For those of you who just want a fun idea, scroll down to the line break "------------------------"

I was going through my gallery, disappointed by the lack of response to my latest render, looking at my body of work for answers...why am I never in the "Art Charts"?...why do my favorites go by the wayside when my less-than-stellar works pile up praise? 

One by one, as I went through my older images, I realized...I must've been on crack (If crack is, in fact, bad monitor calibration.)

It seems that my older stuff is super-contrasted, under-gamma-ed, hyper saturated garbage, at least how it looks on my new system with new video card and monitors.  Some of my images, I can't even bloody see!

So, I suppose the question is...is my newer stuff on-the-level or am I now living in a delusional world of the opposite problem?

Are people seeing my new stuff as way too bright, washed out and/or over-processed visual gibberish?  Or maybe (I can't imagine) it's still too dark to other people?  Or have I finally found the sweet spot?

Any comments anyone can take the time to add would really help if it addresses these questions.  I don't mean to cry for attention, really, it just came to my attention that I either had a problem, or perhaps still have one.

And now a fun idea:

Seeing my earlier work ruined by misguided monitor/card calibration it got me to thinking:

What if we all took one of our "Babies" from back in the day and totally re-did it?  Maybe even do it as a contest?  We could see the before and after, and how better models, better software and all around better experience has changed our work. 

Maybe we could even get a consensus which render our "Fans" would like us to re-do, rather than pick our own.  Might be more fun to please the masses and see what people really like.

What do you think?

I dont think its a bad idea overall, but my thoughts are guided more towards the "what have i learnt since way back then" and see the improvement of the "when i first started with poser" to the "2 years later with poser" kind of thing.

not sure if i make sense .... ?

I'm not sure what you're saying there, so let me rephrase my idea:

We've all got a few (maybe even more) images in our galleries that were great ideas, maybe even heaped with praise at the time, but when viewed now, leave one feeling a bit embarassed.  The older the better.

So we take that image, and re-create it with all the newest toys at our disposal.  We re-execute the original idea and post it for all to compare.

If a contest, I suppose we vote in some way which is the best image which has most improved.

Or if not a contest, we all just enjoy the juxtapositions and give commentary.

I didnt think it was that hard to understand ...

i know where your coming from .... but i wasnt thinking new toys etc... i was more leaning towards the "what have i learnt since then" kind of thing.

because new toys dont make an image, but the member's creativity and experience does.

its not the "technology" that makes an image and it can be the best image in the world but it might not get that many comments.

Well, now we're just into semantics, because sometimes you need the latest-greatest to express the things you've learned...further, you often don't have anything to learn without updates, new rigging, etc.  I mean, the difference between Poser 4 and Now is HUGE, and that's new toys.  Agreed?

Agreed

but .... if you do images for the responses then you aren't doing it for the right reasons - i mean artists post work here wanting to get pure feedback on how they can improve etc, see their work thru someone elses eyes, and see the faults and what they can improve upon .... but all you get is "oh thats a lovely image or awesome work" ....

You dont get the feedback, some members are fine by that, others tend not to be.

Me, i want feedback on my work, but do i get it? No I dont, and its rare that one member will come along and say hey you know you can remove this by doing this and this? and i've just learnt something new to add to my work flow.

Attached Link: This is My VERY FIRST upload to Renderosity

Quote - Agreed

but .... if you do images for the responses then you aren't doing it for the right reasons - i mean artists post work here wanting to get pure feedback on how they can improve etc, see their work thru someone elses eyes, and see the faults and what they can improve upon .... but all you get is "oh thats a lovely image or awesome work" ....

You dont get the feedback, some members are fine by that, others tend not to be.

Me, i want feedback on my work, but do i get it? No I dont, and its rare that one member will come along and say hey you know you can remove this by doing this and this? and i've just learnt something new to add to my work flow.

It seems that the ONLY way to get  comment on your work is by spending large amounts of time looking and commenting on the work of others..  i.e. You scratch My back and I scratch Yours...

Only recently I stopped commenting on other contributors work (due to an ever increasing lack of time)  The looks at My work has dropped by more than 70% yet the comments seem only to drop by around 50%

If One includes NUDITY in an upload the number of looks almost quadruples,  but with no increase of comment..   People do not have time to give a critique (and I am sure there are many who would not want to)..  I have been told elsewhere   "Go to an Art Class"..  So now I am just posting and appreciating whatever comes My way....

I agree only a bit of what your saying regarding the "i scratch your back thing" i dont have alot of time myself to comment on other people's images, i do it when i do my gallery patrol and only if something catches my eye - i get about the same amount of comments on my work and thats without commenting on others .... i appreciate that they take the time to do so.

Now i will admit that if i come across an image by my fav artist and i dont find it appealing in any way then i wont say anything at all .....

Quote - further, you often don't have anything to learn without updates, new rigging, etc.  I mean, the difference between Poser 4 and Now is HUGE, and that's new toys.  Agreed?

A few years ago, there was a thread where everybody was posting their first Poser image and their newest to constrast what they learned over the years. While I agree that Poser 4 and current versions are worlds apart in terms of capability and realism, the biggest change I saw in most people's works was an increase in artistry. Their work was better less because of better software than that they got better at composing images and posing figures. The years of using Poser improved everybody's artistic sensibilities.

Older images had the straight on camera angle that is the Poser default. Poses were stiff and lifeless or downright physically impossible to replicate in real life. Faces were emotionless defaults. A lot of early work was outright awful. The newer images were more dynamic with interesting camera angles, more fluid poses, and expressions in the faces of the characters.

It takes time and practice to improve. The newer versions of Poser allow much better work to be created entirely within Poser. If the artist hasn't got a lot of earlier artistic experience, the end result is still going to be bad.

Here's an example of an early Poser/Bryce image created by Martin Murphy. It stands up well to things that can be done in Poser 8. Had Martin been using Poser 8, he would have had to do less postwork and would have had access to more existing props that would not have had to be created in other modeling programs. The dress would still have required postwork to have the specific flowing characteristics that are in the final image. There is only so much that can be done with the literalness of 3D work.
http://www.artsforge.com/martin/queen.html
In the end, better tools only facilitate creating better images if the artist has the skill to get there. Without the artistic skill, the better tools are just helping people create better looking garbage.

I'm not sure how many people will want to revisit earlier works. In my own case, I tend to want to do more new images than want to fix old ones. As is, so much of my time has been devoted to other interests that I'm not even getting new artwork done. Other people may want to try this.
 

Noel, first of all, thanks for going with the idea.

I think the background in the newer image is better, but the character's expression is less maniacal and more sad for some reason, which (if not intentional) is confusing. 

 This is a great idea, but I am still only relatively new to Poser, so for me to recreate my work would be like James cameron recreating avatar lol Just kidding. 
William_the_bloody, my renders always get such little critic and comments. This annoys me too, as other ppl's artwork soars in the charts. I know my art may not be as imaginative as those but c'mon they deserve more than 1 comment, right? 
I noticed the only artwork that get alot of comments are that of half clad women...typical lol My male renders on average get only 1 comment...period. Whereas my femle renders get about 5-7 comments. ahhhh......

Yeah, that's about typical (though I can't speak for the male/female difference lol)

I've pretty much given up on the charts, that is, until you get a render that's really above and beyond then you start to wonder again.

I'm really paranoid about this gamma/contrast/saturation thing now!  I can't believe what some of my older images look like.  I must've had my monitor's settings turned to 11 in the past.  I can't believe someone saw that on their (presumably) correctly calibrated display setup and said "Great!"

When you looked at my latest image, was it "too" anything regarding these issues?

I've never bothered with the Art Charts (I actually just set the Galleries [or leave them unset] and look at everything.

I have the opposite problem; everything I did back in the day was washed out and dull, since I was importing everything into Bryce (not that that's a bad thing, but I still haven't mastered texturing...;)

It's painful to go through the early stuff; but if I start redoing one, before I know it, I'll start redoing everything...;)

Monitor calibration sure is a pain. Even if you do manage to get your own setup "right" there's no telling how it's actually going to look on other people's screens. You can spend ages trying to get the mood/color balance in an image just right only to find it doesn't work at all when viewed on another machine. Just have to barrel thru I guess - unless ICC profiles are going to be made mandatory for all monitors/printers/TVs :) 

And boy! Do I ever revisit old stuff! Everything right is wrong again as TMBG once said.

I guess I should just, at the very least, run everything through the wife's PC before I post.  She's got two different monitors so that should give me a good idea.

 I love your latest image! Unique yet cosy! I left a comment for you ; )

Yes, thank you!  Yet, I am still in the dark about how it reads in regards to brightness/contrast/saturation/gamma.

Allow me to restate:  I used to have two crt 21" monitors, each had a variation on how images displayed on them, inspite of endless calibration attempts and tweaks to try to get them to match.  ONe montior, washed out and over-bright.  The other, what I'd call "correct". 

Anyway, MANY images I made on that system that are in my gallery now look waaaaaaay too dark and in some cases, the contrast is totally blown out.  At the time I made them, though, I thought they were "correct:"

Nowadays, I think my new images look "Correct" but why should I trust my opinion?  Afterall, I'm the same guy who thought the old stuff was "Correct" when I posted them.

So, now that I'm on twin LCDs can I be sure that what I'm seeing is at least 90% approximation of what you're seeing?

Because If my newer stuff, which I think is great is in reality blown out, too bright, too dark or whatever then I need to fix THAT before I do anything else, you know?

Now, you'd think someone would tell me if that was the case, but they didn't back then so why would they now?

So I'm saying I'm specifically requesting commentary in regards to Brightness, contrast, gamma, exposure...things of that nature.

I'm not looking for the usual...this is specific.

 I've been thinking the exact same thing lately.  I  have two very old monitors, one that's quite brighter then the other and I´m always wondering which one is "the right one".  I usually display my images on both monitors before saving a final.  I think there however a way to adjust and proof your levels in an image in Photoshop, although I have no idea how to do this.

As for the idea.  I actually had the exact same idea on another thread recently and I think it´s a good one.

The other thread is here:
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2797325&page=1

bill, whilst I didn't read all of the above, I looked at yer gallery (page 1) and it's pretty good IMVHO.
my fave was the nudie pic of the girl on the purple shape.  maybe it's too soon to get alotta cmnts
on latest img, given their database probs and some possible name server troubles.

Thanks Nancy, but again, I ask specifically, are the images too dark, too bright, too gamma, too saturated etc.  I am MOST concerned about these issues, due to past errors that have come to light.

Quote - Noel, first of all, thanks for going with the idea.

I think the background in the newer image is better, but the character's expression is less maniacal and more sad for some reason, which (if not intentional) is confusing. 

What I did was to study the original for a few minutes and then work on the new one from memory.
I suppose that is  not truly representative of what You are suggesting,  but there it is.   It was also an interesting exercise to see what would happen regarding comment and viewing.   At the time of posting the second image,   the first had 96 views and 4 comments.. (now 120 and 5)

The second image has in excess of 130 views and 35 comments.  I suppose this is because of building a viewer base over the past four years..

 Having finally gone to your gallery and given a (very) cursory view,..     I personally feel that maybe you are a bit hard on yourself..   Or maybe My monitor is also out of whack..!

Only "Gothic Bliss"  and "Watching TV"  seem dark.  IMVHO..!

Okay, good, those I did identify as the worst, so at least we two seem calibrated about the same...though many don't "Pop" like I thought they did. 

Quote - Okay, good, those I did identify as the worst, so at least we two seem calibrated about the same...though many don't "Pop" like I thought they did. 

Put it down to  ""Atmosphere..!!""

Many of The artists (computer artists anyway.)  go back to look and they usually make comments like "Oh dear,,  did I really think that was the greatest thing since sex...   What was I thinking..!!!?"

@William_the_Bloody - Great Gallery! Like NoelCan, I think you might be being a bit hard on yourself.  I wouldn't have known there was anything wrong, or that you didn't intend the images to be darker if you hadn't said anything. They are still very clear and well done. Monitor callibration can really mess things up. I have a dark image in my galllery that I did on a new laptop. I didn't realize it was so dark until I looked at it from another computer.

Regarding gallery comments - I'm always very happy with any comments I get. I don't expect any, so I'm never dissapointed! I also don't have a lot of time to spend making comments on other images, so I just don't expect any on mine. I have the same feeling about views as well. I'm always amazed that people find my images interesting enought to look at!

The nudity vs views thing is quite interesting, but in my rather limited experience/gallery, it's not quite 4X to 1. I have two images that are virtually identical except for nudity, and the one with nudity only has about 120 more views. If interested, see links below - warning they are rendered in Carrara - not Poser :-)
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1832144
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1835691

Re-visiting old renders is a great idea. A couple of years ago I re-did an earlier render (if rendering in Carrara is OK for this thread). I liked the idea of my original render, but always wanted to try it again. So I took the same idea/props and used V4 instead of V3. I think the second image came out better - but your opinion may be different. If your interested the lnks are below (nudity).
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1150982
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1792677

I've never been worth a darn with lighting in Poser - but when I got PP 2010 I promised myself I'd finally produce a decent image in Poser. When I'm done with it, I'll try to find the pz3 to one of my Poser images and redo it with PP 2010 - I'm sure it will be much better!

Oh - I almost forgot. My favorite image in your gallery is WTF? It's just got that little something extra in it that really grabbed my attention.

Thanks!  Testing the Water is great!  Carrara does the background stuff ala vue or bryce?  I think perhaps her face is a little dark for the lighting?

As for the old vs newer render the newer is definately better.  you can really see a fuller realization of idea to screen.

will, carrara does trees and landscapes, and it has some GI features that haven't been enabled
in the current poser version yet.  yer gallery imgs looked brite enuff to me (1.8 gamma).
but it's easy to get more comments - the more ya give, the more ya get.  quantity, not quality.
it's beyond good or bad. it's a social network thing.

i had a 28 inch monitor that had horrible horrible color. AND I hadn't heard of gamma correctoion. Most of my works from my beginning 2 years ago are worthless as is. Only 1 of my images (of 1 of my sons playing paintball) was even worth gamma correcting and posting, which I did a few days ago. Franky however I am still hesitant to post even my newer work because I am still basicly a technician not an artist. I have been treated gently here so I will occasionally post something my local critics seem to like.
Actually truth be told, I only post here so honest people can tell me what I did wrong, or how to make it better, something I can never find locally

William_the_Bloody - Thanks! Yea, her face is little dark - I got impatient, and should have raised the intensity of the spot light a bit more (forgot to in the second image as well - opps). The renders took about 16 hours each on a quadcore machine as I recall. The "base" lighting is a light dome because C7 had a tendancy to choke with true GI and this scene (32 bit memory limit issues). The 64bit version of the C8 beta seems to have solved this.

Like Miss Nancy said, Carrara does do landscapes and trees (and grass using the hair or replicated vertex objects). I does landscape work quite well now, it's getting closer to Vue. I'm biased because I started using Carrara to render Poser content with Version 3, but I think it does have better/more lighting options than Poser - though PoserPro 2010 is quite nice!  I just finished/posted an image done in 2010 - it sure beats the quality of my last Poser render!
 

I've actually had the same idea - dredging up old pz3s and re-working them with all the stuff I've learned from this forum (particularly Bagginsbill) but that would mean having to play with V3 again, and she's been retired for some time now, poor girl.
But I do agree with you on the "sheesh, I thought this was good??? what the heck was I thinking" Noel... :biggrin:

I have reworked and reposted some of my old stuff from time to time.  There are still a few I want to work on.

As for the old ones I posted, they were probably the best I could do at the time so I'll let them stay. 

Quote - As for the old ones I posted, they were probably the best I could do at the time so I'll let them stay. 

Excellent point... I agree with you, Sam... it truly IS a good idea to leave older stuff in your gallery - much as it might create the odd blush of embarrassment - just so people (and you yourself) can see where you've traveled from.

The first pic is of Space 1999's Meta Probe, done way back in the trueSpace 3 days.
It was faithful to the original studio model, which wasn't very detailed.

That's nice work.  I was never a fan of S1999 but the model is grand. 

Thanks. :) I liked the series, but it's premise WAS flawed, as any explosion powerful enough
to move the moon, would have blown it to bits. Heh. :) Over on the Sci-Fi Meshes forums,
someone is doing a modern version of an Eagle. It looks VERY impressive so far. ^_-

Eric

Quote - Thanks. :) I liked the series, but it's premise WAS flawed, as any explosion powerful enough
to move the moon, would have blown it to bits. Heh. :)

Not to mention what would happen to Earth without the Moon's influence but I was a fan none the less.

William_the_Bloody,  I agree with everyone else, your gallery is wonderful and you are your own worse critic! That or MY moniter is as "screwed up" as yours-LOL!

You must have been reading my mind though as I have dug up and dusted off some "old" characters (V1-V2) and have been working with them. I am almost done with one render although I'm not going to post it here in this thread as it is a dedication to someone here and I'd hate to spoil it.

I CAN tell you you may be fantastically impressed when you play with your old characters or even pz3's- heck I almost fell out of my chair when I rendered this last character as I hadn't used her since about 2003! I loved tthe texture I had chosen for her, but it never seemed quite "right" to me. Suffice it to say it does now --hense the dedication.

If you get some support for dusting off older stuff and posting it I'm up for it. Heck, perhaps after I'm done with this render I'll do it anyways, just for fun.

Thanks for this thread.

"edited because I can't spell my way out of a wet paper bag today"

I was thinking of not using old characters, but replacing old V2 etc with V4 and the old crappy cartoony chair, for example, with some ultra-real thing on and on.  Basically, keep the theme or idea and just totally re-do it.  Going through my gallery, I really didn't see anything old that I wanted to redo, so I've sort of crapped out on my own idea.

You would be amazed just how good your "crappy old chair" and older characters can look if you pull them up in your new software and use displacement and AO, etc. Even just turning on  IBL  can have an amazing effect on something that you feel is just "so-so" and turn it into something head-turning.

Your idea IS a good one, don't crap out on it!

Well, a big part of that is 3 total-loss hard drive crashes over the years coupled with I don't save my pz3's lol.  I probably don't have the crappy couch anymore, and my custom V-previouses are gone with the wind.