I think we're straying here. I'll try to go back to the topic at hand. While art is a totally vague term and could take any shape or form, not every gallery is the same. For example, every modern art gallery has themes and rules, and you might not find, say, adult oriented art in a gallery for children. Just like you won't find any abstract art in a gallery of Flemish Primitives. Simply, they're the Terms of Service used to make sure the customers get to see what they expect. Now of course, many would claim that art banned from certain galleries is still art. Some even think that a picture of human roadkill can be artistic (it does take some level of detachment though). To sum it up, art is what you create - and rightly so, if you look at the origins of the word itself. It basically means "craft" or "creation". The topic of this conversation was originally the abuse of a certain type of art. There were no mentions of TOS or the such, so I do not see the need to bring up burkas or bibles except for humour (but since that has already been done several times in past threads, it is getting old). I have to agree that nudity and violence are much more popular than many other topics, but we should keep in mind that this is a public gallery. All a person has to do is create a login and upload their favourite Big Breasted Vicki. As long as they remain within the TOS, all is well. Renderosity is certainly not an elite artists' repository - and even such an elite gallery would eventually spawn some internal strife (again because of different interpretations of the word 'art'). So I am afraid all we can do is live with it, and occasionally bitch about it because it feels good. :) Cheers, Antonio (a.k.a. Amalthea)

Hi folks, Saying that nudity is not art is a bit of a harsh statement, but I can see its validity in this case. It is true that many renders do not make use of naked figures in a very creative way - in fact, many of them are purely gratuitous. The deplorable downside of this is that I usually discover only one artistic nude on average per day, as I browse the galleries. Still, many of us strive to make nudity look artistic and beautiful. There are specific techniques, light effects, points of view and poses that allow people to render superb pictures, not to mention postwork tweaking. In short, there are some eggs that we should keep out of the basket. ;) Cheers, Antonio (a.k.a. Amalthea)

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=639135&Start=1&Artist=%2DAmalthea%2D&ByArtist=Yes&Fo

Naked babes are a whole different chapter, DarkElegance... but it's worth discussing. ;) Regarding dropdown menus though... since it's a broken feature (the concept is great, but users make it obsolete - a problem derivated directly from the butt-kissing clique), we might as well ignore it and focus on the real criticism provided by a select few viewers. Praise is great, though, as long as it is not limited to one word sentences in bold, 27 point characters accompanied by funny symbols and images. ;) Cheers, Antonio.

One thing we could do... I would suggest creating a template that we could automatically add to a post's notes, stating that we accept constructive bashing (but not trolling!) and are willing to take the suggestions into account for our future creations. That way we don't scare off those who are afraid to be flamed for their criticism and instead invite them to a mature debate. Of course, that won't eliminate the butt-kissing clique, but I don't think they are the problem. We can sort out the comments ourselves and seperate the praise from the real comments. What do you think?

This is my first forum post.

Way before I became an active member, I was but a simple lurker going by the name of Raventree. I witnessed the disease about a year and a half ago, and it has happily festered since then.

Although I think the symptoms described do not apply to everyone. In fact, the victims of mass praise are more often than not artists who posted one or a few outstanding images once in their life. After that, they could post inferior stuff and it would still be labeled the next best thing - not a single constructive comment (how dare you confront such a marvelous artist?

I started making Neverwinter Nights portraits for the Neverwinter Vault at IGN and I am used to people bashing (constructively) my stuff whenever it was inferior to my previous posts. After a while, I had standards to keep up, and sometimes ditched whole projects because they didn't look good enough. No regrets, though. I couldn't have evolved without the criticism, and I firmly believe in it.

Cheers,

Antonio (a.k.a. Amalthea)