GIMP is good but you might also look at getting a cheap copy of Serif's Photoplus, you can often get an older version for a low price.

Personally, I do still stick with Paint Shop Pro, though I'm non too keen on Corel (you might want to dissable a couple of the odds and sods that get installed). Again, if you don't mind the older version, you can often find it for a good price.

And Photoshop Elements is much better these days - though I had mine free with a Bamboo tablet.

A nice postwork tool worth looking at, if you want to try natural media results for example, is Postworkshop - you can find it in store here or at their website:

www.postworkshop.net

A good freebie is MyPaint:

http://mypaint.intilinux.com/

And you might also want to check out ArtRage, which is a lot cheaper than Painter but also has similar features for overpainting.

http://www.artrage.com/

Quote - You're arguing about your contribution. I'm arguing about the semantics of the phrase CG Artist.

Everyone in the pipeline is an artist. But what is the role denoted by the term "CG Artist"?

By analogy:

In music, you are not a "composer" if you merely perform the works of others (player), or you conduct the performance (conductor), or you arrange the score followed by the players and conductors (arranger). That's why you see albums with a credit like "Harry Nilson - Composer, Arranger, Conductor, Pianist", and not simply "Harry Nilson - Musical Artist".

When those are four different people, they are all still musicians, all still artists, but those four jobs are different jobs and have words to identify them.

 

 

Or...CG Artist can refer to someone who produces work that is Computer Generated. To keep to analogies, Film has a range of divisions such as Directors, DPs, Script Writers, etc. Within that industry there is the Auteur, which is not a perfect analogue but serves better than CG Artist, lacking its ambiguity.

It seems a little strange that we find this sort of argument in the CG environment. While there is a great deal of snobbery to be found in the mainstream art world, if you speak to many artists of today, there is a lot more freedom in what they will call art - and a whole debate over the legitimacy of plagarism in the creation of new art. If it is used to create something new, even by just giving it a new context, why is that not art?

It is also all very well saying that you are utilising something made by someone else but that completly ignores the challenge to identify, non-arbitrarily, at what stage composition stops creating art.

Honestly, I do think it a mugs game to declare something isn't art - but what bothers me is that people do it without even attempting to engage with the challenges of doing that. They seem oblivious to them, either because they are not interested or that they are ignorant of them.

If they won't engage with the debate properly, why do they bother judging others? In what possition do they think they are in to do so? But perhaps I'm wrong, perhaps those concerned are aware of the arguments and can put forward a reasoned case of their own. Sadly, they tend not to share their insights, instead making such declarations that someone is a producer or director rather than an artist, while making no effort to explain why a producer or director is not an artist.

It gets boring quickly.

And now I'm bored.

...but invoking Godwin's Law would make it fun again - but I'm damned if I can see a way to do that in this debate.

Quote - The thread topic has nothing to do with what is art.

Threads about so many things here turn into what is art.

I lost interest again because all you people do is argue about what is art and then declare that there's no answer to that. Who cares? That's off topic.

The topic was - do you feel like a cheat as characterized by the CGS community?

Everybody knows that a "copy" of art is no longer YOUR art. You cannot just claim something is your own when it isn't. That is the crux of the issue - not whether these Poser renders are art or not, but rather that Poser renders are essentially institutionalized plagiarism. Like collage.

Who cares if you "posed" it - if it's not your creation, the pose is original, but the image is largely made of plagiarism - plagiarized mesh, plagiarized rigging, plagiarized materials, etc.

There's no refuting that. The question is does composing the scene (choosing costumes, posing, lighting, and camera, etc.), i.e. being a virtual producer/director of the photo shoot qualify you as a CG artist. I say it doesn't. It qualifies you as a producer/director. CG artist is not the producer or director - he is the guy who makes the assets from nothing.

 

Well, I've already expressed a lack of interest in being called an artist but I am intersted in what folk use to judge others. I guess you can create a sub-genre of some kind and call it CG art, setting a definition to exclude what you want but that is not enough to not call it art per se - only that it isn't part of your defined sub-genre. Which isn't very interesting.

One element, common to much of what is called art, is composition. Be it sculpture, paint, collage, or pixels, there is composition of existing elements. And a painter may be a technical genious, creating absolute realism, but if even if their composition of pigment to make a form is excellent, if their composition of painted forms is poor, their art will be the poorer for it. The question here then is at what point/scale does composition become a relevant factor in making the result art rather than plagarism. But please, something non-arbitrary and objective, or it just won't be interesting.

I don't call myself an artist, so I don't feel that I'm cheating. And if folk want to make a point of saying that I don't do 'real' art, that's fine - and when they present a properly argued, objective, non-arbitrary, exclusive definition of art to support what they say, I might even care. Really.

There are anti-poser folk in the CGS crowd and they can be quite vocal. How representative they are of the community in general is a very different question, I suspect that most don't care a great deal either way and I'm not sure why I should either.

For myself, I started using Poser because I needed to create some images. I judge what I do with it in the simplest way I can: Does it do what I need it to? What else should matter to me?

There was a guy over here recently who made the local paper after losing his job for doing just this. The lady concerned phoned the company to complain that her details had been abused and he was out.

To be honest, as she only submitted her details for the job application, it would be wrong to use them for anything else.

Quote - Absolutely, but the results depend greatly on how much work is put into redoing the rig and how well it's done.  It isn't like you press a button and it's done in 2 minutes.  Plus there's some fairly technical cleanup required to get all the JCM out (and magnets in the case of V4 or Sydney).

I've not tried it yet but I would think that there is a fairly quick way to get rid of the JCMs and magnets. Just import the obj and take it into the set-up room. Now use the original cr2 to donate its rig - but only the bones and zones will be transferred, the morphs and mags will be left behind. Next step will be to save out the new cr2.

Of course, the morphs you want, along with the morph channels will be left behind as well but there should be other ways of transferring them. Morph Manager should do the job just fine.

Now, not being too interested in buying a whole new figure set up for Genesis, I'm wondering if we can't just fix V4's problems with the new weight maps and transfer them, and all the old morphs and such with WW (as mentioned in the video) to the clothing we've collected for her and have the best of both worlds with what we already have.

I shalln't change over - I just find Poser to suit me best and I do get on much better with the interface.

I'm sure that Genesis is very nice but given that buying into a new figure requires quite an investment to make it workable, I have to think carefully about buying into it even if it does become available for Poser. While folk are saying that the combined morph packs are cheap, they do look limited to me - at least considered against all the morphs available for V4, including the elite sets. With some loss of function, it can wear 4th gen clothes but if I want full function, such as for required movement, then I would have to have to buy new clothes. No escaping it, DAZ is in business and fair do's to that, I guess.

Where Genesis seems to shine is in its rigging, it bends very well. However, if much of what you do requires chlothed figures, then it has to be asked "does it do what I need significantly better than the figures that I already use?" - I've seen nothing yet to convince me. I remain open but it doesn't look enough to draw me from Poser. Right now, I have about all the morphs and add ons to make V4 and almost M4 to work as I need. Heck, I rarely buy any clothes for them now - almost everything released these days looks like something that I already have.

Yeah, I wouldn't go this route either - the Atom processors are really fine for office and can cope with 2D art aps just fine but they would struggle with rendering. Their strength seems be in lowish power consumption, so even my cheapie netbook can manage just over 6 hrs use typing and watching films etc.

Having said that, I did figure that my netbook specs were actually better than the machine I started using Poser 4 on (a lot better, in fact), so I tried out Poser 5 for fun (I could try some later versions but can't be bothered). I keep it there with a selection of toon, Nursoda, and Smay figures to create quick illustrations for emails and such (a bit of fun or the family). So, they aren't a complete loss for Poser users.

Quote - lets stop acting like new rigging system is bad. its better. its more realistic. end of story.

 

poser needs it. so lets hope for the best.

I really don't think that anyone is of the opinion that a new rigging system is bad or that Poser wouldn't be improved with new rigging. The discussions that have been going on are largely speculation about the future relationship between DAZ and Poser, and about the business implications of DAZ's new directions. People who have invested in a software and content for it are entitled to be concerned about its future - nought wrong in that.

Though it does strike me that most complaints against DS4 itself, from both sides, have little to do with the rigging.

It is probably a little early to be trying to answer this question, if only
because I think this release has been a bit premature. They clearly aren't
quite there yet on the development front - and some of the objections people
have to it are slated to be dealt with later (such as the UI which we are told
will have a developer kit released). The central reason for release at all is
the new Genesis figure which is still rather basic and looks to remain so until
the release of the V5 etc products. Given that this standard edition is set to
remain free for some months, it is not immediately clear why they have released
this early.

One explanation that comes to mind is that they want to have DS4 sitting on as many
computers as possible so as to maximise the number of potential customers for
V5 - and if they want to charge for that product independently of Studio, then
an interval between releases would make some sense.

Some concern has been raised about the cost of Studio but if I remember correctly,
DAZ are obligated to have a reasonably functional version available for free in
order to avoid having to pay rather a lot of money to licence the render
engine, a cost that would have to be reflected in the cost of Studio. (If the
new generation of figures is soon to be released, then that would also go some
way to explaining their making the 4th generation bases pay for items rather
than free - which did seem a little like shutting the barn door after they had
all bolted. If there is a free alternative, then new customers will most likely
go for that and many may stick with it for some time but if there is a choice
between which base product to pay for, then they are most likely to buy the
newest one)

It is particularly hard to judge the impact of Studio and Genesis until we know
what is happening in Poser 9 - and for that we shall have to wait for its
release. If there is a significant gap between the release of V5 and Poser 9,
then the principle and first impact will be on the early sales of V5 and of
support for it. Poser users who might be swayed from Poser to Studio for the
new figure are still likely to play 'wait and see' until P9 shows up, which
means that, if all Studio users take up the new figure, its potential customer
base could still be as little as half of that for V4, so that initially most
third party support will remain with the older figures and the larger customer
base.

If Poser 9 can support Genesis (and despite what they say, given how it is
embedded within the DS4 installation, DAZ will have to cover some of the ground
to meet SM with a Studio independent installation) then, assuming DAZ have also
released the various planned versions of Studio, we can try to meaningfully
compare them. But not until then.

On the other hand, if Poser 9 cannot support Genesis, then there might be some
migration to Studio but comparisons of the two might be less meaningful. Of
course, if SM manage to pull a rabbit from their hat, providing base figures
that can compare to the DAZ range, then we will have a whole new ball game.

Well, by not saying anything, they've nothing to back out from. That's fair enough by me. So far, their development of Poser and handling of it has kept me happy - and I was interested to see the release of a Debut version (which I think is a smart marketing move).

To be honest, I'm really just fine with things as they are. What matters to me is the end result - if I'm happy with that, I'm happy. Poser 9 will be released when its ready and I'm reasonably confident that a good job will have been done - until then, I'm enjoying what I've got.

I woud also love to see composite nodes - they would make life much easier for many of us, if only by making things a lot more tidy. I use Postworkshop which saves its node based postwork as Styles - essentially composite nodes - which can then be used as nodes in other styles. While there are the 'primitive' building blocks, their own pre-sets are composites that (in version one) you could unpack to see just how complex they were. You can use these as building blocks and starting points for constructing your own styles, so you can have much of the work done for you, leaving you to tinker to get exactly the look you want, using six to a dozen nodes where you might have needed to juggle with a hundred.

I would also go with some kind of thechnological implant, something tht would look and feel de-humanising, which is partly what (real) slavery requires. The less a society can identify with its slaves, the easier it is for them to 'justify' them. There are other ways that societies have done that in the past but you need something with visual impact. Something that suggests an introduced technological dependece might be good. The masks are a step in that direction.