphs only.If I did some dial setting for a new character,I couldn't accept it as my own work either.It is just a nice combination of allready existing morphs.Anyway it is hard to declaire Poserstuff as own work among the CG community,because Poser has so much recognizeble content with it.I have some understanding for that , allthough it is not my opinion.If we are just going to use pose injection files then I realy would say: Yes,it is just POSING.

Think of the time it took you to learn Poser/DS, the time it took to learn how to position lighting, get your scene set up right, aim for "realness", learned how to use the render settings and how to use a postworking program.

I think of my 16 year old son who can barely open paint shop pro and add text to a picture.

I think it takes talent, creativity, and lots of practice.

If talent, practice, patience, creativity and skill wasn't involved, then we'd all be creating masterpieces on the first try =)

I've seen some pretty amazing renders put together that make use of not only creativity, seeing outside the box, but skills.  I remember the day I first opened poser... ha..ha ha....I have come so far, not only using 3D programs, but in painting as well.  Everyone has to start somewhere and maybe some don't feel like they do much in the program, so expand your horizons, and do more.  Involve more creativity & personal touches to your work, and make it more than applying a simple pose in poser.

=)

Bonus alternative questions :-

Are writers actually creating anything rather than just putting letters into a particular order ?

Are photographers doing anything more than picking some settings before they point a camera at something and press the shutter release ?

Quote - Bonus alternative questions :-

Are writers actually creating anything rather than just putting letters into a particular order ?

Are photographers doing anything more than picking some settings before they point a camera at something and press the shutter release ?

Gives you a standing ovation

 " Involve more creativity & personal touches to your work, and make it more than applying a simple pose in poser."

Well you can do that only in Images and if you have a paint program...but what if you dont. how can you make it more personal.

what if you're making animations..., the only thing i can think of is making textures( not character textures) for objects and uing that. And actually i do that already. , like a texture of a sketch or something and apply it to a book prop

 Art usually needs a vision of what you want to make.  I use what tools I have to match that vision as best as possible.  As such, I don't get many views in the gallery, but I'm true to my own muse.
I do a lot of my own textures, morphs, own poses and back-grounds. I write my own story to go with what I do, too.  I have my own color schemes, and characters to populate my world that I created.

This is an old question of "What IS CG art?" IMO, what I and many other people do with Poser is art.  I've seen some people use crayons to make art. Poser is harder to use to make art with and make it look good.

Poser is just like any other artistic outlet, and it is what you make of it.

I've used 3+ programs to create 1 image, you use what you got, someone with the same props, poses, etc. could make a completely different image.

I dunno about you lot, but I lovingly hand craft every pixel with tools I made myself from ores I dug out of the ground with my bare hands. I then personally deliver each pixel to the screens of those that wish to see my pictures.....

I put something I modeled into every picture, so...no, not necessarily...;)

Quote - I dunno about you lot, but I lovingly hand craft every pixel with tools I made myself from ores I dug out of the ground with my bare hands. I then personally deliver each pixel to the screens of those that wish to see my pictures.....

LOL!!!!!!

Very nice, lol

 You create the scene don't you?

What you do is not different than what a photographer does.

I make stories. What you want to call them, art, pictures, crap, whatever, I put something into the telling of the story. That's what I contributed. This is the second thread I've seen you start with a question. Are any of the answers suiting your needs or are you just seeing how many people will post (Which is what I actually thought the title of this thread was at first. "Are we just Posting?" Little Dyslexia goin' on here today.

 oh ok guys.  Thanks for your input

I recently started making models but up to press I have always used other people's content for creating my images.  I have, however, made a lot of textures (for sale and my own use) and I mainly make my own poses, lights and skies.

Take a look in my gallery and you'll see my images - even the lousy ones - are definitely original.  I am completely satisfied that they are as creative as if I'd built every single thing from scratch.

To me, Poser is just one of the tools at my disposal which I use to make pictures. 

And yes, I can draw and paint.  My background is in "dirty hands" art and design, so I believe I know my stuff.  If not, I may as well take a gun to my head right now.

Thats how I look at poser, a tool.

my background is also in dirty hands, though I never heard it called that! lol  Makes perfect sense though, my final in 3D design II was making a sculpture out of garbage!

lol

Some people express the view that if you didnt model it, texture it, pose and light it then its not ART.
I sometimes wonder who wrote the shaders they use, and did they build the pc, write the operating system and software etc etc..

I dont call myself an artist, but I suppose that a person who arranges stuff, lights it and makes a picture is actually creating art ( or maybe porn but lets not go there  :) ) I think artist as more the person who can make a picture on a piece of paper with pencils or paint , and I dont do that :(

I choose not to use traditional methods anymore, but I am still an artist, at least I think I am. =)

it doesn't harm us as a group (poser users) if we refer to ourselves as artists, but unfortunately users of expensive 3D modelling programs still consider us as the bottom of the food chain.  the few remaining artists who use oil paints or who do marble sculptures feel the same way about both poser users and 3d modellers, so we're equal in that regard.

Once you start thinking of "Art" instead of "art", you're in deep poo anyhow.  That applies right across every medium, IMO. 

I come from a game design background. I used to spent hours modeling items for games. It cool to see the items you've created come to life, but it takes effort. Spending day and night coding, modeling, rigging, texturing, animating and so on. Not anymore, thanks, don't feel the urge to go back to it. OK, I admit, the income was better, but there was a price to pay as well.

Same goes for my comics...... Poser is much more efficient and faster then I can ever do by hand. I still draw by hand, to keep up the skills and to teach others, but not complete comics anymore.

These days I just want to bring a story across. I could model most of it if I want to, but for the price asked for most of the content, it's not even worth the time doing so. I do consider Poser being at bottom of the food chain. I don't care. I look at others (who used to be like I was) spending hours modeling for their images and I think to myself...... I can do that..... in less time then it took them to render the image. I love that though! I can now imagine a story, an image, an idea and visualize it within a very short time frame and that is so cool. The result is great.

I'm not calling it art or anything, I just call using Poser efficient and fun.

In the time saved, I can now do other things, I never could do before. I create images I could never have created due to lack of time. I can make comics without spending countless hours drawing and redrawing. I can envision an image and create it, the sky is the limit. Thanks to Poser and all the great vendors out there. THANKS GUYS!

This problem troubles even more in regards to using a camera. I have a master's degree in painting and photography but it is so hard for me now to use the camera. I stick to 300K toy cameras mainly. What is mine in a photo... the building, the tree, the nude? I tend to make light effects or photograph patterns I find more and more. Likewise, as a painter what is mine? So much came from the model. I never signed my paintings. For a while despite feeling it was a bit precious I insisted that gallery shows label the work as collaboration listing both me and the model as artist.

Lately I have been feeling bad about how I too have been suduced by "PoserRealism" and high quality Poser content. For years, until I upgraded to Poser 6, I made do with Poser 4, a couple reduced Resolution base figures, lo-res freebies and a hell of a lot of post-work. I think I was more productive then somehow and although Poser 4 work had a distinctive almost primitive look, the stuff by different people was often distinctive and narrative based rather than slick shader based low-end simulation of high end MAX or Maya CGI. I see a lot of joy now in really high quality content, shaders and lighting but maybe less in terms of raw personal vision. I don't know.

Poser and any other "art" production should be about having fun and certainly it is real damn hard to pose and light a figure in Poser but I feel like the best art is done to see what it will look like, to suprise the person making it... maybe this new slick look in Poser takes away from that discovery. Sometimes I wish I could be doing this same work in a platform more like Second Life or Spore so that I was forced to focus more on my /content/ instead of Poser content. I very seriously wish in a way I could go back to Poser 4 but when I try the hassle of single runtime w/out sub-directories is frustrating. I don't know.

Certainly posing and lighting is an accomplishment and some people do it in a way that is utterly breath taking. Whether it is art... whether anything really is "art" I don't know. Maybe doing some work with the base content would be an empowering act of discipline. I used to make my painting students work sometimes with the limited "Goya palette" of colors (black, white, yellow and red ochre) as an act of discipline and so as not to be seduced by high key modern colors. I have been doing exercises in Poser using only the Andy and Andrea manikins to focus on gesture and composition. Maybe some exercises with a restricted selection of content would make you feel better about your work... make a runtime with just a single scene and figure or two and work only with that for a while and see what it forces you to do "artistically".

Wow thats a great suggestion momodot!

Or force yourself to put more into post working like painting, paint in the lighting instead of completely relying on poser itself, if I am going to take a lot of time on a poser/painting I usually don't bother too much setting up in poser and go more for a base render, and take it from there in photoshop with a tablet.

I don't consider myself that great really with poser anyway, and envy those that can really make a beautiful image just from poser itself.  But hey we all have our own talents and are a very diverse bunch! =)

I used to very often post-work Poser scenes from the anti-aliased preview as opposed to an actual render.

I got my stick where is the dead horse?

I once got in an argument with someone on a forum where we had a dead horse and stick emoticon and they thought it was cruel.

eh, its a mad mad world =P

I love poser, I love all kinds of art!

I just read a literary work on here the other day by the artist of the month and I thought it was really awesome.

=)

I don't think it is a dead horse in the case of the OP. It isn't a trolling thread but a discussion of the legit concern of how to deal with the issue of originality when it comes to work with Poser.

Quote - like when i show my parents my stuff for example, a super awesome Office scene( WHICH I BOUGHT) and a character( which i bought) standing inside of that..They go "Wooooow.. you're talented.."

but i didn't really do anything!! hehehe. i just posed it

 There's also the issue of being honest about what in the scene is trully of your work.

When your parents ask you "did you do ALL that by yourself?" Do you anwser "Yes"?

To my mind, the most important question of all was touched upon by both aeilkema amd momodot.

Are you having fun doing this? Yes? That's okay then, don't give a second thought to what you call it, or what anyone else calls it.

Quote - > Quote - like when i show my parents my stuff for example, a super awesome Office scene( WHICH I BOUGHT) and a character( which i bought) standing inside of that..They go "Wooooow.. you're talented.."

but i didn't really do anything!! hehehe. i just posed it

 There's also the issue of being honest about what in the scene is trully of your work.

When your parents ask you "did you do ALL that by yourself?" Do you anwser "Yes"?

Well... "Do" is subjective here.

My hubby is a photographer, but he is hardly God Almighty.-.. he hasn't created anything of what he photographs. Still his pictures are his work - and some of them, I would even call Art.

Whenever I try to explain the concept of Poser to someone who doesn't know squat about 3D, I liken it to a Barbie in a studio where you take a pic of said Barbie. That at least makes the concept understandable for people.

And Poser is like photography. Fashion photography mostly, but other genres may apply as well. Some pics can be likened with a still from a movie. The director doesn't build thing things in his movie either, but he visualises it and makes it come alive. We're both directors and photographers at the same time with Poser, but it's still OUR OWN vision we bring to life, regardless of what the content of the pic may be.

As for whenever something is Art (with or without a capital A) - I would define art as "something that evokes emotions" I may see a stuffed puppy displayed in a museum as "Art" - and HATE it - but the moment I HATE it, it becomes art by my own definition. Not all art is something you like. 

I'm not a photographer. If I take a picture in which the composition, lighting, framing and all that is perfect, it's purely coincidental. A photographer is an artist in my opinion in that they may not "own" what they photographed, but they had the talent and skills to put it all together in a way some of us could not.

In Poser, I have control over lighting, framing, composition and all that. Sometimes, I hit the magic button and sometimes, it's just an amateur photograph. To those who can compose a scene - and there are some extremely talented folks around here who can - they are artists regardless of the content.

And, sometimes, it's what you're doing with it. Take a gander at EClark's Android comic for an example. Some of it is free props, others purchased and maybe he built a few himself. But there's no doubt that the finished comic series is art. Anyone who thinks otherwise is someone with a different opinion!

Well I don't know about dead horse, maybe further discussion could bring about a different perspective?

Me?  Definitely a poser when it comes to 3d.  But I like it!

Quote - > Quote - > Quote - like when i show my parents my stuff for example, a super awesome Office scene( WHICH I BOUGHT) and a character( which i bought) standing inside of that..They go "Wooooow.. you're talented.."

but i didn't really do anything!! hehehe. i just posed it

 There's also the issue of being honest about what in the scene is trully of your work.

When your parents ask you "did you do ALL that by yourself?" Do you anwser "Yes"?

Well... "Do" is subjective here.

My hubby is a photographer, but he is hardly God Almighty.-.. he hasn't created anything of what he photographs. Still his pictures are his work - and some of them, I would even call Art.

Whenever I try to explain the concept of Poser to someone who doesn't know squat about 3D, I liken it to a Barbie in a studio where you take a pic of said Barbie. That at least makes the concept understandable for people.

And Poser is like photography. Fashion photography mostly, but other genres may apply as well. Some pics can be likened with a still from a movie. The director doesn't build thing things in his movie either, but he visualises it and makes it come alive. We're both directors and photographers at the same time with Poser, but it's still OUR OWN vision we bring to life, regardless of what the content of the pic may be.

As for whenever something is Art (with or without a capital A) - I would define art as "something that evokes emotions" I may see a stuffed puppy displayed in a museum as "Art" - and HATE it - but the moment I HATE it, it becomes art by my own definition. Not all art is something you like. 

Well in the case of photographs, everyone knows you are not god and you didn't "create" what's in the picture, but not so in 3D images, the only one who can tell which stuff was made by you and which bought/downloaded is you (or another poser user that can recognize the models).

I tell people in my family (the only people who see my work) what is going on with a render. E.g. "this scene is put together from things I bought or were free from other people, the figure is a standard DAZ figure but I painted the skin texture and I re-did the texture on the hair and clothing by other people" or "this is all stuff made by other people but I posed and lit it".

My kids know the difference between a dial-spun character by someone else, by me with stock morphs, or a character made with my own original morphs. With other people's renders I can usually identify the resources as by such-and-such a vendor even if I have never seen the particular item before and even if it has been modified... most content that is any good is also pretty identifiable.

I think if you are showing to people unfamiliar with the nature of Poser it is best to say something like "this scene is made from 3D models and figures made by other people but I arranged and composed the scene". I think authorship in Poser really is akin to authorship in Photography. Everyone has their owns standards for what constitutes original work... I tend to always tweak things a bit so I feel I made a contribution. Heavy post-work also helps in that regard.

BTW my kids call any CGI they see now as "computer dolls".

Quote - BTW my kids call any CGI they see now as "computer dolls".

Mine do as well and to be honest..... I do also :-)

It's just a technological step up from the Indonesian Shadow Puppet theatre.  You move them around and entertain people. It's as simple as that.  it's an art, and entertaining people is a good thing, because people like it, and the puppeteers love doing it. It's a win/win for everyone. :laugh:

In this world, you can't do better than that!

True.

It's all art - poser is just another tool. Though sometimes I find it quite difficult to explain what we do 3d artists do. Often I'll use these stock replies.

'Dress up barbie' for grownups.
Virtual film studio.
Making dioramas but without plastic models.

*Are photographers doing anything more than picking some settings before they point a camera at something and press the shutter release ?

• Sometimes yes we do, and thats because we sometimes we might want to explore the technical side of photography rather the subject or say the composistion. 

Then once we have that tecchincal understanding we can use that knowledge and apply that to a subject.  

I don;t usually get into these discussions, for one thing I do more content creation that anything else, and most of my renders either fall into the WIP testing or Promo type stuff so I don;t think in terms of ART all that often. However I would like to interject one thought here. In what way is Posing, Lighting and Rendering  a model in Poser all that different than Posing, Lighting and Photographing a model? Yet Photography is concidered Art even to the point of having whole coursed build around it.

The bottom line IMO is that ART is in the act of creation and yes you are creating something wheither you use all premade components or not, after all a cook doesn;t make all of the ingredients in a meal, nor a baker all of the ingredients of a cake, but those ingredients do not automatically fall together to create something that tastes good.

Enjoy what you do, and if others (even a few) enjoy the results, feel happy!

 You know LostinSpaceman, reminds me of the very reason I bought Poser 2 all those years ago. I needed to tell or illustrate a story I had written. I created and wrote the story, then I sat down and figured out how to tell the same story using the figures and props I bought to use in Poser. Is this being creative?

You tell me: Android the Graphic novel

Nice view, Letterworks.  I also think art is about the process even more than the tools.  It's an expression of the personality, emotion, and life-experiences of the artist.  Whenever I look at someone's gallery, it tells me so much about the person who created it...and isn't that what 'art' is really meant to do anyway.

Photographers are a great example, but so are directors and producers.. those involved in 'making'  a movie.  If you really break it down, it's just a select group of a few guys/gals putting together other people's work into something that the audience can hopefully enjoy.  Same goes with actors...again a bunch of people who read someone else's script and take someone else direction, etc...and they're all praised for their efforts and given awards for being the finest 'artists in their field'. 

For me, that's not too different from what poser, vue, or other 3d artists do..whether they make their own content or not. It's not just about the posing of a V4 or placement of a few props alone, but the entire composition..the combining of elements that expresses who 'you' are.

my two cents....

we're conflating two different things:  is this art (which the OP didn't ask) and is it our own creation?

is it art?  sure, it's art.  art is everything from kindergarteners' fingerpaintings to adolescent boys copying manga babes to painters using oils to capture the pose of a model to sculptors creating abstract metal structures.  it's just not necessarily very original, effective, or quality art.  as hobbyists, we don't need to make great works, or even good ones.  if it makes someone happy to churn out studio shots of the most popular content, then that's great.  happiness can be hard to find, and if someone can achieve it by clicking a few buttons, that's just wonderful.

sure you can assemble things in a way that takes artistry and skill, but it's a lot harder to put originality into something assembled.  most people who use prebuilt content don't want to take that time.  using the photographer as an example, i can take 5 minutes to make a sketch totally identifiable as my work (to anyone familiar with my drawings), and i haven't had a formal class in years.  most people could, even if they had almost no drawing skill, because they'd all be uniquely off.  but it takes a serious amount of training and a huge amount of innate talent to start making photos that are professional, let alone individual and unique.

it's much harder to be original with Poser than it is either painting something from scratch in Photoshop (or Painter, or Paint Shop Pro, or GIMP, etc.) or building it from scratch in a 3d app.  even when we want to be original, we're affected by how the product we're using was promoted, and how others are using it.  and all of CG is affected by market forces and genre tropes.

originality plays into how much something is your creation.  is what you added the point of the final result?  or is the point of the final result how hot the V4 character you just purchased is?  if it's mostly the latter, then it's less your work than the creator of the character. 

sure a photographer is the only one to consider when there's no or little art involved in the creation of the subjects.  that is, intentional design (not nature shots).   but when the photo is of a model where a make-up and hair stylist spent 3 hours, a clothing designer spent months, and the model herself is using her own art to make the photos look great, then it's not just the photographer's work.  it's a collaboration.  saying it's one person's creation would be like saying movies only belong to the director.  conversely, it doesn't take anything away from the director to say that everyone from the best boy to the director of photography contributed to the movie.

so, personally, i'd say most Poser work isn't a single person's creation, in general.  it's a collaborative effort.  and how much is the artist who hits render and how much is others depends very much on what that artist wants to put into their work.  and i think there's enough room on this site for the people who just want enough of themselves to say "hi! here's what i think is hot!" and those who want to direct epic narratives like JOELGLAINE.  there's no need for the former to justify their work as "high" art, and no need for the latter to simplify their work to make it more popular.  the lovely thing about this site is that we don't even have to follow our own requirements if we don't want to that day.  we can create what we feel like creating and enjoy it for what it is, not compare it to what it isn't.

that said, we're still all hobbiests.  so i don't think it's realistic to expect everyone to have comprehensive credits everywhere all the time.   but it's nice to think that we're all grateful for what the community has given us, and that we all try to do our bit to give back.  even if it's only in small ways.

Interesting. Sounds right to me.

 I "direct epic narratives"? YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY for me! Wheeeeeeeeeeee!

Sorry, I'm easily amused! .:laugh:  I didn't know my stories struck anyone as 'epic'.  Sorry for going off-topic.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!:lol: Made MY day.

I think you can create in Poser using other people's products. Consider Hollywood's film director: he uses myriads of people and products: set decorators, dress designers, lighting cameramen, sound designers, etc, etc... and nobody ever says that Spielberg, or Kubrick, is not creative. It is the way those props and people are used that makes the difference.

Quote - I think you can create in Poser using other people's products. Consider Hollywood's film director: he uses myriads of people and products: set decorators, dress designers, lighting cameramen, sound designers, etc, etc... and nobody ever says that Spielberg, or Kubrick, is not creative. It is the way those props and people are used that makes the difference.

Unless he also wrote the screenplay, the movie is also a director's interpretation of the writer's story.