Some people used to say that "rap" music was not music. Now it's winning Grammy's and selling more CD's than just about any other genre. So there's a good comparison I would say. Be careful what you choose to define as art, because art was not meant to be defined. I do a the majority of my works in 3dsMax nowadays, and I model most of my scenes from the ground up because I'm a control freak, and have to have things just right. But if the end result isn't acceptable to my "vision", then what's the point?? When you have a scene visualized in your head that you want to express through art... then the most "artistic" thing you could possibly do is utilize whatever tools you can to bring that visualization to fruition. Anyone truly into graphic art would concur I'm sure.

Interesting topic. Perhaps it would be in Renderosity's interests to include a selection menu when uploading images that will dictate to others if the artist is open to critiques or not on that particular image, since probably most people who upload would either forget or neglect to mention that in their descriptive text, unless reminded.

Personally, I don't see many things in this render that give it away as 3D at all. The face looks photographic beyond almost any CG face I've ever seen. Look at the teeth. He did a perfect job shading them to look absolutely real. Since everyone's smile in real life is different, that doesn't give it away. The eyebrows look almost exactly as they would on a girl who "plucks" and pencils them in, so that doesn't actually give it away. I think the iris of the eyes are the only thing that really give this away. They need just a hint more detail. And the ears are a bit too perfect. Otherwise, I bet you could pass this off to almost anyone who doesn't have a "CG-trained" eye and more than half of them would believe it was a photo... Someday I hope my 3DS Max skills can reach this level. Amazing.

Sorry with the late response. If you're referring to BodyStudio, then yes, it imports transparencies and even has a free extra plugin that imports the Poser 5 dynamic hair. Other than that, it imports smooth if your computer can handle the extra weight of the model in the 3ds environment (make sure you have good amount of RAM), but the same is true with importing an OBJ. The difference here is, since Bodystudio imports the actual PZ3 file it will also import animations created in Poser, and doesn't screw up the transparencies or textures for things like the eyelashes or eyebrows (something OBJ tends to do). I usually model most of my figures from scratch, but when I'm in a pinch for time, or just want to play around with textures and effects, I'll import a poser figure with BodyStudio, and it works nicely.

As far as I know, Max 5 and Propack aren't compatible. I could be wrong there, but I think propack is for version 4.. You can use OBJ2MAX or if you wanna make the most out of Poser 5 and Max 5, get BodyStudio from Reiss.

Well, I don't know how adept their server admins are, but it's pretty damn easy to check for cheaters to a toplist or webring. They're called server logs. I bet if they check their logs, and the referring IP's that are coming from your site, they'll see no foul play. Cheaters to webrings and toplists usually use Anonymous Proxy bots to fake hits to a site. Anonymous Proxies are EASILY detectable, and can be compared to a list of known bot proxies to get a definitive answer about cheating. Also, it's pretty easy to get a programmer to add a few lines of code to any script that would make it virtually cheat proof. It's not hard to deny hits from the same IP in a 24 hour period, or to simply bock hits from anon proxy IP's and not count them in the toplist. I'm surprised this is even a concern with 'Rosity, considering how long they've been in the e-commerce biz.

you guys are hilarious! That's good stuff.

It won't convert a .max file (and niether will any other program I'm aware of). Max files are native to 3ds Max, and can't be opened or imported anywhere else. It can convert .3ds object files quite well though. That's a different format than .max.

hehe. Don't you even LURK before posting?

BodyStudio was the best way to get Poser into Max 5, but I don't know if they upgraded for Max 6 yet. It might be noteworthy to ask. http://www.reiss-studio.com/ The current version on their plugin might work for Max 6 as well. I believe they also have a hair plugin module that allowed you to import the figure with hair you created in Poser Hair Room to 3ds Max 5, so it's much better than the Obj2Max plugin for that reason IMO. Just ask them if it works with Max 6. I'm not sure if there's a demo version for Body Studio or not though, so that might be another issue in and of itself.

3ds Max. ;-) If you don't have Max, then Lighwave would be my second choice over C4D.

Is it just me or is she missing her trapezius muscles in this render?

Cool stuff.

Looks like a scaled-down version of Poser to me. Probably not a good as the full version 5.

I think it's ridiculous to criticize someone for being creative. I think we all forget sometimes that art is subjective. The only thing that matters is how it makes you FEEL, not necessarily how it was achieved.