do you know why people dislike poser? because theyre threatened by it... all of a sudden all of these 'great artists' who work in traditional mediums are having some of their limelight stolen by people who work in 3D, and mainly poser. they think all poser art is somehow 'easier' and requires much less talent than 'real' artwork. its a LOT harder posing a poser figure, and lighting a poser scene, than it is a photograph. thats speaking nothing of actually texturing the characters and environment yourself - that brings the workload to more than that of an average painting. like i said, its just fear... fear that the art world is opening up to so many new people with programs like poser. and poser does do that - it bridges the gap, and allows people who arent that great at some aspects of painting to create solid work. i have friends who were creative geniuses - they had such wicked imaginations, but try as they might they just couldnt get their anatomy right, or their perspective, lighting, whatever. a program also allows people to focus on their strengths without getting bogged down with their weaknesses, bogged down so much that they give up on art. honestly, when i paint an oil painting (as do most people), i usually go by either a live model or a photo reference - wether its one taken for the image, or an old photograph or a magazine clipping. few people actually paint images directly from their imaginations.... so why does painting with a poser figure as a reference instead of a photo automatically exclude you from the world of 'real artists'? not everyone can afford or have access to a suitable live model and photographic equipment, studio, or the proper environment to a scene. i think poser is great. i also think that, given the opportunity, a true unbiased artist would jump at a chance to use any type of medium to their advantage. you think that leonardo davinci would have hesitated to fire up his PC and render some images with vicky and mike if he had the chance? the man was a revolutionary artist - experimenting with everything from artistic mediums to the physics of flight and military engineering. im sure he would use every tool available to him, even if it were only to help visualize a canvas. ...and this is where the other end of the spectrum - the 'poser purists', piss me off. wtf? i constantly have people flaming my poser images that ive post-edited or painted over in photoshop, saying that theyre somehow 'cheating' - that its not a poser render and doesnt belong in a poser gallery. that i have 'no right' to be posting them there, because ive used other programs in addition to poser. lol. dont get me wrong, in the rare instance that i do get a poser render that has no blemishes or flaws, i wont hesitate to post it as is. but most of the time, when i see joint errors, jaggy shadows, clipping errors or just a general 'need' for highlighting and deepening of shadow, ill pop the image into photoshop and fix it up to my liking. id have to be insane to say 'im not going to fix that glaring joint problem because that would disqualify me from the exclusive world of TRUE poser artists'. its a pretty fucked up world out there. on the one hand you have the poser bashers, bitching about poser being for 'n00bs'. on the other, you have the poser purists bitching that using other programs to touch up poser renders 'disqualifies' you. people will always bitch about something, you can never please anyone, so dont even bother trying. just do your own thing and ignore all the angst-ridden little prepubescent punks who will try all they can to push your buttons... if you ignore them theyll go back under their little bridges. /end rant cheerio, -gabriel

EXCEllenr post black i too was afraid of poser and etc then i finally listened now i love it and bryce im glad i have more avenues now poser is just as much a pain as bryce is sometimes as far as postwork goes poser is even harder where post work is concerned IMHO

grrr excellent

I agree with what you said above. I tried working with traditional media, but never became adept at it. Computer graphics allow me to actualize my creative vision. Poser is the center of my 3D universe right now and I haven't even begun to realize it's potential. As to the people who don't think Poser is art, we've debated this in other threads. I think that the bottom line is art is whatever an artist says it is, but no two people are going to agree about what qualifies as a good pic. Post processing a Poser image is just using another digital tool. My question is why would a person not tweak their images in an editing program? If one wants the best results, one has to use more than one tool. It's rare that I get a perfect render, so why not fix the flaws that Poser can't?

I couldn't agree more with all aspects there. Tho I have to admit I could never fathom anyone ridiculing one of your images in anyway...just doesn't seem possible.

I agree, excellent post. I've always found it funny that many of the people screaming about how post-work is cheating are the same people who also don't know how to do post-work well. "I can't do it, so it's cheating". ;) I'm working on a new image that looks to be a fairly simple pin-up scene, but it's taken me over a week just to position everything properly and light the scene well. Contrary to what some say, you just don't plunk everything down in a scene, render, and enjoy. Again, very good thoughts here. Thanks for posting, take care. SnowS Hoping his pictures are worth 1001 words. 1001 Words

Well.... I agree with Gabe 100% & want to add this : If 3d art isn't real art... then why the hell are the Video Game companies like Raven, ID Software, Infrogrames, etc, paying there Character & scene renders more money than most stock brokers make ?? Why do those Company Execs own Leer jets & travel more than they are in the office ?? Own 10 million dollar homes ?? Evidently... they are doing something right. Art is about creativity... & utilizing EVERYTHING @ your disposal... IMO. Am I an artist ?? Yes Can I paint on Canvas ?? errr Not a chance My opinion. Thomas

I don't think postwork is cheating at all. For some things poser is great to get the initial set-up for a picture and then the artist can flesh out the details. I just don't do it because in animation it is too hard. I wish people would quit complaining about "what a real artist is" because as far as I know there is no clear cut definition. Just enjoy what people do and move on. Good post Black. Marque

exactly art and beauty are the most subjective things on earth... im just sick of people constantly trying to shove their definitions of them down my throat. pfft..

Amen I used to join artists' groups and exhibit with them, locally. Since I painted mostly in Acrylics, in a realistic, very detailed style, and framed my work as carefully as I'd painted it, I was snickered at by the majority of the other artists. It seems that putting up a dirty piece of cardboard with thumbtacks and scrawling an obscenity across it in DayGlo paints is "real" art. The cafe where I had many large one-woman shows was a fascinating place to observe human nature. For the price of a cup of coffee, I could anonymously listen in on the viewers' comments (for better or worse!). But you know, for every table of black-clad, self-described 'intelligentsia' who found my work 'superficial' and 'technically showy' there was a person who came in several times a week to just sit near a favorite painting and lose themselves in it for an hour. And the remarks of the self-described 'real' artists stung a lot less when I remembered those folks. The purpose of art is communication. There will always be those who are too insecure or too lazy to attempt that most difficult of human skills. They are the ones most anxious to denigrate other artists' efforts and the ones most threatened by careful workmanship. And they are not the reason I keep on keepin' on.......!

Ackk! I'm not a "real artist". But I read this anyway. Now I'm Blind!!!!! ;-) People have problems. Just the way it is. Scrape em' off. ;-) ScottA

Well said, Blackhearted. I really don't see what the issues are... Since when did we start evaluating the validity of art, or the artform, by the tools we use? You raise lots of valid points. :o) Cheers! - M

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=266913

Well said, Gabe. I totally agree. Seen this yet?

some people would argue that Poser users are n00bs coz a lot of them just use watever they can buy/dload instead of modelling it themselves... i don't agree with the view but it is understandable... model and texture from here, pose and lighting from there, position them all in Poser, change it a bit with the dialers and hit render... that's how some people see Poser users... now i can understand people buying/dloading models/textures off the net since not everyone can afford to buy a bunch of softwares just for this purpose, but poses and lighting?!?! it's as simple as trial and error... just my 2 cents...

well, you could look at that from another perspective poser allows you to create as much or as little of the final painting from the ground up as you want. you could model the model, props, texture them, light them, pose them, paint over them, etc. but again some people have difficulty with certain aspects of the image, and they can use pregenerated ones. i discourage using COMPLETELY pregenerated stuff - like poses, and props, and lights, and texes, and models, etc.... but people who do that will eventually move on to creating more and more of the final work. at what point a 'renderer' becomes an 'artist' i dont know, nor is it my place to judge. but as cryptopooka said, how many painters do you know that have created their subject - their model - from the ground up? i doubt there are any. so why is it so different to pose a virtual model and light it? why does it automatically 'disqualify' you from being a 'real artist'? pfft..

But it's the final image that matters----does it speak to the viewer? How the artist assembled the components is, to me, important mostly to the artist, not the people the work was intended for........ Photographer Galen Rowell didn't make the rainbow that formed in the skies over the Dalai Lama's Palace, but he did race through cold, wet fields, dropping equipment as he ran, to position the rainbow exactly, precisely where the final image would make people gasp when they saw it. That's art.

Blackhearted a very enlightened analigy....I agree....art is art.....can't be much simpler then that. Sharen

Great post, though as a Silver Halide addict I must point out one thing: In all photography that isn't still-life or model-based, timing is literally everything... if you miss the moment, you can't bring it back. If you think you have it but discover that once the negatives come back you horked the lighting, shutter, apeture, etc..., you cannot go back and re-create it. Even the best digital cameras only allow a very small extension of that window of opportunity with it's instant preview function. No matter what, once the moment is over, that's it. I find that even in landscape photography, the perfect moments are fleeting. Things like weather, other people inadvertantly walking into the frame, the shifting of light caused by the sun's own movement... these things require that if you get a perfect photographic moment, you seize it, period, and if you fuck it up, then too bad for you. As a purely technical example (well, a gruesome one to boot), consider the WTC attack on 9/11/01 - the photographers that best captured the moment wound up in the top print magazines. There's no way in Hell you'd ever want to even wish for a do-over session on that one... OTOH, I love Poser art (yes dammit, ART) because if I hose-up a render, I can go back and do it over, and over, and over... tweaking it until I get it just the way I want it. At roughly $300 to $500US an hour, you try getting a nude model to assume often unbalanced and difficult positions, then freeze while you tweak lighting, backdrops, etc... and if you're doing it outdoors? LOL! I've seen a buddy try and pull that off for a local advert - even in the woods, there's a damned crowd that eventually forms and distracts, and even the kindest model (clothed, duh...) tends to get real cranky after repeating the same positions over and over again. Patricia - I know from whence you speak - I gained one hell of a nasty scrape on my knee whilst racing up a real steep hill to catch the lake sunset photo I eventually used in one of my banner ads :) Oh no... CG art is MUCH much easier. :)

People who look down on the use of poses and lighting come off as just as snobish. have I used stock poses? yes on occasion, but never unmodified. sometimes I see something close to what I want and find no need to spend all the time doing it all again, better just to use a stock pose and modify it to fit the figure in My mind, seldom can it be even remotly recognizable as the original Pose. How about we don't put qualifiers on our non-snobishness.

1.If the last thousand years or so of art history proves anything, it's that humans are just as likely to make banal, sentimental, intellectually empty, clichridden crap with a pencil or paintbrush or chisel as they are with 3D/CG. Technical mastery of any medium is no guarantee of aesthetic success. 2.All new creative technology is, at first, dismissed by those with vested interests in more established media--I know painters who still think of photography as cheating: a lesser art (grew up with one, actually). 3.Just as art is not about mere technical prowess, neither is it "whatever the artist says it is." If you're all about rendering a few images for fun, that's fine--doesn't make you an artist, though--which is also fine. Art-making requires ambition, imagination AND the ability to use your medium to its best possible effect. If you're not pushing the envelope in some way, you're not really making art.

Not one single person on the face of this planet can define art for everyone else. It's the individual's opinion. Everyone's views are different. That's the way of human nature. To insult something that just looks 'too easy', when in fact most of the time, the ones complaining or downing the medium can't do it. Period. They just can't do it, so it's not good enough. Sorry, but that's crap. If I've seen someone that can take a pencil and make a spectacular drawing from scratch, whether it be on a napkin or cardboard box, I think it's awesome. I can draw, but there are more people out there that put me to complete shame when it comes to that artform. Do I look down on it? Absolutely not. I find it admirable. So why is it that people think that Poser is 'too easy'? Maybe it's those that have never -really- tried it or they have and just can't do it as well as others. "I can't do it, so it sucks, so I have to make it look bad by saying this and this." That's crap, too. When I first came across this site, I was in awe. Some of the stuff here, mostly the Poser art, blew my mind. I wanted to do it, so I began. Do you have a CLUE how long it took me to learn to pose a figure properly? I don't even know myself, but I can tell you it wasn't just me sitting behind the screen, turn a couple of dials and there she was, all beautiful. Oh no. Posette looked like something out of a horror movie. She looked twisted and distorted. Okay, so if all you have to do is render Vicki and you're done, and you call that art, this is what you'd get. Vicki with brown blocks on her forehead as eyebrows, orange skin (poser default lighting), with absolutely no shape whatsoever. Oh, and she'd be standing there with her arms out to her sides like she was about to fly away. She would always have dead blue, lifeless eyes, no expression, and she would always be standing in a grey background. Sure, if you opened it up, and pushed render, there is what you'd have. Not to mention it'd be pixeled to all hell too, since you didn't do anything with the render quality. I'm sorry. It takes a certain amount of talent to use it, and then.. postwork. Postwork, to me, is a seperate form of art entirely, simply because I've had renders come out that looked okay without it, but looked amazing -with- it. I, myself, would rather put out something that at least one person considers 'spectacular' than have a thousand people say it was 'average'. And that one person is me. I do it for myself. Postwork can do that. So I guess what I'm saying here, in the long way, is that what I consider art may not be considered art by others. Well, I'm not doing it for anyone else. I'm doing it for me. Just because a person doesn't use the program, or hates the program, doesn't give them any more right to say it sucks, or the people who use it sucks than anything else. I've seen paintings sell for thousands upon thousands of dollars, and all it was was a stripe down the middle of a blank canvas. Or a dot in the corner. It's still art.

"At roughly $300 to $500US an hour, you try getting a nude model to assume often unbalanced and difficult positions," For $500, that's the least I'd expect. But seriously, what are we talking about here? Artist's models usually make more like $10-20 an hour.

Wdupre, that's exactly what I do too, and what I assumed the purpose was of sharing poses and lighting. Not to use them directly but to use them as a starting point. Proper lighting and poses are two essential elements to creating a strong and effective Poser image, and it shouldn't matter how they're created. Out of the thousands of members here, I can count the number of them who can create exciting and powerful action scenes on one hand. Great posing isn't quite as easy as people think. :) SnowS

Crasher-- I think the point some have made is that if you spend $300 on the software and another $50 or so on aftermarket stuff like textures (w/ mat files, of course), poses and light setups, you can make a perfectly acceptable render in about fifteen minutes. Maybe it's art and maybe it's not--a lot depends on context. Put completely ordinary Poser renders on the wall of a Chelsea gallery and maybe you've said something really smart and funny about the pre-packaged culture we all live in. And hey, if you're just doing it for you, who cares what anybody else says?

Sorry, I should have said "who HAVE created exciting and powerful action scenes on one hand"...don't want to exclude anyone who hasn't tried yet. :) And just my opinion of course. But yes, whether we're making them for ourselves or for others to enjoy, the end result is what should be important. SnowS

Yes, I will agree with that one, Mosca. You -can- make a perfectly acceptable image in fifteen minutes. My point is, to that, is that nobody should make fun, or think it's stupid to use a certain medium to express whatever they wish to express. Be it what it may. It shouldn't matter that some people use Poser instead of a camera. Or a canvas. Or any other program. I marvel at some of the stuff people paint, or draw. Even photos that people take. On that same note, I marvel at some of the things that come from Poser art, postworked and not. Blackhearted makes awesome images, I love looking at his stuff, as well as MANY other people here. I guess I'm just don't understand other people looking down upon, or degrading what others do, calling it 'not really art' or 'too easy'. I use a lot of different mediums to express whatever it is I want to. So I'm sort of in the middle on all mediums, Poser included. It helps me do what I want just as well as inking a drawing I've done on paper.

They said the same thing about the impressionists. Fuck the begrudgers, I say.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=227047

Gabe, I have to agree with you here. On BOTH respects. Now, I normally don't postwork, except to use Unsharp Mask, and occasionally lighten the image, create a duplicate layer, and convert it to overlay mode and play with the opacity, to help bring out the colors and the subject. But while I do everything I can to have a good render straight out of Poser, I have the utmost respect for people like you, Rio, Toxic Angel, SnowSultan, and all the others who can take a relatively ordinary Poser render, and bring it into another program and convert it into a stunning, absolutely amazing demonstration of CG art skill. It is quite beyond me to even begin to approach this degree of capability. However, my goal is often quite different than most. I tend to make more humorous images, lighthearted, as opposed to sexy seductresses or haunting scenes. If I bring a chuckle to someone's face, like I have with the pic above, then I feel the image did its job. Only rarely have I set out to do something that wasn't humorous, or specifically intended to be something more "Serious", even in promo renders. Usually those are character studies, such as my "Grey Lensman" image. But I digress. Someone tells me I'm not an artist? I ask them to define art. If they can't, then I blow them off. If they do, then I point out how what I do, then, -IS- a form of art, using their own definition. That usually either shuts them up, or opens their eyes.Obviously, I would prefer the latter, but I can deal with the former. Cheers, all. Going back to make some more funny pictures.

Just to add my quarter pence worth, I used to be a "real artist". Pencil, pen, charcoal, pastels. Painted in watercolors, gauche, oils, acrylics, lacquers on paper, canvas, and wood (as well as dungeree [sic] jackets and t-shirts for money). Used palette knives, brushes, and airbrushes. Even played with silk screening a little. Although I did pretty well, my favorite medium, oils, caused me health problems. There is no medium like it, although they have improved acrylics alot since then. In other words, I had to stop using them and because of it, could not achieve the quality in any other medium. For this reason, I shelved my artistic tendencies for years and went on to other things (guitar, computers, programming, technical drawing and design). That is until now. Now I don't need to mess with dangerous or ill-suited mediums. I can transfer my ideas onto the computer in either 2D or 3D (or 4D or stereoscopics). Blackhearted has it right. It doesn't matter which tools or mediums you use, they all require expertise, time, and vision in order for you to create your invisioned artworks. If that doesn't convince anyone, just check out the work done by the masters and experienced artists working in 2D and 3D on computers as compared to beginners or people like me, just transfering over from traditional mediums. There's a difference. Kuroyume

"For $500, that's the least I'd expect. But seriously, what are we talking about here? Artist's models usually make more like $10-20 an hour." A nude female model willing to sit in front of an SLR camera in Utah is kinda rare... the few who do (and are, err, 'photogenic' enough, to put it politely) command a pretty hefty premium around here, at least in my limited experience (I saw a client arrange for and pay $300 to get her to do a 1-hour shoot. You are right about the $500 figure in a way... the higher prices were her bids if I wanted to photograph anything pornographic. Being married, I figured that since I prefer my testicles attached and working, I politely turned her down.) Models willing to sit for a painting and such would be less I believe, because the final medium doesn't reproduce the model in complete and total accuracy, nor would you want it to in many cases. /P

In my opinion, it seems that artists fall into two main camps and many variations in between. There are the crafts people, purists who entertain the notion of applying strict techniques to create their art form. Example of this is a textile artist who sheers their own sheep, cards their own wool, dyes it, then spins it by hand and finally weaves it into their own creation. Part of their joy, I suppose, is spun out of a sense of having crafted from scratch. Then in camp B there are the harlequin artists. These people will pull from anywhere, the building blocks that become their art. They, I suppose, like to create in the purist sense, uninhibited, so anything is game. There are many levels in between these absolutes. Art is experienced differently by different people. That said, there can really be no universal judgment as to what constitutes art. Its truely different for different people. I measure how art affects me by how it touches my soul. Sometimes its a pure crafted piece and some times its a piece that utilizes every technique and technology available. For me the creation process is second to the results achieved. For me it comes down to a sense of connecticity with the work, whatever form it finally takes.

Yet another reason not to live in Utah (hey, if you're gonna throw those hanging curveballs, you gotta expect some of 'em to go over the fence). I used to run a summer art school out here on the decadent East Coast and we paid new models $15, good, experienced models $20. They were damn near all gorgeous, mostly college girls trying to pick up a little summer cash. No shortage of them, either--we had about ten regulars, another fifteen or so occasionals, and we turned dozens away every summer. It's hard work modelling for a life-drawing class; ever tried to hold a pose for 10 or 20 minutes? My lawyer doesn't even get $300 bucks an hour.

Damn, look what I started. ;) Penguinisto is so right about photography. I swear, it's 50% talent, and 50% sheer luck to get the perfect image. You've got to know your tools and have The Eye, but if the moment isn't there, it's just another picture. Even professional models have off-days. Catching that one perfect sunbeam in the fleeting moment it exists, or, as in his example, the photographers of 9-11, turn 'just another photograph' into living breathing history. Get your shot set up completely, start shooting, and a butterly flits past, or leaves start falling, or the wind starts to blow. Catch it, man, catch it. You never know what treasures you'll end up with. I had a huge ranting spell a few weeks back over the issue of CGI versus tradtional "art." Hypocrisy and elitism. I posted it in another 3D forum on another site, and to my amusement, saw the modelers do the same thing I was complaining about. It's even inside art genres. If you don't model everything from scratch, you aren't an artist. If you use CGI, you aren't an artist. It just goes on and on.

Poser currently reminds me of the MIDI music revolution of the early 80's. Certain skill barriers were removed between imagination and production. If you could think it, you could create it. And I would submit that people like Vangelis were thinking better than most, in their little rooms full of synthesizers. Today, almost all recorded music incorporates MIDI to some degree. That does not make it somehow "less" than a 100% analog instrumental. We've all seen wonderful musicians who couldn't write a listenable song if their lives depended on it. I'll take a creative imagination over a trained and steady hand, any day. Music is music, no matter how it is generated. As far as I'm concerned, with visual art, if it looks good, it looks good. Period.

I draw, I Paint, I use to be a photographer, I do alot of other stuff besides poser. But poser for me opened up so much. When I draw I cant get it to look the way I saw it in my head, same with painting. I would get so frustrated. With poser I can. allmost to the letter. I dont have the talent to make my own things so I do buy things to create my pictures. But I use those things to bring to life my ideas. It really bugs me when people rag on people like me because we didnt make the items we use. I mean did the average painter make his brush, paint, canvas, model? No. Did you make the film you use in your camara that you bought? No. I enjoy what I do. And I think thats important. I agree 100% with this thread blackhearted has started. One day I will be an artist, I just need to hon the skills that I have. :) Thank you for posting this.

Vermeer used a camera obscura. Is that "cheating?"

Creating images(and music) will always become more user friendly.Those of us wishing to make a living in this,will always have to stay ahead of that in skill level.

BH, sorry to say all I can remember of your art is the stuff I purchased from you. Oh, and there is THAT picture in the photography section of a certain female you are acquainted with....hehe. Like famous movie stars who need to disquise themselves in order to go get a Big Mac, so are some of the artists here. Always under scrutiny. One of the advantages of being a nobody is that, well, nobody cares how the hell or what the hell I used or did it...hehe. Judging from what I read here, though, one indication you may be making good art is when people start trying to find ways to detract from it.

Im not an artist and oil is not my medium, and so when I opened this post I was hurled into the abyss. A direct cut and paste from the Poser gallery page... Images of Poser figures rendered in other applications are still welcome, but what's the challenge in that?

Just rockin the boat a little here. 3D is often compared with photo (as its closest relative). Imagine the Poser gallery (or any other 3D gallery) as a photo gallery, how many of you would then define your "photos" as art? Thinkin in those terms changes things a little bit for me when I browse any 3D art gallery. So what is it that makes it art? That it is purely made on a computer? It cant be that since... "I really don't see what the issues are... Since when did we start evaluating the validity of art, or the artform, by the tools we use?" What defines it then?

I'm not an artist so I'm going to get stoned here, but I think 3D graphics are closer to theater than photography. Poser, for example, is usually a collaborative effort, it uses lights and cameras, you dress "actors" and put props in their hands, set and costume design is involved, and the most interesting results (to me) display a dramatic scene. The best of it aspires to be original, the worst of it is plagarism of what has gone before; the best of it stimulates, the worst of it bores. No one will ever agree on what art is but the resulting conversation is often fascinating.

Hell, I've defined blueprints and schematics as art in my lifetime. So long as there is a statement above and beyond the immediate view, there is art. /P

A good image is a good image, doesn't matter whether it's drawn, rendered or whatever, it all comes from the imaginatin of the artist and that's what counts. Great post Jody

"The best of it aspires to be original, the worst of it is plagarism of what has gone before; the best of it stimulates, the worst of it bores. No one will ever agree on what art is but the resulting conversation is often fascinating. " So right about that. I have to state that Im talking 3D in general. "High-end 3D", Purism vs. Postwork, for me that is just to stupid to bother with.

Hi This is going to sound Odd but bear with me... I'm not an artist in the traditional sense of the word, I'm a model maker...I've made models of various types since I was 3 or 4. I've made models that were bad some i've trashed myself others it's been done for me ( the Milenium Falcon with scratch built detail/interior and lighting which had it's landing struts smashed by mother doing the dusting!) I have 1 or 2 which I have now which I'm proud of the 1/6th scale 'Raptor' with reptile eyes (glass) or the 25mm white metal figure of my elf lord which I spent over 50 hours getting to look realistic and not a game piece. I guess what i'm trying to say is this when I painted him I used everything I could to get the effect I wanted, the cotton bud, the tissue paper, or even a single strand of my own hair to paint the golden circlet on his forehead. So what it boils down to is this I have used many things in my life some of which are not what some would expect (the brush and paint) to create what I wanted but it worked and I am proud of what I have achieved there are many people I look up to but I know I could never do the things they do but this doesn't stop me trying!! I feel that using poser bryce etal are just another extension of my creativity, I like being able to 'build scenes on a screen where I once would build them on a base board. If I need to learn more skills in order to create what I would like then so be it, what I would say is given the space in our home the computer takes up a lot less space than my traditional modeling would!! ( and a lot less complaints about the mess) What I do miss though is being able to hold the CG models i'd love to be able to touch the mil dragon for instance One thing I would say is to all who dismiss computer graphics as not being art there are many pictures by artists both traditional and modern (don't get me started on the turner prize!) which I consider as pictures and the drivell (sp) which so called 'experts' spew forth about what the artist wanted to capture and express complete BS justifying their own existence. IMHO most if not all pictures were created because the artist felt that is what he wanted. Sorry this is such a long post but.... Dave

Poser is an electronic Barbie graphical cut and patse program that allows those who have little to no talent or if they do have talent have not honed it to do what those who have talent and have worked hard to develop it can do. The computer has been programmed to do the things that heretofore required much time and effort like draw an anatomically accurate figure. This electronic age has enabled those who are artistically talented to program their skill and knowledge into a computer algorithm that allows a no-brainer push of a button to produce what could not otherwise be produced by someone with no talent. MIDI produces no music. It's just a digital recording device that records the strokes of the musician on a keyboard or guitar. Once recorded you can play it back. Still, it takes a talented musician to record the digital information. Poser is sorta like that. If I were to use Poser to put figures into a scene to make up "The Last Supper" would DaVinci call that ART? Or, if there were a computer program that allowed me to talk into a mic and the computer would turn it into a musical phrase that came out sounding like Pavarati, would he call that art? I don't think so. It's kind of insulting to EXPECT those who have been gifted with real talent and who have put forth the effort to perfect it to ACCEPT as a work of art something that the computer has actually done. It's kinda like making a Xerox of a work of fine art and saying it's art. If I cut up several works of art and paste different pieces to create a new scence and Xeroxed it is that truly art that I have created. I don't think so. Poser is sorta like that. On the other hand, there is a lot of artistic talent in the Poser community and it is readily seen in those who create textures, designs, props, or do post work in programs that allow you to electronically paint on the images. To me these are the Poser artists. Those who take their creations and pose them are just Xeroxing their imaginative little hearts out. Is the end result art. Ask DaVinci. I think if he had access to Poser he would have used it and gone beyond just copy and pasting other's creativity. It's a tool. If you use it in a way that draws on real talent then I think the end result crosses over into the realm of art. I think that goes beyond just posing and lighting a figure that one could not create with their own hands in the first place. OK...enough rambling...bring on the tomatoes. : )

It seems the whole world has a difficult task of defining art. See the URL for a "rant" against the prestigious Turner Award. Following the above explanation by petereed, I suspect all photography would be de-classified as art. After all, one didn't struggle for weeks and months to produce it. Another analagy for you: If DaVinci did the Last Supper and, buy some strange twist of fait, someone did the same thing in Poser to the point it looked darn close (view from several feet away)...are you saying DaVinci would smirk at the other? What would be the reasoning other than, "Hey, I toiled for weeks making this and you did it in a day! That's not art!" The final product is, well, the final product. Does it make it art because it took longer? Does it NOT make it art because of how it was accomplished? What I guess I'd like to know is why others care about how person "A" created what s/he created? Sounds petty to me.

Attached Link: http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2002/Derbyshire/nincompoop1.asp

Oops, the URL referenced above.

"What defines it then?" According to folks who get paid to figure out which artist's deserve my tax dollars in the form of a US grant, art is defined as a photo of two dudes taking a leak on each other while a naked midget is in the background trying to unclog a toilet with a crucifix.

No tomatoes, only a reasonable reply. It takes a lot of skill and practice to be able to pose and light well. Take a look at some pictures here to see truly horrendous things (even mine, although I'm stepping out of the newbie shell). Take a look, on the other hand, at Daz's hall of fame, and see creativity and beauty unbound (even if some of the artists there used only other people's stuff). Bottom line, with simply posing and lighting other people's stuff, it's still very much possible to create art; artistically speaking, what is the difference between a man who renders Vicki with DAZ clothes, adjusting her pose and the lighting, and a man who photographs a model in his studio?

Excellent post, blackhearted! OK. Everyone seems to be missing a major point in this endless debate. Why is it that whenever digital art is mentioned, people automatically compare it to traditional painting, sketches, photography, or whatever? If you produce digital art YOU ARE NOT IN COMPETITION WITH OTHER MEDIA! They are all COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS. You are 'in competition' (for want of a better phrase) with other poser users. Full stop. Why try to compare yourself with Van Goch? IMO, that's where half the problems arise in the first place. This is a new medium that has no connection with other methods, so forget them. blackhearted said 'its a LOT harder posing a poser figure, and lighting a poser scene, than it is a photograph' Let's take that as a starting point. I'm a fashion photographer and a poser user, and you can take it from me that these two media have entirely different sets of problems. I don't have to texture a model, but I have to get her to react properly for the picture I'm shooting, and capture it in a split-second. I don't need to fiddle with dials to pose her, but I have to make sure I get the pose on film. I don't need to worry about making her look realistic, she already is, but if she gets sick on the shoot, I have to try and finish anyway. Different media, different problems. I humbly submit the radical idea that when poser users stop worrrying about what 'artists' think of them, they'll grow up and get on with producing images that are UNIQUE to this amazing, frustrating, liberating program! Until then, let the debate continue! mac PS Penguinisto said it all. Ansel Adams used to spend weeks and weeks in a camper in Yosemite, waiting for the perfect INSTANT to create landscapes on film. Photos that now sell for thousands of dollars. And people said it would never be 'art'? Sheesh....