Anyone read the Mental Roy column in the June issue of 3D World? His latest rant was brought on by the pairing of daz3d with Mogware, allowing their content to be incorporated into games. Selected quote: "But honestly, it's like putting matches into the hands of a three-year-old, then leaving him to mind the petrol station. Just think about it: no longer will the terabytes of fantasy swords, 'glamorous' women and microbikinis be confined to the safe ghetto of sites like Renderosity." Also, if the member Foxhollow is still around, your image "Bath Trim" was mentioned too. :ohmy:

This sort of attitude about Poser is common in the regular 3d world. Unfortunately, the
situation isn't improved by all the 'hooker-wear' in the marketplace and the posts in the
gallery using such wear, or none at all.

This type of attitude has been around for a long time, and again, unfortunately, I doubt
it'll change anytime soon. It IS, however, the first time I've heard of R'osity described as
a 3d 'Ghetto'. :)

Greywolf

I wouldn't worry too much. Mental Roy is there deliberately to be provocative. If he hasn't wound someone up, he probably thinks he hasn't done his job right :-)

See what he wrote about student demo reels a few editions ago, for example!

Steve

It's always the same, people like Mental Midget think it's ok to trash anything that's Poser related simply because they never managed to ever get anything looking good out of Poser through their own lack of talent. Over-compensation for being under-endowed is always obvious in their cases. Sad little waste of oxygen.

Windows 7 64Bit
Poser Pro 2010 SR1

"Professionals" and those who like to think they are will always ridicule the neophytes who attempt to encroach upon the Holy Boundaries of their craft.  Well, surely not all professionals.  But, there is a subset of elitists out there that bow to some Golden Calf of 3D purity that, in their opinion, must be held sacrosanct at all costs.

The "fact" is that all of the "non-professional" art and 3D applications out there establish a firm base of appreciation of their own craft.  It allows people to dabble in it and truly marvel at the skill and knowledge it takes to produce a true masterpiece of 3D Art.  As hobbyists become more familiar with the process of creation, they can develop a deeper understanding and appreciation of the magic that true professionals are able to create.

So, let blowhard elitists "professionals" who barely make ends-meet yammer on about the damage that the unwashed masses of 3D enthusiasts are doing to their profession.  But, take to heart the message of the true professionals who encourage everyone to enjoy themselves while exploring their Art as a hobby.  They understand the true value represented by it.

A professional painter may not approve of a hobbyist's work, but they will acknowledge their right to contribute to the craft in whatever capacity they can when attempting to communicate with their fellow man through expression in paint.  3D art, professionally choreographed in gigantic studios or not, is no different.

Quote - I wouldn't worry too much. Mental Roy is there deliberately to be provocative.

Oh, I'm not worried; I'm still here, aren't I? ;) I do remember the column on demo reels. After watching many of the demos on that issue's DVD, I would have to sympathize, because I grew weary of them even though I was watching the pre-filtered best of the bunch.

Quote - ...the safe ghetto of sites like Renderosity."

ROTFLMAO!

Oh damn... that's just... just... oh shit, that's funny!

I like this guy already...

/P

Yaaaaaaaaaawn...... And here we go again.....

He's right though..... it's bad enough to have to browse through poser or d/s related crap render after crap render finding something worthwhile or decent but soon I also have to play crap game after crap game to find something worthwile or decent.

For those 'pros' Poser isn't real 3D at all and I tend to agree. It's easy to dress up V4 (most cases she doesn't even get dressed up at all), next time try to model V4 yourself..... you'll notice the hige difference. Their world and ours are lightyears apart. If poser or d/s users stop pretending they're 3D artists, perhaps they will stop laughing about and mocking poser and d/s.

As far as they're concerned poser and d/s have given 3D art a bad name and browsing through the galleries here, who can blame them for thinking that way? From their point of view I can understand where they're coming from and they're right about it..... problem is that most poser users can handle that reality at all and get offended by their observations. Which ever way you look at it, the majority of poser & d/s users produce junk and they're dominating and people see their work first and never get to the great stuff created with poser & d/s. Most poser related sites (such as DAZ and Rendo) only confirm the image people have of poser.....

Artwork and 3DToons items, create the perfect place for you toon and other figures!

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?vendor=23722

Due to the childish TOS changes, I'm not allowed to link to my other products outside of Rendo anymore :(

Food for thought.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYZw0dfLmLk

Well, poser is as '3d' as any renderer. It obviously isn't a modeler, but it is 3d. And I hate to see "modelers" held out as the only worthwhile talent in the creation of a 3d image or video. What about the animators, light pros, compositors, and all the other talent that is included in a major production? When will modelers get over themselves. Yes, it takes talent, but so do a lot of things. One reason you don't see as much crap coming from the high-end apps, is that what you see is highly filtered, either by moderators or by public, humiliating abuse of those who post less than stellar work so that most don't try. There are plenty of crappy models and renders being made from top-end applications, there just isn't anywhere welcoming to those of lesser abilities in that tier to post them. Yeah, there may be a lot of less-than-stellar work posted in the galleries here. But so what? It is obviously a hobby site and people are just enjoying doing what they can with what they can afford. Why do we need this elitist, derogatory attitude? How pathetic must you be at using the 'real' 3d software if you have to pick on poser users to feel better about yourself.

 Not that I'm defending mental roy, but he IS a regularly contributing writer of a worldwide 3D publication. Having never seen his work I can't vouch for his alleged talent but I'm sure they don't offer this position to "just anyone".

I don't think it's a rant on Poser per se (haven't read the article); I think it's more the artist's lack of vision that has long been associated with DAZ products. Though it may be a relaxing hobby, does the world really need more heavily post-worked blank-eyed-stare gratuitously nude female portraits?

It only takes one "aw sh*t" to undo a thousand "atta boy"s. Unfortunately in Poser's case, that one rare gem is sinks in the quicksand of the mundane.

Quote - I don't think it's a rant on Poser per se (haven't read the article); I think it's more the artist's lack of vision that has long been associated with DAZ products.

Well, my last post was addressing aeilkema and some of the attitudes reading his post reminded me of. Mental Roy uses derogatory humor, and everyone is fair game and I get that. What I am though, is disappointed with the tendency of some people to deride others who show lesser talent but still want to be involved in 3d. (I envy the talented and admire their work and will never match their abilities. But is it necessary to insult me because I want to have some fun but am not one of the 'elite?') > Quote - Though it may be a relaxing hobby, does the world really need more heavily post-worked blank-eyed-stare gratuitously nude female portraits?

Who's to say what it needs? If it makes people happy to create what they can, doesn't that improve the world some little bit, to have more happy, relaxed people? Doesn't the derision degrade the world a bit? Does the world need more of that? (I should add that I don't really personally feel insulted by these comments. I know I am not an artist. I have fun dabbling in some modeling and texturing, but I'll never be working for Pixar, and don't wish to.)

With a name (handle?) like *Mental Roy* -- I'd probably be mad at the world, too.  He most likely got picked on a lot when he was a little kid, and so now he's trying to get some of his own back.  And even better yet: somebody's paying him to do it.

As for the "3D ghetto" comment -- I suppose that it is true that the more expensive neighborhoods do tend to have a much smaller population in them.  Much smaller.

Something To Do At 3:00AM 

Quote -  Not that I'm defending mental roy, but he IS a regularly contributing writer of a worldwide 3D publication.

Renderosity and DAZ both travel out all over the world, too.  And in far larger numbers. 

Something To Do At 3:00AM 

quote "does the world really need more heavily post-worked blank-eyed-stare gratuitously nude female portraits?"

YESSSSS!!!! naked Vickies in a temple , bladed weapon optional ...  a classic genre of 3d art , enshrined next to the chrome spheres over chessboard , or ball over water pics of pov-ray.

Uh, just because somebody pushes your button doesn't mean you have to jump like expected.

My Freebies

Quote - Yaaaaaaaaaawn...... And here we go again.....

I'm starting to get the hang of the whine-cycle around here.

Admins palying favorites!
Poser Pro isn't out yet!
Darn merchants and commercial porjects!
Damn lazy freebie providers!
Them Dirty Professionals looking down on us!
All out War of the apps!

(There are couple I can't think of right now)

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
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Frankly -- who cares anymore?

The real pros, those who can model, texture, animate and have the time/inclination/skill etc are uh... yeah. Few and far between. VERY few and far between.

Now, as for "ah but you can dress up V4 easy and you use bought content" uh right. Turbosquid anyone? There are plenty models being bought by pros -- simply because it's too time consuming to do them yourself a lot of the time.
So, next time someone puts Poser down, ask yourself what the difference is between someone  who buys a model from Turbosquid for $500 and rendering it in a $5000 program like 3DMax and someone who buys a model from here for $25 and rendering it in a $250 program like Poser.

I'll tell you what the difference is. -- $$$.
Just because someone has a (usually pirated) copy of 3DMax or Maya, doesn't mean they can actually do shit in it.
And just because someone has a -- generally legal -- copy of Poser, doesn't mean they can't.

I use what I am able to use, what I have available. That's Poser.
A friend of mine, who is a whiz at 3DMax, told me once that he has no clue how I can produce images that actually look good, in Poser. "It's lacking all the features you need to do it with" he said. Whereupon I replied "No. It lacks the features you need. It has all the ones I need."

How did that saying go again? A bad workman blames his tools?
Think about it.

What it comes down to is skill. If I have skill, the tool is unimportant. That's simply a learning curve and can be adjusted.
But without skill I can't produce anything no matter what I use. No amount of high end software is going to make my image/animation better in the end, if I don't have the skill (and the eye!!) to use it.

I do agree on one thing though... there is a lot of crap in the gallery, and it doesn't do Poser any favors. :/
I wish we had an "Invitation only" gallery for it, where you have to demonstrate a certain amount of skill before you're allowed to post there.

Silke

lol, I've just been reminded, is there an ignore user option in these forums? I've found it a convenient feature at daz, and as I don't normally carry a handbag I thought it might be useful here too. ;) Edit: Never mind, I guess there isn't such an option.

Quote - or ball over water pics of pov-ray.

I thought that was Bryce........?

Oh, well: whatever.

Here's the Official Pecking Order (please note that each succeeding level denies that participants in the level just below it represent "true artists"):

(Note: peck marks are designated by the symbol "<", with the number of pecks indicated by the number of "peck marks".)

Poser / D|S hobbyists < Poser "pros" << 3D "high end" dabblers / hobbyists <<< 3D "high end" intermediate / semi-pro  types <<<< 3D "high end" experts (freelancers are somewhat lesser ranked than overworked, underpaid 3D sweatshop employees) <<<<< Top CG'ers, such as ILM types <<<<<<  3D Magazine editors / columnists <<<<<<< Artists who work in "traditional media".  To many of them: by definition, no image which is produced via the agency of a computer represents "Art" at all.  It's all artificial junk.  In fact, many movie critics say pretty much the same thing -- they tend not to like CG movies, or movies that are laden with CG effects -- no matter how well done, or "Artsy".

So buy up canvas & oil paint & slap some color on -- then (and only then) will you have any hope of being a true elite in the Art world.  They'll buy your junk at New York art shows for hundreds of thousands of dollars, too.  And when that happens: then you'll know that you've arrived: and that your Art has True Meaning.  You'll have been validated.  And doesn't everybody want to be validated?

In much the same way: every Hollywood nymphette wants to be regarded as a "serious actress" (with the emphasis on the word "serious").  Nope -- folks don't pony up their hard-earned cash at the box office just because they want to see them naked in their latest bomb.......the rabble do it because the actresses' "Art" is just so deep, you see...........in much the same way: some 3D "pros" take themselves quite seriously.  And it shows, too.  That's why they all get along with each other so well on the "pro" websites (snort).

Something To Do At 3:00AM 

Maybe mental ray has a point in some ways.   

if you look at the self proclaimed "pros" in the poserverse, theres often no amazing artwork, maybe 1 or 2 pieces of commerical work often created by someone else using their product or freebie.

Why ? Is being known as a pro that important, is it such a vital badge of honour, or is it something to be used as an excuse to put others down? 

So come you "pros" - come out of your closets, dress your Viki with pride (and little else apart from a sword) and embrace the happy smiley face of the amateur! 

Pinky - you left the lens cap of your mind on again.

Bladed weapon optional????? No! You have to have the bladed weapon, what else can you reflect the dead light in her eyes on?   8^P

a fortnite from now, nobody will remember mental boy's nickname, but plenty of
users will be shelling out $$$ for poser pro.  somebody e-mail mentalboy a clue,
and get him out of his 3d snob glass house. :lol:

You know, I've decided I'll listen to anti-Poser rants when I start reading rants against the thousands of archviz artists who use pre-fab windows, doors, and curbs and buy a good chunk of the furniture they use in renders. A mesh is a mesh. Don't get me wrong, the archviz guys are my heros, and they work hard for their money, but they'd never meet a deadline if they took a purist attitude and modeled every last object in a multi-story hotel. (Good Lord, they put furniture in all those rooms!) They do argue, but it's about AA settings. ;)

Quote - > Quote - or ball over water pics of pov-ray.

I thought that was Bryce........?

Certain 3d renders are a right of passage. Everyone does one, kind of like printing "hello world" when you first learn to write code. People will be proud of their first fumblings with something new, even though others have been there, done that and gone way beyond. The kind will smile in nostalgia and perhaps help the fledgling along. The unkind will complain about all the crap they have to wade through. To me there is so much that is cruel and harsh in this world already. Why some have such a need to add meanness and pettiness to it I don't know. (Sorry for my ramblings today. A kind and gentle person who is dear to me is suffering with ill health, and it sucks.)

Trivia (most of you should know this!): What is the "hello world" mesh of 3D CG programming?

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, you blow your whole leg off.

 -- Bjarne Stroustrup

Contact Me | Kuroyume's DevelopmentZone

 I meant no disrespect as I am in no way better than anyone else.

mental roy (chuckles) is a twist on mental ray, which some call the most physically accurate photorealistic render engine, until IMHO the introduction of Maxwell. mental ray (always lower case) ships natively with 3DS Max, Maya and Softimage. Interestingly NVIDIA bought mental ray so we'll all be excited to see how this affects future GPUs.

I can understand if Poser is all someone can afford at the moment. What I don't understand is all the complaints that Poser users have regarding the "stability" of the software. Furthermore there are many users that wish Poser had "this or that" feature. Finally everyone seems to think that Poser Pro will somehow change the world. It is clear to me that these users are ready for more than what Poser can offer (I liken it to a 3D gateway drug) but many are afraid to make them jump to something else, something dare I say better. Why?

Content. There's a lot of it and it doesn't translate easily into other packages. The DAZ figures are very addictive because it's satisfying to be able to turn out an image that looks like something in a matter of a few hours. In fairness, Poser's material room is a powerful and welcome addition to the architecture; often it's easier to create scenes using other apps.

Remember that 30 years ago, 3D users were an esoteric group of computer scientists and honestly it's great that 3D has captured the imaginations of such a diverse group of users that visit here. I have been studying my favorite non-Poser app for three years and I'm always discovering something new. I've had to study math to get a better idea on why things work and I read tech manuals and help files in my spare time. I think this level of dedication exists with Poser users too (some here at this forum are God-like in their abilities) but many aren't.

Many "elite" users of the big three do nudes (Steve Stahlberg comes to mind), but their work is so unique and tasteful that to me that there's no comparison. Example from the What's New gallery - why is there a completely nude woman standing in a snowy forest, during what appears to be -40 weather? A dream maybe? Images like this stretch plausibility, which may be why mental roy thinks rendero is a ghetto.

Very respectfully, 
replicand

 kuroyume - the utah teapot?

A mirror ball, cone and square on a reflective surface?

Silke

Quote -  kuroyume - the utah teapot?

Ding. Ding.  That's the one.  You'll find it in dozens of 3D textbooks, papers, test software, 3D engine examples, and so on.  It has been a staple test mesh for at least twenty years.

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, you blow your whole leg off.

 -- Bjarne Stroustrup

Contact Me | Kuroyume's DevelopmentZone

Quote - I wish we had an "Invitation only" gallery for it, where you have to demonstrate a certain amount of skill before you're allowed to post there.

You mean like art charts...
Oh, yeah, I forgot to include that one on the list of cyclical whines.

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
BadKittehCo Store  BadKittehCo Freebies and product support

Quote -  kuroyume - the utah teapot?

I'd heard of it before, but I had to refresh my memory at wikipedia. A fun read. I remember many years ago looking at a CG programming book and being fascinated and in way over my head.

Oh and replicand -- I totally agree on the subject matter of most images. There are very few people out there who can consistently produce good work with Poser.
It does what I want it to do, I'll never be more than a hobbyist, nor do I really strive to be.

But no matter which software we all use -- the one thing that makes or breaks an image is... lighting. If it's lit wrong, even a brilliant composition looks wrong and it doesn't matter what it was rendered in. I can render in Maya. No problem at all. It'll be crap, because I don't know Maya, but that doesn't stop me from dropping some freebie mesh on the ground and rendering it.
Does that make my image better? No.

Unfortunately most Poser users don't really look at the lighting in their work, and that's where it all falls down. :) But the same can be said for a great number of 3D "Artists" who use other programs.

And yeah... a mesh is a mesh. No matter how much someone might sneer about buying meshes it's not like just because you have 3DMax / Maya you can automatically model. :)
Nor does it mean that someone modelled everything you rendered yourself. If that were the case, then Turbosquid wouldn't exist.

Silke

The teapot.

"Few are agreeable in conversation, because each thinks more of what he intends to say than that of what others are saying, and listens no more when he himself has a chance to speak." - Francois de la Rochefoucauld

Intel Core i7 920, 24GB RAM, GeForce GTX 1050 4GB video, 6TB HDD space
Poser 12: Inches (Poser(PC) user since 1 and the floppies/manual to prove it!)

@replicand: thanks for your thoughtful post. I admit to being tempted by some of more pricey modeling apps, to go beyond the content driven poser world, but I find it hard to justify so much money for a hobby that fascinates but that I'm frankly not the good at, and I'm not sure I have the self-discipline to get better. I have zbrush now and I'm struggling to do more than create simple morphs and textures with it, and it is capable of so much more in the right hands. I feel almost guilty having it; which is silly I guess, but keeps me from buying modo, which some days I want desperately. Sigh.

Conniekat, no, I don't mean art charts. Good grief, no. That would only encourage the troll armies to vote in naked Vickies.
Currently the "Best of" is taken from the ratings an image gets. I thought it would be nice to have something like an independent "Editors choice" gallery, of sorts, which is not influenced by votes or ratings. Something where outstanding images go, because right now? They are lost in mountains of tripe.
I've seen incredibly astounding Poser renders -- If I don't favorite them, I'll never find them again though.

Basically a place where it's invitation only after demonstrating consistent excellence. It'll never happen, but wouldn't it be nice to have a gallery of images where you could study what the creator has done, and get inspired?

Silke

what tickles me is the idea that Poser and 'rosity will introduce scantily-clad wimmin and swords into games. Have they actually looked at any of them lately?...;)

The reason I post here is that I'm not good enough for Daz or RDNA's site. No never mind to me, I know it. But hey, we all show improvement over time.

There's always going to be people who equate money spent on packages as talent. There's a lot of rich software vendors who count on that...;)

To bring back another archaic relic

10 For 1 to Satori
20 Import Pink Dead Pony
30 Beat
40 Next whack
50 else, Satori achieved...;)

I wish I'd said that.. The Staircase Wit

anahl nathrak uth vas betude doth yel dyenvey..;)

Quote - But no matter which software we all use -- the one thing that makes or breaks an image is... lighting.

Completely agree here. And I have to respect those who 'can' get lighting to look good in poser, because it is darn hard! Poser doesn't have GI or radiosity or even good AO. It takes a lot of skill to fake a lot of this to get a decent render. Other apps can produce better renders with just default settings -- and can produce astounding results with tweaks. But you still have to have a clue as to how to use light. I think photographers have an advantage here, as they must learn to be observant of light and know how to use it effectively.

I believe they also mention in the same mag about how DAZ is entering the game world with their MOGBOX (or whatever it is called).
I think I remember something they wrote about, "Why reinvent the wheel when you can start with a perfectly good mesh and go from there", I'm obviously paraphrasing here, okay? So put away the quote daggers.
But it all seemed somewhat ironic with MentalRoys take.

Comitted to excellence through art.

 I don't want to be misunderstood. The DAZ meshes are very flexible even if they are a bit poly heavy. My first attempt to model a humanoid looked like a Picasso and that was NOT my goal. Even now I have no plans in the near future to model a humanoid.

I love modeling inanimate objects. It is time consuming and I'm a perfectionist. I'm modeling a courthouse right now and my source images suck, so it's taking a lot longer than normal. It is difficult to devote your time towards something to which you won't see the rewards for several weeks. But when it's done you feel really good and I believe that this is the source of 3D elitism.

I agree that without lights you have nothing. Long ago some bored  / depressed person thought about creating an extravagant scene but render it without lights. I thought that was hilarious.

I wouldn't be put off by the cost. My measly 13GB runtime ( and I say measly because someone recently said theirs is nearly 400GB) cost more than my Maya license and it's full of stuff that seemed cool at the time but I ultimately never used.

Those capable people with "the right hands" have hashed away at their craft longer than they will admit, so stick with it.

Quote - Replicand said: I love modeling inanimate objects. It is time consuming and I'm a perfectionist.

I have several simple projects I'm halfway through. I lose interest and never finish them, or get stuck and don't know how to finish them. (using the hexagon I bought for $2) > Quote - I wouldn't be put off by the cost. My measly 13GB runtime ( and I say measly because someone recently said theirs is nearly 400GB) cost more than my Maya license and it's full of stuff that seemed cool at the time but I ultimately never used.

That is a good point. I find myself growing bored with content, and tired of worrying whether any other app I'm interested in will work with poser content.

 Cinema4D + Interposer is the one for you

Trivia (most of you should know this!): What is the "hello world" mesh of 3D CG programming?

The Utah Teapot? Are you kidding? NVIATWAS of course!
Perhaps in the real CG world it is, but that's boring. We live in the poser world and NVIATWAS is the "Hello world" of the poser universe!

We are outcasts, we live in a ghetto, well, let's be proud about that! We are not like the rest of the world. We like to use poser, no, we love to use poser, and so what? As far as I know 3Dworld does take Poser and Daz|studio still very serious, inspite of some renegade criticer who was short of inspiration. Almost every month there's some new poser content on their free DVD, they anounce new releases of poser and DAZ, and from time to time they have very interesting posertutorials.
Poser is an easy prey for critics, it's just like in prime school, where the bullies tease the little ones. Please let us stand above that.
In my opinion those who nag on poser are afraid to use it.

Okay, Now it's time for Elvis:.... I heard a young boy cry...

Regards,

Bopper.

-How can you improve things when you don't make mistakes?

So call me a Ghetto rat...

There be worse things to do to keep out of trouble.
Arrr arrr, Mateys.

Eternal Hobbyist

 

Quote - Trivia (most of you should know this!): What is the "hello world" mesh of 3D CG programming?

The Utah Teapot? Are you kidding? NVIATWAS of course!
Perhaps in the real CG world it is, but that's boring. We live in the poser world and NVIATWAS is the "Hello world" of the poser universe!

Well, I didn't say it was interesting.  Just like a "hello world" program is not very interesting (though there are some interesting takes on it).

Actually, wouldn't the unchangeably dressed Posette or Dork (or their close relatives Judy and Don) be the "hello world" of Poser?  I've seen these two used to death in 3D papers and prototype software and magazines (like SciAm) and TV commercials and even, gulp, Doctor Who ("Rise of the Cybermen" I think).  Not only do people go on the 'cheap' with Poser but they aren't about to put in more money for Vicky when they can use those old stock figures for free... ;D

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, you blow your whole leg off.

 -- Bjarne Stroustrup

Contact Me | Kuroyume's DevelopmentZone

Sorry folks, hate to brake you the news, but THIS is the measurestick you will have to live up against if you want to call yourself a 3d artist:
http://student.vfs.com/~3d68max/gallery.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfKrRynyBJI&fmt=18

Quote - Sorry folks, hate to brake[sic] you the news, but THIS is the measurestick you will have to live up against if you want to call yourself a 3d artist.

Gorgeous modeling and texturing on that student site. I'm in love with that anime figure. But art is not modeling alone imo. Art has many different faces. This is a beautiful example of art, and there are others completely different that don't require modeling that I enjoy just as well.

Yeah, but that's like saying, "Well, you're a good guitarist but you can't play like (insert Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Paul Gilbert, Yngwie Malmsteen, etc.)."  Okay, we can't all be the best guitarist.  Out of the millions of people who play guitar, only a handful are virtuoso masters.  But that doesn't mean that Jimmy Page, David Gilmour, or Dimebag Darrel sucked either (hint: they were great in their own ways).

Obviously, if one is dedicated and driven enough anyone here could easily match or surpass this given enough of those properties and time.  And believe, the tool isn't the decider here.  I've seen great guitarists pick up crap and they still make the lump of firewood sing.  And I've seen young, rich snots with the most expensive guitar equipment their parents could afford play like it was firewood.  Talent is in the person not in the tool!

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, you blow your whole leg off.

 -- Bjarne Stroustrup

Contact Me | Kuroyume's DevelopmentZone

3d is about creating virtual reality.

I'm NOT against premade stuff.
I CAN model, but I see no need to re-invent the wheel every time for every render.

My point is not "He is a true artist because he modelled it all by himself".
My point is "He is a true artist because he strives for quality".

The problem is, 99,9% of Poser users are happy with using mediocre quality, that's why they get mediocre quality.

There is no reason that you AVERAGE Vicky morph you buy in the marketplace couldn't look as realistic as this.

If only DAZ (Or someone else) would make an ACCURATE 3d mesh based on a real human to start with.
And people would be willing to pay enough for QUALITY to make Poser attractive for professional 3d MODELLERS.

All you'll get for $1.99 is a quick dial spun. And even the "top of the line" $25 Poser stuff doesn't come even CLOSE to these morphs.

I agree.  Garbage in, garbage out.  This is why most Poser renders are like cheap paint-by-numbers - because people just take what they have and don't go any further (NVIATWAS syndrome).  There is some good quality premade stuff for Poser but there is also much more junk - which needs tlc if one is going to use it.

The other problem is that Poser is like a lump of firewood compared to Maya or 3DSMax.  In order to make it 'sing' one is going to have to do a lot more than just load figure/clothes/pose and render.  There are many good features in Poser but they need time-consuming massaging to produce anything of quality.  This is why I wrote interPoser - because the massaging is far less in Cinema 4D. :)

Figure accuracy is a big issue (see Jessi for a screamer).  It is hard to start with a 'perfect' human form and then allow it to be molded in billions of ways (combinations of nearly 3000 morphs) that still reflect realistic human forms.  In most 3D studios, figures are 'one-offs'.  Morphs here are for expression or some pre-configured situation.  And the figures are modeled very specifically.  Hard to compare these two philosophies without getting into hot water...

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, you blow your whole leg off.

 -- Bjarne Stroustrup

Contact Me | Kuroyume's DevelopmentZone

Quote - Sorry folks, hate to brake you the news, but THIS is the measurestick you will have to live up against if you want to call yourself a 3d artist:
http://student.vfs.com/~3d68max/gallery.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfKrRynyBJI&fmt=18

Shriek ! He did Sephiroth !!!   Eeeee !!  My Hero !!!

faints

Eternal Hobbyist

 

When using the ‘professional’ software to create your own stuff from scratch it takes a very long time to get to the point where you can create something resembling art. Weeks or months might be spent on preliminaries. When unwrapping a mesh or packing uv islands as closely as possible to prepare for a most detailed texture map, you may wonder, “Is this art?” Whether the answer is yes or no, it is one of hundreds of necessary steps to get to the point where art can be made. No surprise that professionals have no time to fill the Renderosity galleries, though in a sense they do with the content rendered by the Michelangelos and Michelangelas of the Poserverse. There’s nothing more gratifying than to make a render and realize that the image is actually yours, content and all, but perhaps this pleasure is not for the professionals. I can’t conceive of any reason to do your renders in Poser if you can afford Vue or a better application and have a computer capable of running it. Sure, with enough time and effort you can cheat the eye and make a great Poser render, but you could do even better with a superior render engine if you learned to use it. I’m not clear on how Daz content could be introduced into games, unless they intend to do low-poly versions of everything, but I think the ‘Renderosity ghetto’ may have already spread to the Sims. I was looking at some of the available mods and it looked a lot like the Renderosity marketplace. I think it's because the whole dollhouse thing attracts the women.

Download my free stuff here: http://www.renderosity.com/homepage.php?page=2&amp;userid=323368

Mental Roy happen to have a gallery that ghetto Renderosity users like us can visit and most certainly be amazed by?  And if I see yet another IBL-lit car or reflective spheres on a table, there's gonna be trouble.   >:)

SnowS

my DeviantArt page: http://snowsultan.deviantart.com/

 

I do not speak as a representative of DAZ, I speak only as a long-time member here. Be nice (and quit lying about DAZ) and I'll be nice too.

By the way, kuroyume0161, the teapot is a "unit primitive" in Modo.

Download my free stuff here: http://www.renderosity.com/homepage.php?page=2&amp;userid=323368

Quote - 3d is about creating virtual reality.

I'm NOT against premade stuff.
I CAN model, but I see no need to re-invent the wheel every time for every render.

My point is not "He is a true artist because he modelled it all by himself".
My point is "He is a true artist because he strives for quality".

The problem is, 99,9% of Poser users are happy with using mediocre quality, that's why they get mediocre quality.

There is no reason that you AVERAGE Vicky morph you buy in the marketplace couldn't look as realistic as this.

If only DAZ (Or someone else) would make an ACCURATE 3d mesh based on a real human to start with.
And people would be willing to pay enough for QUALITY to make Poser attractive for professional 3d MODELLERS.

All you'll get for $1.99 is a quick dial spun. And even the "top of the line" $25 Poser stuff doesn't come even CLOSE to these morphs.

You know ..... its a little hard to get things perfect in poser. I try  myself  fairly often to make my renders as good as possible,( I havent posted many renders here lately so don't go by that  completely) BUT theres several things stopping me .....

Every time I think I have my lights perfect because the render looks just as I want it to on my monitor I post it and someone complains that its too dark or its too light or something is washed out or some other problem. It looked just fine on my monitor, not everyone's monitors are calibrated the same ... if at all.

As for characters I never use a character as purchased if ever, in fact the only reason i even buy characters at all are for the textures if I like them well enough. I prefer to make my own characters  and while I only use the morphs built into whatever figure I am using  whatever character I come up with is unique. I have never seen anyone else's characters looking like mine. ever.

On props and backgrounds  I don't use just any old crap unless theres nothing else and even then I try to change the textures on it to make it look better than it did originally. I remember there was a contest I had entered a render in and  even though I had bought the building I was using at DAZ the textures were VERY low res and just completely  took away from the whole of the render because of that.

I never claim to be super good but I think I am decent I KNOW I have a lot of room for improvement. I am trying to learn to build what I need when i cant find it but that takes time and thats something I don't have much of since I am in college right now. But contrary to what you  say I AM an artist though I don't limit myself to just 3D

"Sorry folks, hate to brake you the news, but THIS is the measurestick you will have to live up against if you want to call yourself a 3d artist:"

THAT is the measurestick (uh) if you want to call yourself a professional-level 3D artist and/or animator. It is NOT the minimum skill one must show to be able to say they're simply a 3D artist. According to that logic, the only people who can call themselves football players would be NFL players; the only writers would be those who write best-selling novels, and the only photographers would be the ones who's works hang in galleries or grace magazine covers.

SnowS

edit: I realized Joe's native language might not be English from his quoted text, so I toned down my response.

my DeviantArt page: http://snowsultan.deviantart.com/

 

I do not speak as a representative of DAZ, I speak only as a long-time member here. Be nice (and quit lying about DAZ) and I'll be nice too.

I feel that an earlier point bears repeating here: many "traditional media" artists consider anything which is created on a computer to be non-Art.  Artificial; fake.  No matter which high-priced 3D software package was used to produce it, or how "realistic" the final results appear to be.

BTW - since when is realism the end-all and the be-all of art, anyway?  Realism might be the holy grail of 3D (to some of us), but it isn't the holy grail of art in general.  Besides which: Mental Roy's (mental roy's?) 3D art in that example gallery doesn't look so realistic to me..........

And there's also another point that's been mentioned in these types of threads before, because it's pertinent: give the software / hardware developers a few more years to work on the problem, and pushbutton "Make Art" 3D realism will be commonplace: within fairly easy reach of any 10-year-old with a computer and some basic software.  Given that, the question will then become "who is the real 3D artist?"  The software end-user who makes images on his computer, or the programmer who wrote the software which made those images possible?  Not to mention the hardware developers who produced the high-powered machines needed to drive such software...........tsk tsk tsk -- "art" which drops out of sophisticated PC magic.  The best users of such software being little different from the 17-year-old who's mastered the latest version of Half-Life, and who can use the software to out-shoot anyone else in the game.  Which is an accomplishment of sorts -- but it's not as if he could have achieved it without the use of somebody else's "pre-made content" which made his accomplishment possible in the first place.

I'm sure that he'll brag about what he's done, anyway.......and he'll sound as if he did it all by himself.

Something To Do At 3:00AM 

BTW - those images in that "3D realism" gallery?  A fair number of people would find the images creepy, rather than impressive.  Some would feel like a plastic mannequin had come to life, and had assumed the appearance of a real person......or else that a real person had been first dipped in hot wax and then posed, à la Horror in the Wax Museum.

Movie critics probably wouldn't approve.  But that doesn't matter: because a high-end naked CG Angelina Jolie strutting around in a cave is a lot more artsy (and less clichéd) than a naked V4 in a temple with a sword.  Everyone knows that.

Something To Do At 3:00AM 

I'll file "pushbutton art" in the same category as artificial intelligence, virtual reality and quantum computers until when and if it actually arrives. Even then, it will probably be similar to pushbutton photography, though far more difficult since a photographer doesn't actually have to build a world. Not everyone with a camera is a photographer after all, and not every Poser user is an artist.

Download my free stuff here: http://www.renderosity.com/homepage.php?page=2&amp;userid=323368

Quote - I'll file "pushbutton art" in the same category as artificial intelligence, virtual reality and quantum computers until when and if it actually arrives. Even then, it will probably be similar to pushbutton photography, though far more difficult since a photographer doesn't actually have to build a world. Not everyone with a camera is a photographer after all, and not every Poser user is an artist.

shrug  Nor does every Poser user claim to be an artist -- any more than everyone who owns a camera claims to be a professional photographer.

As for "pushbutton art" -- as I've already subtly hinted at above: many traditional media artists consider anything done on a PC to already fall into the category of "pushbutton art".......and therefore, by definition, unworthy of the label of Art (with a capital "A").  Even if it was produced in Maya.

Something To Do At 3:00AM 

One reason you don't see as much crap coming from the high-end apps, is that what you see is highly filtered, either by moderators or by public, humiliating abuse of those who post less than stellar work so that most don't try. There are plenty of crappy models and renders being made from top-end applications, there just isn't anywhere welcoming to those of lesser abilities in that tier to post them.

Sounds great, can we have the same here?

I love use Poser, since it's so easy to use and gives me the results I want in a very short time. The main reason I switched to Poser was lack of time. I used to model (and stil do occasionally) with Cinema4D for the games industry (some of my models ended in up in a number of RTS games ), but getting older I like to spent time with my family, non-virtual friends, get to bed on time, enjoy nature and so on. So I made the decision to stop modeling for games, but look for software to use in my own games that would give me models as quick as possible. So I ended up with Poser and have been using it ever since. Great for my games and later on my comics also.  Recently, I've left the games industry completely and took on a regular part-time job (working with troubled teens) trying to do something more useful with my life then only sitting behind a computer screen, looking back, it seems a waste of life by now. Still like playing with Poser, but with a time restriction, so the important things of life get not undersnowed by some crazy addiction again. To be honest I was glad to be able to pull away from it all.

That as a bit of background..... I've been one of those pro's as they tend to be called around here. I NEVER laughed about Poser, most of the pro's are a bit jealous of Poser users. I don't have a problem with the application, the problem is in the stuff people create with it. I still am amazed by the rubish the majority produces with it. It's given Poser a bad name and the content (geared at the majority of users preference) is it's biggest selling stubling block. Most Pro's will never take Poser seriously (not even when EF/SM puts Pro behind it's name) due to it's primary focus of the content and community. If the same filtering would have been applied to Poser, it would have gone a completely different direction and Poser wouldn't be in so much trouble is it is now. But by over-focussing on a certain genre, Poser has dug it's own grave and allowed itself to become the stepchild in 3D. The application itself has come a long way and offers a lot, the majority of the users are still the same and creating mediocre images with it, completely wasting the application. The most worriying is that most of these users never get any better at all and are cheering each other on with praising remarks. No wonder most of the 3D world laughs about the Poser related communities when all they seem to be able to do is creating mediocre images pretending they're masters at what they do and calling each other artists.

Take a look at what has happened to Vue and Carrara. Vue started out as some hobby application, same as Carrara. Vue has always applied filtering (I guess they've understood the potential danger of allowing poser users to link up with Vue) and keeps their distance from the poser communtiy. Look at where Vue is now and who's been using it. Now take Carrara, same origins and until DAZ took over it had a good user base and some well known names using it. The application was gaining notice in the 3D world..... until Eovia decided to sell out to DAZ. The user base moved on, the 'pros' watching on the fence stopped watching and Carrara lost it's good name and it's not taken seriously anymore. It has the same potential (and even greater) then Vue had, but it lost it's charm with the DAZ branding on it.

If the owners of Poser would have done the same as E-On, they would have grown huge, but the didn't keep the distance they should have (they even turned up at some porn industry related shows) and they've paid deerly for it. Now they desperately try to climb out of the pit they've dug themselves, but most likely they will never succeed.

Artwork and 3DToons items, create the perfect place for you toon and other figures!

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?vendor=23722

Due to the childish TOS changes, I'm not allowed to link to my other products outside of Rendo anymore :(

Food for thought.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYZw0dfLmLk

Quote - One reason you don't see as much crap coming from the high-end apps, is that what you see is highly filtered, either by moderators or by public, humiliating abuse of those who post less than stellar work so that most don't try. There are plenty of crappy models and renders being made from top-end applications, there just isn't anywhere welcoming to those of lesser abilities in that tier to post them

I agree but IMO this can be both a good and bad thing. While you're right that it does lead to improved quality, it also tends to scare away less aggressive artists or those that aren't working in what would be called a 'traditional' CG medium. eg take a look at the fractal section of our gallery here... It's full of interesting even brilliant work, but none of the 'high end' forums out there would give it the time of day. In this at least, they're all the same as poser galleries, ie they worship at the altar of 'nekkid asian/elf chick with a sword', 'generic archi render' and 'hyperdetailed orc with axe' style images. The quality may be high but the themes are right down there with our NVIATWAS.

Quote - If the owners of Poser would have done the same as E-On, they would have grown huge, but the didn't keep the distance they should have (they even turned up at some porn industry related shows) and they've paid deerly for it. Now they desperately try to climb out of the pit they've dug themselves, but most likely they will never succeed.

On the contrary they should have pulled up their sleeves and started digging. The primary market for poser and associated content has always been people who like to render beautiful CG people in various stages of undress. There is no point in trying to distance yourself from your primary market, instead you should embrace it without shame. If your userbase wants to render nekkid people, make it easier and cooler for them to do so. Give them realistic skin, skin deformation, realistic jiggle and gravity, easier ways for characters to interact, easier ways to 'animate' their favorite characters. Add basic behaviorial AI so that users can interact with their virtual dolls, add speech synthesis so they can hear them talk... and so on. That's the poser goldmine right there.

Going after 'pros' who won't give Poser the time of day no matter what they add is not a good idea. People using MAX, Maya, XSI et al (i mean really using it and not just using it to render poser stuff) are not suddenly going to care about poser even if has a few plugins to host stuff in them.

*The primary market for poser and associated content has always been people who like to render beautiful CG people in various stages of undress.

• That's no true at all, the primary market was completely different then what it is now. Poser had a completely different focus when it was first released. The major shift did occur years later and the main figure to blame for this is V3. After V3 was released things started to change and suddenly everyone had to undress the poser figures. Before here release the marketplaces looked very different. If you ever have the time, try comparing pre-V3 content and post-V3 content and you will notice a huge shift of focus. Also a very interesting thing is that up to Poser 4 Pro sales went up, after that sales declined for each version, slowly but surely.

The galleries looked quite differently also. When I came here first they were pretty cool and quite decent, the majority of images were very innovative, inspiring and some even stunning. Now it's the same thing over and over again (with a few exceptions inbetween). If I would be looking for an application that was similair to poser the first time now and would check out the galleries (at various poser related places) I would quickly move on and look for a different application (my wife would never agreee with it now). When I first bought Poser the galleries looked very differently and I had no trouble buying Poser at all(neither had my wife). If I had to make that choice all over again in these days, I feel very differently and would have a number of objections for buying.

Artwork and 3DToons items, create the perfect place for you toon and other figures!

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?vendor=23722

Due to the childish TOS changes, I'm not allowed to link to my other products outside of Rendo anymore :(

Food for thought.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYZw0dfLmLk

"*...'cause if there was one thing she don' need, it's another cross-eyed naked little vicky to feed...

...in the ghe-tooooo....*"

snork

Oh, c'mon, folks - get over yerselves. You got your chain yanked by an amateur writer who managed (most likely by accident) to pull off a bon mot for once in his (to now) obscure career. I mean, think about this... even the cheesy pun-based 'nym (y'all know what Mental Ray is, right?) should've given that away.

/P

This is the question that frequently gets overlooked when this whole argument comes up again (and again and again and again...)

What is the purpose the user (artist, whatever) is going for?

If someone wants to do professional quality animation or astoundingly lifelike rendering then yeah, Poser is pretty sucky.  If someone wants to get into the professional CG industry then yeah, showing your stuff in Maya or Max or Lightwave is the way to go and Poser is kiddie stuff.  If you want to create 3D objects and people from scratch then yeah, Poser ain't your thing.

On the other hand, there are a great many things that you might want to do where Poser is perfectly fine.

Here's a good analogy: there are a great many comics out there drawn by truly talented artists who have ridiculously great skill when it comes to the pencil (or graphics tablet), some in print and some as webcomics.

Then there's Irregular Webcomics, which is just digital photos of Lego or RPG playing figures.  There's xkcd and Order of the Stick, literally drawn using stick figures.  There's Dinosaur Comics, which has over 1000 strips consisting of the exact same panels of clipart and only the dialog changed.  Heck, there's Dilbert, which uses highly simplistic characters.

By any measure of purely artistic skill, those four webcomics  and one printed comic are pretty much bottom of the barrel.  But the technical skill required by the artwork (or lack thereof) isn't the point.  Order of the Stick, to use one example, is an award-winning comic whose popularity allowed the creator to go into comics full-time.  In this case the art is stylistic and plays second fiddle to story and characterization and the writing.  He's fully capable of drawing more realistically (as he does in one strip), but realistic rendering and the work that would go into it isn't the point.  Hell, in some strips he goes backwards stylistically, drawing even more crudely with crayons.  Yet the whole thing works.

Being able to make a pretty picture of a figure that you modeled from scratch, textured yourself and so on is great.  I don't have the skill to do it, so I applaud people who do.  But until you prove otherwise, all you've demonstrated is that you can make a pretty, static, picture.  Meanwhile, those pre-made clothes and textures and figures and basic lighting that the "artistic purists" complain about?  I've seen very good stories being told with them.  Individually the panels in the story might not be as technically well done but they've demonstrated a skill that the super-realistic creator hasn't.  So which is better?  Both, and neither.

Finally, some people just want to fool around with CG, and Poser is perfectly fine with them.  It's like amateur writing: some is good, much is bad, and a great deal is at best mediocre, but you don't try and pretend that it isn't writing just because there are people who are very good writers out there.

Quote - Oh, c'mon, folks - get over yerselves. You got your chain yanked by an amateur writer who managed (most likely by accident) to pull off a bon mot for once in his (to now) obscure career. I mean, think about this... even the cheesy pun-based 'nym (y'all know what Mental Ray is, right?) should've given that away.

Uh yeah, duh, I knew the name was a pun. I don't need twenty people to tell me that or that the column is meant to yank people's chains. I get the humor. I thought the conversation had been pretty civil and had moved beyond the comments made in the article. I know some people think we are beating a dead horse, but they are free to leave the thread and find something they find more interesting. But then some people desperately need to make condescending comments to others to make themselves feel superior.

Quote - By any measure of purely artistic skill, those four webcomics  and one printed comic are pretty much bottom of the barrel.  But the technical skill required by the artwork (or lack thereof) isn't the point.  Order of the Stick, to use one example, is an award-winning comic whose popularity allowed the creator to go into comics full-time.  In this case the art is stylistic and plays second fiddle to story and characterization and the writing.

This reminds me of another article in the same issue of 3D World on machinima. Machinima is animation rendered in real time, using something like a game engine to create short films. The look is obviously less realistic than fully rendered animation, but like often happens, creative people used the tools at hand to tell their stories. Those who didn't have access to the expensive apps and render farms required to do traditional animation, used the game engine they alreay had for creative outlet, and have gained notice from the 'pros.' As I said, art takes many forms, and sometimes it can look crude or less polished but still be just as valuable because of some quality it contains, that moves people in some way.

"Art" is no excuse for shoddy craftmanship.

Bazze creates accurate models of airplanes.
Stonemason creates accurate models of buildings and streets.

We already have all the "innaccurate" and "crude" and "simple" human meshes we ever need.
There should be room in the Poserverse for at least ONE set of photorealistic human meshes.

Quote - There should be room in the Poserverse for at least ONE set of photorealistic human meshes.

Hey, I'd love to see that too. Someone was attempting to do just that, and was posting his progress in the forums here, until he got harassed enough that he left. The bending of the model was quite impressive. Rigging in Poser is the real weak point in model realism, I believe. (And lighting if you're rendering in poser).

The major shift did occur years later and the main figure to blame for this is V3. After V3 was released things started to change and suddenly everyone had to undress the poser figures.

If V3 hadn't appeared, another (more or less) anatomical correct female model would have be the leading poser figure. Perhaps it's hard to accept but the market isn't ruled by moral standards. Sex sells and not only on the internet. Back in the eighties there were three kinds of videotapes on the market: VHS, Betamax and Philips 2000. Although Philips 2000 was technical superior to VHF, it died a silent death because Philips didn't want to sell pornotapes.
And there is another economic principle working: The most supported figure will have the greatest support, in another words: everyone loves a winner.
But what the main issue is: Poser is a tool, that makes it possible to visualise someones imagination in such an easy way that you don't need a master degree in computer graphics to achieve that.
For most  people it would be better to keep those  fantasies private, but a lot of them suffer on overestimation and shameless show them to the rest of the world. Those are the same people you see in the pre-auditions of Idols.  You look at them and you tear your sofa apart in an empathic feel of shame.
It would be good for this community if there was a hall of fame but also a hall of shame for the galleries, which would judged by an indepent professional jury., and not the hug-clubs that are haunting this place.
If we could show the best , but also the worst what poser has to offer, perhaps it would be taken mopre seriously.

my €0,02.

Bopper.

-How can you improve things when you don't make mistakes?

I'd say that Apollo Maximus is an example of how Poser's rigging can actually yield very good results.  But since it has been banished to non-standard land, we can never hope to see it used as a model of this.  DAZ continues to go the other direction, making the figures more and more complicated to patch up shotty rigging...

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, you blow your whole leg off.

 -- Bjarne Stroustrup

Contact Me | Kuroyume's DevelopmentZone

Big words about "art", everybody!

Art has nothing to do with other peoples opinion. Art has nothing to do with accuracy. Art has nothing to do with anything, but itself.

Art touches the heart. Of course there are a lot of works inside our gallery that do not touch our hearts - but they touched the heart of the people who created them. And that touches my heart.

I don't care what this Mortal Rook guy says - if Rendo was, is or becomes a "ghetto" of people being happy with what they are doing, I will happily and proudly be part of it. And simply let the people play.

And another word about "accurate art": who ever tries to measure "art" or even craftsmanship on "accuracy", should place himself amidst Auguste Rodins "People Of Calais" and open his/her eyes.

*A bit more respect for the word "ghetto" and it's original meaning would have been good, by the way.

www.skin2pix.com

Heh -- a lot of famous artists have come from the ghetto.  Not so many from the ivory towers.

As for getting someone's chain yanked -- that might be the intent -- but chain-yankers sometimes find that they've managed to pull something large and heavy down on top of themselves......something that the chain was attached to, and that was sitting up above their heads.

Chain-yanking isn't always a safe activity.  Perhaps a tiger is on the other end of the chain.......:biggrin:

Something To Do At 3:00AM 

For the longest time I thought artists were relaxed, Mellow and Chilled out, But I guess not.

I'm not reading through all of that, but you guys are almost bad as the gear heads (Car Junkies) with their whole Imports VS Domestic thing.

Art is Art, may not necessarily have to be good, but why bash? What good comes out of it?
Most 3D artists I have known have some kind of conflict with 2D artists, and now 3D artist have some kind of hate towards each other just because of the Program we use?

I really don't know what the big deal is someone please clarify for me.

Don't let failures get to your heart, and also do not let success get to your head.

Quote - For the longest time I thought artists were relaxed, Mellow and Chilled out, But I guess not.

Hmm, it's always seemed to me that much art comes from troubled souls more than mellow people. > Quote - I'm not reading through all of that, but you guys are almost bad as the gear heads (Car Junkies) with their whole Imports VS Domestic thing.

Well, if you had read all of that, you would have seen that many of us agree with you, that art has many faces and the tool doesn't matter so much as what is expressed. :) So please don't use the all inclusive "you guys" and lump us all in one batch.

Quote - For the longest time I thought artists were relaxed, Mellow and Chilled out, But I guess not.

Artists, as a group, are no more "chilled out" than any other given group of human beings.  In fact, they're generally a little more keyed-up than the others........

Quote - Art is Art, may not necessarily have to be good, but why bash? What good comes out of it?
Most 3D artists I have known have some kind of conflict with 2D artists, and now 3D artist have some kind of hate towards each other just because of the Program we use?

Sounds reasonable.

Quote - I really don't know what the big deal is someone please clarify for me.

Good question -- write a letter to the editor at 3D World magazine, and perhaps they'll deign to condescend and provide you with an answer.

Something To Do At 3:00AM 

Quote - > Quote - For the longest time I thought artists were relaxed, Mellow and Chilled out, But I guess not.

Hmm, it's always seemed to me that much art comes from troubled souls more than mellow people. > Quote - I'm not reading through all of that, but you guys are almost bad as the gear heads (Car Junkies) with their whole Imports VS Domestic thing.

Well, if you had read all of that, you would have seen that many of us agree with you, that art has many faces and the tool doesn't matter so much as what is expressed. :) So please don't use the all inclusive "you guys" and lump us all in one batch.

Sorry for the being inclusive, Didn't mean it that way lol.

As for writing to 3D world, I don't have the right words to write to them =(

Don't let failures get to your heart, and also do not let success get to your head.

Quote - > Quote - I really don't know what the big deal is someone please clarify for me.

Good question -- write a letter to the editor at 3D World magazine, and perhaps they'll deign to condescend and provide you with an answer.

Well, to be fair it was just one columnist, who is known for his sarcastic and biting humor and where everyone is fair game for criticism. 3D World in general is not (openly) condescending to its hobbiest readers. As has been said, there are tutorials and content offered for daz/poser/bryce users.

Quote - Well, to be fair it was just one columnist, who is known for his sarcastic and biting humor and where everyone is fair game for criticism. 3D World in general is not (openly) condescending to its hobbiest readers. As has been said, there are tutorials and content offered for daz/poser/bryce users.

Very good -- and good to hear.

The thing that I think that a lot of proud "high-end" connoisseurs fail to realize or acknowledge about Poser has to do with the fact that there's a large & growing market which is comprised of lowly Poser hobbyists and users.  In other words: there's money to be made.

It's amazing how many artists forget all about their purist tendencies when someone waves a check under their noses..........

Something To Do At 3:00AM 

Quote - One reason you don't see as much crap coming from the high-end apps, is that what you see is highly filtered, either by moderators or by public, humiliating abuse of those who post less than stellar work so that most don't try. There are plenty of crappy models and renders being made from top-end applications, there just isn't anywhere welcoming to those of lesser abilities in that tier to post them.

Sounds great, can we have the same here?...That as a bit of background..... I've been one of those pro's as they tend to be called around here. I NEVER laughed about Poser, most of the pro's are a bit jealous of Poser users. I don't have a problem with the application, the problem is in the stuff people create with it. I still am amazed by the rubish the majority produces with it. It's given Poser a bad name and the content (geared at the majority of users preference) is it's biggest selling stubling block. Most Pro's will never take Poser seriously (not even when EF/SM puts Pro behind it's name) due to it's primary focus of the content and community. If the same filtering would have been applied to Poser, it would have gone a completely different direction and Poser wouldn't be in so much trouble is it is now. But by over-focussing on a certain genre, Poser has dug it's own grave and allowed itself to become the stepchild in 3D. The application itself has come a long way and offers a lot, the majority of the users are still the same and creating mediocre images with it, completely wasting the application. The most worriying is that most of these users never get any better at all and are cheering each other on with praising remarks. No wonder most of the 3D world laughs about the Poser related communities when all they seem to be able to do is creating mediocre images pretending they're masters at what they do and calling each other artists....

The way I see it is that Poser really isn't a true fleshed out 3D platform.  It's a rendering tool with some utilities built in to make it easier to deal with already complete meshes. (boning, materials/textures, etc)  In other words, it's a hobby tool.  I don't put it in the same class as anything which is actually designed to construct meshes and create them from the ground up.  I also don't put it in the same class of tools used most commonly in professional rendering/animation either.  In short, it's a hobbyist tool and the users, community and publishers seem to recognize that.

The publisher's job, in this case, is they have to keep their product alive.  Poser became popular not because it was some awesome 3D tool.  It became popular because it automated many complex tasks and presented some decently powerful options using a click of a button.  But, all of that takes up space and programming skills necessary to support them.  Thus, the package is trimmed and cut to give exactly what the publisher/devloper wants even if it part of a much larger market segment.  (ie: You can get a spreadsheet to manage your checkbook, you don't need an online stock portfolio manager with dedicated feeds to your PDA every 5 secs.) Poser is a check-book management piece of software and not a stock portfolio and futures trading tool.

So, they have to tailor their site to the people that buy, or would buy, their product.  That's the hobbyist.  Hobbyist like experiencing their hobby and sharing that experience.  So, the easier it is to do that, the better it is for the publisher and the hobbyist/fan.  That's where crappy renders and questionable/objectionable content comes from.  If you're a big fan and can upload a crappy render on a whim, and you are sincerely impressed with it, then you'll do it.  As far as Poser is concerned.. they want you to do that.  If you feel good about having it on their site, they're happy because you're more inclined to keep spending money on your hobby.  If you were constantly bombarded with 3D artwork rendered by professionals which made your 3 minute wonder look like garbage after you "worked" at it all day, you'd be somewhat less inclined to be enthusiastic about your hobby.  If someone had to critque every Poser hobbyist's work, there wouldn't be very much content and a lack of content is "bad" for anything online.

I understand your frustration, somewhat.  But, it's a hobbyist's site.  Anyone who represents it as otherwise isn't really being honest with themselves IF, and only IF, they are trying to compare it to a professional, working class, 3D artist's site.  There are wizards that can force Poser to do some really wonderful things.  They do deserve respect for what they can do with that tool.  The are "professionals" regarding its use in many ways.  But, in the end, it's in its own class of 3D software and they're just astronomically talented with it in order to produce some of what they do.

I expect to see garbage renders.  I am also pleasantly surprised by some pretty amazing ones from time to time.  It takes a heck of a lot of skill using Poser to get a decent quality render out of it. (life still shots, etc.)  But, no matter how much they develop it, it won't be replacing ZBrush, 3ds, etc.. and it won't be on render-farms at ILM.

Quote - > Quote - Oh, c'mon, folks - get over yerselves. You got your chain yanked by an amateur writer who managed (most likely by accident) to pull off a bon mot for once in his (to now) obscure career. I mean, think about this... even the cheesy pun-based 'nym (y'all know what Mental Ray is, right?) should've given that away.

Uh yeah, duh....

Didn't direct it @ you, but if you desire to take offense? Okay, be my guest. ;)

Quote - I thought the conversation had been pretty civil and had moved beyond the comments made in the article.

Sure, once you weed out all the drama, the recycled arguments, the rehydrated allusions and analogies... comes to what, two posts? And someone bring me another Swiffer, please - this one couldn't possibly hold another ounce of dust.

Quote - I know some people think we are beating a dead horse...

"And this year's Oscar for 'Most Jaw-Droppingly Obvious Observation of This Geologic Era' Goes to..."

Nah - just yankin' your chain.

All goofing aside?

I don't know what's more hilarious - the original article (c'mon, you gotta admit, the imagery alone is worth the price of admission), or the passionate drama that attends it here...

...it's just art, folks.

/P

Poser is just a hobby for me I could care less what someone who get's paid to do  3D Professionally thinks about my skill levels. It's just something I do to pass time.

hmm, if all poser art were moderated for quality my gallery would be tiny .

And the world would miss out on an award winning artwork

I just like to make pictures...;) See things I'd like to see, but sometimes don't. Heck, we all start somewhere, so we're gonna make crappy models and bad textures at first, but it's all part of the learning process...

..and anyone who thinks artists are mellow should have seen the OT forums back in '04...;)

I wish I'd said that.. The Staircase Wit

anahl nathrak uth vas betude doth yel dyenvey..;)

Thanks for those posts arcebus and pakled...   that's basically the truth of it I think. 

I have taken art courses in college and one thing I learned from all of those hours of listening to the professors' lecture and the images of the "classics" up on the overhead was that some images touched me and some didn't.  That doesn't mean the ones that didn't weren't good, they just didn't do anything for me...

So what does that mean exactly???  that art is all in the eye of the beholder, and nothing more.  It's as simple as that, there is no good or bad art, there is only the image one is viewing at the time, and how it appears to that viewer, because the same image will be interpreted differently depending on who's looking at it.

lol,  I know my images aren't anything to write home about, but so what, the fact is I love 3D art of all kinds and "play" with poser and other 3D apps because that's what I enjoy doing (all the artists on this site, it's all your fault!!!  it wasn't until I started browsing the galleries here that I got so hooked on this stuff!!   lol)

I have to agree with a few of the posts that I just can't understand why someone would waste their time knocking other forms of 3D art, websites or apps.  All I can say is they must have too much time on their hands...  lol

I've seen images in the galleries that made me think; what was the artist thinking when they created that ?!?!?!?   But who am I to say that the image doesn't mean something or is not important to the person who created it?   You'll never catch me giving bad reviews or mean or unkind comments to any artist on this or any other art site, because what's the point?  

anyways, had to put my thoughts in on this one 'cause it's a good thread.  I really admire some of the people who create some of the images I've seen in the galleries here, and wish I could do as good work.   Some of the images I've seen are amazing.

As far as the reference to the "ghetto" -
hey, I grew up in the ghetto,
have lived my life in the ghetto,
I love the ghetto,
it's all I've ever known, so what's the big deal???

cheers,

M

Quote -

I don't know what's more hilarious - the original article (c'mon, you gotta admit, the imagery alone is worth the price of admission), or the passionate drama that attends it here...

/lurk mode

Firstly, hello ,

Secondly, it was one of the funniest things I've read for a long time. The accompanying picture still makes me smile. The writer obviously knows the sites, the software and the galleries. Maybe they are or have been a Poser user...
I read it as affectionate satire but then I'm just a weird old foreign person with a strange hobby.

Personally, I love these threads for the satirical entertainment value of watching the underlying drama of those who regularly participate in such threads -- and then who decry the 'drama' that one finds in them.

[Edited to add:] Lurkers have the best deal of all going for them.  Free entertainment without having to pay cable-company rates for it.  Unless if someone happens to have high-speed internet fees which they pay in order to have the privilege of reading through these types of overly-melodramatic threads.  Which they have no use for, of course.

Something To Do At 3:00AM 

Quote - *The primary market for poser and associated content has always been people who like to render beautiful CG people in various stages of undress.

• That's no true at all, the primary market was completely different then what it is now. Poser had a completely different focus when it was first released. The major shift did occur years later and the main figure to blame for this is V3. After V3 was released things started to change and suddenly everyone had to undress the poser figures.

...

The galleries looked quite differently also. When I came here first they were pretty cool and quite decent, the majority of images were very innovative, inspiring and some even stunning. Now it's the same thing over and over again

 

Your registration date here implies you've been here almost as long as me, and yet you don't remember when renderosity's galleries had explicity sex scenes as a very common feature?

I do.

It was before V1. In the possette days. Renderotica and renderosity used to be the same website, lets not forget that.

The work here today is much cleaner than it used to be, maybe too much so in some regard, censoring out a lot of innocent work as well, but at the same time allowing in a lot of 'trash' if it doesn't trigger certain buttons.

The work today does have a certain recycled look to it, a lot of people post nothing but simple renders of canned content, not even using that canned material in innovative ways...

But that has always been true. What differs now is that there are a few hundred times more people total, and the ones doing something innovative with even the canned models get buried in the pile.

Truth has no value without backing by unfounded belief.
Renderosity Gallery

Quote - Personally, I love these threads for the satirical entertainment value of watching the underlying drama of those who regularly participate in such threads -- and then who decry the 'drama' that one finds in them.

[Edited to add:] Lurkers have the best deal of all going for them.  Free entertainment without having to pay cable-company rates for it.  Unless if someone happens to have high-speed internet fees which they pay in order to have the privilege of reading through these types of overly-melodramatic threads.  Which they have no use for, of course.

The irony of this statement being made by a member with nearly fifteen thousand posts is too much to overlook.

Quote - The irony of this statement being made by a member with nearly fifteen thousand posts is too much to overlook.

:biggrin:

The majority of which are in non-public fora, and are purely business related.    In any case -- I see no irony.  I didn't dispute the fact of my own participation -- now if I had, then that would have been ironic.  Which was the irony of the situation that I was hinting at in the first place..........so, coming full circle: you find the irony.

Now that's ironic.

Something To Do At 3:00AM 

Irony for the masses.

The real irony is that that magazine gets a regular sales boost from including some random popular female poser figure or clothing item from Daz or a vendor here every few issues and then tries to boost its cred by slapping the hand that feeds it.

Truth has no value without backing by unfounded belief.
Renderosity Gallery

Err.... so what?

If you can't poke fun at something once in awhile, then you've reached the stage where you should, for your own sanity's sake, walk away from it.

Read the kernel.org mailing lists sometime... the flamewars in there are hellish, and yet funny as hell at times (esp. those where Linus Torvalds gets involved... how many other top-end computer industry architects will actually --and literally- say that someone or something is "full of shit"?) These guys write the actual Linux kernel, yet sometimes they attack their own baby with a ferocity that would make Steve Ballmer (the guy who runs Microsoft) blush and avert his gaze in shame.

I spent a bit of time in the bowels of DAZ|Studio's codebase. OTOH, I (at least nowadays) can happily tell you its shortcomings, and freely describe the thing for what it is (at least as I see it). It's a sign of a healthy skepticism. If one can make those observations funny as well, then more power to 'em.

The old phrase 'That which does not kill me...' applies to software packages and communities as well as people. ;)

We now return you to the impassioned defense of near-naked cross-eyed bimbos waving heavy medieval weaponry in alleged sacred spaces...

/P

Quote - Err.... so what?

That states my opinion on the dot! I have over 60+ issues of 3d World and it seems  mental case roy  writer(s) flip flops all the time.  One month (s)he will state something then a few months or even weeks later state the opposite.

SO WHAT?

Just one opinion against many

Poserverse The New Home for NYGUY's Freebies

Quote - I spent a bit of time in the bowels

Ah, that explains why you can be such a turd. I kid! :P

ok so every poser user ISN't going to render a G rated scene. who cares. Calling V4 dressed up in some vamp outfit barely covering her "highlights" Ghetto, is , IMO is the equivelant of calling The Birth of Venus by Botticelli , porno.

Renderosity is a site for people to experiment and develop their skills. Members here use a variety of tools , I myself use Poser , Bryce and 3D Studio Max. Just because I have Max doesn't mean I have to put down the lower end tools, each has their purpose as well as their learning curves. I have seen crap made in Max and masterpieces made in Poser. What tools get you there are irrelevant , if the outcome looks good. then its art.

Quote - Trivia (most of you should know this!): What is the "hello world" mesh of 3D CG programming?

 
The teapot

I don't recal its actual name but thats it

aka MCDLabs
also known as Daniel Merrill a grumpy old disabled Jarhead.
checkout my freebies at
https://www.sharecg.com/pf/full_uploads.php?pf_user_name=mcdlabs

Quote - We now return you to the impassioned defense of near-naked cross-eyed bimbos waving heavy medieval weaponry in alleged sacred spaces...

/P

No, no, no.......now we return to defending the high-concept Art of a high-end-CG-generated version of a completely naked Angelina Jolie strutting around in a dark cave.  That's FAR less trite than V4's in temples with swords -- because only rank amateurs would produce trite stuff like that.

BTW - I heard a report that Angelina Jolie (the real version, not her CG counterpart) was real-world upset & angry over her 3D avatar's constant state of nudity in that movie.  Apparently, she wasn't informed that her CG-self would be naked all of the time.  Jolie obviously understands that people only go & cough up their filthy money to see such movies (with her in them) so that they can properly appreciate a famous work of primitive early European literature.  High culture, and all of that jazz.........

V4 in a temple is hackneyed because she's done in Poser; naked cave-dwelling Angelina Jolie is High Concept Art because she was done up in some high-end program or other.

But admittedly -- it is true that one of them has probably been animated with better lighting.  So I'll give you that.

Something To Do At 3:00AM 

Well, here's a thought... maybe it's just irritatingly impossible to get 'normal' clothes to look convincing on these figures, and it's just a heck of a lot easier to get some measure of realism with skimpy little bits pasted on here and there? This especially if you haven't had much practice with the program. Continuing to think backwards, you have an itsy outfit that's functioning well, and you come up with a scene it works in, like an abandoned temple, and a reason to be there, like defending it with an unweildy sword? There you go. A logical explanation! ... or not. ;)

naked cave-dwelling Angelina Jolie is High Concept Art because she was done up in some high-end program or other. Who claimed that, I wonder?

Download my free stuff here: http://www.renderosity.com/homepage.php?page=2&amp;userid=323368

Quote - BTW - I heard a report that Angelina Jolie (the real version, not her CG counterpart) was real-world upset & angry over her 3D avatar's constant state of nudity in that movie.  Apparently, she wasn't informed that her CG-self would be naked all of the time.

She was angry because she usually likes to do that sort of thing in person :P

Quote - No, no, no.......now we return to defending the high-concept Art of a high-end-CG-generated version of a completely naked Angelina Jolie strutting around in a dark cave.  That's FAR less trite than V4's in temples with swords -- because only rank amateurs would produce trite stuff like that.

I don't buy this. I'v never seen any of those people doing 'high-end-CG-generated versions' of NVIATWAS claim that their work is anything more then an example of skill and craftsmanship. At most they take credit for the exceptional talent and hard work it takes to produce one of these high quality works, which they are of course entitled to. And all those wonderful ZBrush modellers that breathe life into dead grey polygons are as amazing as any master sculptor that ever lived. Just because they moved to a more modern medium then clay or marble doesnt diminish their work in the least.

How many of the renders in our galleries can make that kind of claim, NVIATWAS or otherwise ?

Quote - ok so every poser user ISN't going to render a G rated scene. who cares. Calling V4 dressed up in some vamp outfit barely covering her "highlights" Ghetto, is , IMO is the equivelant of calling The Birth of Venus by Botticelli , porno.

Heh - not really. 'ghetto' is a description of quality, whereas 'porno' is a description of subject matter.

--

Quote - Well, here's a thought... maybe it's just irritatingly impossible to get 'normal' clothes to look convincing on these figures, and it's just a heck of a lot easier to get some measure of realism with skimpy little bits pasted on here and there? This especially if you haven't had much practice with the program.

It is easier to just not deal with clothing, but in Poserdom's earlier days, a huge chunk of folks simply painted those on in Photoshop. Clothing is struggling along - most 3d pros will simply model the clothing on the figure as part of the figure itself, since most of the time they don't expect the mesh to be re-usable beyond whatever project the mesh is being used for.

DAZ is still (allegedly still) working on some sort of clothing system for D|S, but it's not easy to do. You're talking about (at base) collision detection. This is a pain in the ass to code for under good conditions (special low/no poly 'cloth' draping over low/no-poly primitives), let alone conditions where you have a multi-thousand-poly clothing item that has to fit over a ~100k-poly-figure. Poser's current solution is pretty impractical, unless you have a metric ton of patience and/or already know up-front what the final composition is going to look like (though props to them for coming up with something...)

As for nudity? Oftentimes it is the perfect state for a figure to be in. OTOH, there has to be a 'reason' for it.

--

Quote - > Quote - Trivia (most of you should know this!): What is the "hello world" mesh of 3D CG programming?

 
The teapot

The Utah Teapot - done up by a gent at the University of Utah to test some very early concepts.

/P

Quote - She was angry because she usually likes to do that sort of thing in person :P

Most likely. 

Quote - Just because they moved to a more modern medium then clay or marble doesnt diminish their work in the least.

That depends upon who you talk to.  Some have one opinion on the subject, while others have another opinion.  As has been pointed out elsewhere: there are some "artistic traditionalists" who deny that anything which is done on a computer can be properly called "art".  The reasoning being, I suppose, that it takes real talent to physically sculpt a statue or paint on canvas -- and to do it well.  Whereas any otherwise-artistically-incompetent techno-geek can "master" a software program -- and then use it to produce something that they have the temerity to dare to call "art".  Truly artistically gifted people can do it the old fashioned way, and without any artificially-generated help.  The underlying thought being that physical sculptures and paintings derive from genuine artistic talent: and that CG creations derive from jumped-up technically-adept -- but artistically challenged -- PC game players.

BTW - I'm not saying that I agree with such reasoning.  Don't misread me on that.  But such reasoning does exist -- and it can be instructive to point such thinking out to some individuals who wish to classify the use of a certain software tool as automatically invalidating any "so-called art" that might happen to come out of it.  Perhaps they will see the mirror; but then again: perhaps they'd rather ignore it.

On the other hand, I'll agree with the "traditionalists" this far:  sure, a high-end program user might possess more technical skill than an average Poser user -- but technical skill is what he's demonstrating.  In the PC / CG / 3D world -- I think that many people tend to confuse technical skill with artistic talent.  In the same manner that some imaginative & grammatically correct typists are mistaken for writers.  This is not to say that all top-end 3D software users are merely glorified techno-wannabe-artists.  But some fair number of them are, IMO.  And yet they pride themselves over something that they have no justification being proud about.......other than to show us all that they can push buttons on a screen better than anyone else can......while the software programmer does all of the real work.  The difference being that the programmer doesn't usually refer to what he does as "art".

Quote - How many of the renders in our galleries can make that kind of claim, NVIATWAS or otherwise ?

I wouldn't know.  Depending, of course, upon what the question is.

Top-end produced images can be every bit as hackneyed in their own way as any Poser image that's ever been produced.  It's just that it requires more technical skill in order to produce a better-looking version of artistic junk.

Something To Do At 3:00AM 

Heh - it's always amusing to hear the palaver of some self-proclaimed guru of 'highend' 3d art bash Poser because of the types of images created in that low-end app. Lots of people like to 'talk the talk' like they really know something about 3d art but if you ever get the dubious honor of actually viewing their art you see right away that they just can't 'walk the walk' and create anything that's actually worth viewing. Endless streams of mechanical dreams and architectural settings that have all the cool charm of a visit to the dentist's office.

Art has never been about the tools and one thing that's certainly true is those that 'can' do and those that 'can't' pontificate endlessly about how it's supposed to be done. Poser is a figure oriented application and so it's no surprise that the majority of images created in it are about figures, nude or otherwise - jeez, get over it already!

I just can't see what all the ruckus is about anyway - but it sure is entertaining. What's even more entertaining though is matching up the so-called experts with their galleries - now that's really fun stuff.

• Rick

As has been pointed out elsewhere: there are some "artistic traditionalists" who deny that anything which is done on a computer can be properly called "art". Some perhaps, but not all. Probably not even most, which raises an interesting question. “So what?” On the other hand, I'll agree with the "traditionalists" this far: sure, a high-end program user might possess more technical skill than an average Poser user -- but technical skill is what he's demonstrating. In the PC / CG / 3D world -- I think that many people tend to confuse technical skill with artistic talent. A sculptor might be adept at modeling clay in real life, but if he takes up Zbrush and produces similar results in a computer program he ceases to demonstrate his artistic talent? An artist paints pictures with oil on canvas but if he paints in Painter X it is a mere technical skill devoid of talent? Why, I wonder? What is it about computer art that saps the talent away and leaves a raw, technical husk? I'm being facetious, of course. The proof is in the pudding and denial is just a river in Egypt. (For further details, check the Zbrush gallery at Pixologic.)

Download my free stuff here: http://www.renderosity.com/homepage.php?page=2&amp;userid=323368

hmmm.. sort of reminds me of DaVinci calling Michelangelo an unkempt brute covered in stone dust, and Michelangelo referring to da Vinci as a flattery-seeking paint-dabber... or something to that effect. Which they both did. We're maintaining a tradition here! ;)

Quote - Endless streams of mechanical dreams and architectural settings that have all the cool charm of a visit to the dentist's office.

Depends on portrayal, really.

Also, maybe a parallel is in order...

I know a lot of C/C++ and Java programmers who will happily slag on .NET/VB programmers as mere wannabes. Sure, they all make programs that do their basic intended function. OTOH, the complaints and debates begin when it comes to efficiency, elegance (yes, elegance), security, and flexibility. C/C++ is definitely higher-end of the two - you can use it on any OS, it is highly efficient, and in spite of its ungodly complexity, you can make it do some really beautiful things. Java, though ungodly complex and somewhat arcane in its knowledge-set, is a workhorse of the professional end of programming. At the higher-end of the software development field, a programmer who doesn't know C/C++ or Java is pretty much out of a job 9 times out of 10. They get paid well, and for a damned good reason. At the other end, you have a lot of folks who hammer out Windows-only stuff in VB and .NET...  You can get stuff written in VB or .NET into C/C++ (or even Java) form, but it ain't easy, and takes a shitload of work to do. Stuff written in .NET/VB have a limited range, an average variety of applications, and for the most part it's Windows-only*. Microsoft has improved these over the years, but it's full of quirks, bugs, and problems that make it difficult to work with at times, and still somewhat limited.

Is this starting to sound familiar? It should. Replace C++ with 3DS Max, Java with Maya, .NET and VB with Poser 7 and 4, respectively. Now it should sound familiar, no? :)

The end result (be it "aesthetic renders" or "applications") doesn't really matter in the context from which it is being viewed. What does matter, and is being examined, are concepts like flexibility (what all can you do with it?), elegance (that is, how clever and time-efficient are you at reaching your goal with a tool without sacrificing quality?), interoperability (does it play nice with others?), extensibility (think "render farm" as a ferinstance), and marketability (can you get a job with this, let alone a career?)...

'course, in the case of the article that kicked all this off, the guy was having a bit of fun. Problem is for many, he's embarrassingly right in his observations, and any cursory peek at Renderosity's galleries will not only confirm it, but holy shit - will confirm it in spades. Now sure - a deeper peek will reveal a lot of gems buried in the manure, but you still have all that manure sitting around. ;)

/P

• You can take .NET code out of Windows with the Mono project, but like Reiss Studio's plugin, it'll be a royal bitch and will require some tweaking. ;)

Quote - 'course, in the case of the article that kicked all this off, the guy was having a bit of fun. Problem is for many, he's embarrassingly right in his observations, and any cursory peek at Renderosity's galleries will not only confirm it, but holy shit - will confirm it in spades. Now sure - a deeper peek will reveal a lot of gems buried in the manure, but you still have all that manure sitting around. ;)

I'm not sure anyone objects to the observation that there is a lot of crap uploaded here. As you say, it's obvious if you do a little browsing. The difference seems to be with how offended some are by it, as in they think people should be discouraged from posting crap through either moderation or public scorn. I don't worry about it too much. I'd rather people have fun with their hobby, no matter how bad they are at it, because this is a casual site and there is no need to weed people out. We aren't trying to select for the modeling masters here. If you want to see professional level work, you can go to a professional site.

*Quote: 'Sure, they all make programs that do their basic intended function. OTOH, the complaints and debates begin when it comes to efficiency, elegance (yes, elegance), security, and flexibility. C/C++ is definitely higher-end of the two'

Funny that attitude hasn't changed much over the years too. I recall hearing that same sentiment expressed 12 years ago or maybe even longer. Microsoft hailed VB as being the next best thing to sliced bread and a lot of (in-house) programmers used it. But to hardcore C/C++ programmers they were regarded as being duffers :)

I don't disagree with your point either. I've been using Max since version 2.5 and a lot of other 3d apps as well mostly in the construction of my 3d models but I like using Poser for my renders. I've seen a lot of spectacular images made in Poser and a lot of poor ones made in the higher end apps. Maybe they were more techinically proficient but very cold and sterile in subject matter. For as many NVIATWSs as you could find in a Poser gallery you could find an equal number images made in 3ds/Maya that looked like standard 3d boilerplate as well.

I don't think that anyone would seriously challenge the technical supremacy of the higher end 3d apps over Poser but it's amazing how so many users of those apps look down on Poser images just because they are created in such a low end 3d app. You couldn't argue back from a piece of text as to which word processing app it was created in and I think the same thing applies to 3d art as well.

• Rick

Hi,

Hmm...  one thing I like doing is watching the supplemental DVDs that come with some movies, usually there is a lot of interesting stuff having to do with CG, interviews with CG artists and examples that show screen shots of some of the apps and works in progress that are going on in the artists workshops.  Pretty cool stuff.  One that I saw recently showed some 3D models that were under development at the time, and one thing I noticed was that they didn't really look much different than a lot of the content I have seen created for poser, which made me smile a bit while watching the video.  The television can't do justice to what is on the monitor, of course, but the models looked primitive and amateurish with no texturing and animations that were not near a finished product yet. 

The guys and gals on the videos are some of the top artists in the 3D art world, modelers, animators, texture artists, etc.  They also show the finished models near the end of the video and they look pretty amazing with texturing, finished animations, etc.  But I remember thinking that it is possible to create some great 3D without being the top in the field if you have the time, the patience, a love of 3D art and a good computer, lol.  That's one of my biggest roadblocks;  my machine is old and has a lot of mileage on it, so I am pretty limited in what I can do without bringing the darned thing to its knees.  I also have a physical condition that is much like rheumatoid arthritis;  a systemic disease that effects the connective tissue making my joints ache like they are full of broken glass a lot of the time, especially after I have been on the computer for several hours at a stretch working on a model or poser render...   lol

But I guess that's the moral to the story, at least in a way, we all have to work with what we have at the time, machine-wise, content-wise, experience-wise, imagination-wise, ect. 

I'd love to get my hands on one of the workstations they are using in those videos, at first I wouldn't have the slightest idea how to use it, of course, but that's how I felt about poser and 3Dsmax about 9 months ago, although I still have a long, long way to go...   lol  

I really admire a lot of the modelers and artists here, it's all interesting and just a heck of a lot of fun, at least for me anyway....   ;-)

M

Quote - > Quote - 'course, in the case of the article that kicked all this off, the guy was having a bit of fun. Problem is for many, he's embarrassingly right in his observations, and any cursory peek at Renderosity's galleries will not only confirm it, but holy shit - will confirm it in spades. Now sure - a deeper peek will reveal a lot of gems buried in the manure, but you still have all that manure sitting around. ;)

I'm not sure anyone objects to the observation that there is a lot of crap uploaded here. As you say, it's obvious if you do a little browsing. The difference seems to be with how offended some are by it, as in they think people should be discouraged from posting crap through either moderation or public scorn. I don't worry about it too much. I'd rather people have fun with their hobby, no matter how bad they are at it, because this is a casual site and there is no need to weed people out. We aren't trying to select for the modeling masters here. If you want to see professional level work, you can go to a professional site.

Remember Sturgeon's Law, "Ninety percent of anything is crap," which was Theodore Sturgeon's response to the claim that 90% of science fiction was crap.

lol,

that's true..

I was a professional musician many years ago, and one thing you learn very quickly as a performer is that no matter how good you are, there will always be someone out there who thinks your work is crap...    lol

;-)

M

Quote - As has been pointed out elsewhere: there are some "artistic traditionalists" who deny that anything which is done on a computer can be properly called "art".

Some perhaps, but not all. Probably not even most, which raises an interesting question. “So what?”

Saying that is to miss the point.  And in an odd way: to get the point at the same time -- while probably still missing it, but stumbling over it in the dark. 

Quote - On the other hand, I'll agree with the "traditionalists" this far: sure, a high-end program user might possess more technical skill than an average Poser user -- but technical skill is what he's demonstrating. In the PC / CG / 3D world -- I think that many people tend to confuse technical skill with artistic talent.

A sculptor might be adept at modeling clay in real life, but if he takes up Zbrush and produces similar results in a computer program he ceases to demonstrate his artistic talent? An artist paints pictures with oil on canvas but if he paints in Painter X it is a mere technical skill devoid of talent? Why, I wonder? What is it about computer art that saps the talent away and leaves a raw, technical husk? I'm being facetious, of course. The proof is in the pudding and denial is just a river in Egypt. (For further details, check the Zbrush gallery at Pixologic.)

It's a good thing that no one stated nor argued that all high-end 3D'ers are mere technicians without artistic talent.  But many of them are.........which was the point.  Yet their "tools of the trade" don't get slammed for that reason.

Something To Do At 3:00AM 

Marcus55:
I have to agree with a few of the posts that I just can't understand why someone would waste their time knocking other forms of 3D art, websites or apps.  All I can say is they must have too much time on their hands...  lol

Well - seems to be just a form of contact. Maybe if they were hugged more often, they would stop knocking.

www.skin2pix.com

Poser is primarily a tool for manipulating premade content created by the high-end 3ders. Just because it has a clumsy interface and a limited renderer doesn't mean you can't do good things with it. Again (not counting persistence) talent is the key ingredient for good results. Not all tools are equal. Paint global illumination with a brush, or render it in Vue if can afford to. You won't find it in a workable condition in Poser. I don't know why anyone who can afford better would want to use Poser for rendering.

Download my free stuff here: http://www.renderosity.com/homepage.php?page=2&amp;userid=323368

Robert:
*No, no, no.......now we return to defending the high-concept Art of a high-end-CG-generated version of a completely naked Angelina Jolie strutting around in a dark cave. 

WHERE? WHERE?

www.skin2pix.com

*"But honestly, it's like putting matches into the hands of a three-year-old, then leaving him to mind the petrol station. Just think about it: no longer will the terabytes of fantasy swords, 'glamorous' women and microbikinis be confined to the safe ghetto of sites like Renderosity."

Why is everyone so upset about this?  It's not like the guy shot your dog or pooped in your bowl of cheerios.

Attached Link: http://www.fmx.de/start.php?lang=E&navi=1&page=pages

Paloth: *Poser is primarily a tool for manipulating premade content created by the high-end 3ders. Just because it has a clumsy interface and a limited renderer doesn't mean you can't do good things with it. Again (not counting persistence) talent is the key ingredient for good results.

Not all tools are equal. Paint global illumination with a brush, or render it in Vue if can afford to. You won't find it in a workable condition in Poser.

I don't know why anyone who can afford better would want to use Poser for rendering.

*The ice you are walking upon couldn't be any thinner. I just returned from fmx/08 congress&fair, and Poser, never would have expected that, in fact IS something the guys out there DO use.

(I admit, that was a surprise for me)*

www.skin2pix.com

I never claimed people don't use Poser. There wouldn't be Poser forums if people didn't use Poser. Hell, even I use Poser for poseing my figures and others. Considering that the main thrust of Smith Micro's Poser Pro was to export Poser scenes into decent renderers, I don't think the ice is too thin to support.

Download my free stuff here: http://www.renderosity.com/homepage.php?page=2&amp;userid=323368

Well you don't drop a demo reel made in poser here  http://jobs.cgsociety.org/apply_for_job.php/?search_query=%26keywords%3D%26country%3D%26state%3D%26industry%3D%26job%3D%26job_basis%3D&adidlist=2225&offset=0

Let's keep this in perspective.  Poser is a good pre-vis app,  it's also a good introductory app.

It is not a production app,  if it were so then it would support either fbx or collada file formats both importing and exporting.  Not to mention a plugin for PS CS3.

 

Arcebus - I think that must be it... lol

• reading a book now with a couple of quotes:

"Know what talent is?  It is the curse of expectation.  As a kid you have to deal with that, beat it somehow.  If you can write you think you were put on the earth to blow Shakespeare away." 

Or if you can paint, maybe you think you were put on the earth to blow a Rembrandt away?  When I realized my work would be at best good, but probably never be great -

" - that voice of disappointed expectation - that cheated child's voice that can never be satisfied with a mild superlative as good - has fallen pretty much silent.  Why should the silencing of that childish, demanding voice seem so much like dying?

(A little off topic perhaps, but oddly interesting nonetheless...   ;-)

M

• As far as most critics go;  they are like the spoiled child who sits on the floor and bawls and pounds his fists because he has been told he can't have another cookie... 

The vast majority of them can't even begin to do the thing they are criticizing, they are just looking for attention since they have basically nothing else to offer; no other way to validate their spoiled little selves...  most of their critiques are just so much meaningless dribble anyway...

Collectively as a people we are disgustingly spoiled here in the US.  We have just about anything we want when we want it, but that's not reality.  There are other people on the planet who have nothing;  they only dream of having what we have.  It is a huge problem for them to even find food and care for their sick on a daily basis, much less have computers and fancy software to run on them.  No one appreciates anything here in the US, or at least very few actually do, so it's no wonder to me that you see and hear people all over putting others down because to them it's all about whoever has the most toys wins.  But that's just so much BS...

All these critics want is attention, but why give it to them?  After raising kids of my own I can say from experience that the best thing you can do is ignore them when they throw one of their little tantrums...  lol

As far as Art goes:  There is only one purpose for all art - It's entertainment, plain and simple.
It doesn't matter what is used or who is using it, if it entertains it has served its purpose end of story.   

 Just one reporters opinion...   ;-)

M

I don't know why anyone who can afford better would want to use Poser for rendering.

Nevertheless, I know  some people here who spent a lot of time in trying to get the best out of Poser, without them poser wouldn't  be such a great application as it is today.
There's an old chinese truth (saying?, I'm dutch so bite me) that you have to invest in your limitations. If you want to take it the easy way, be my guest, but I have great admiration for those who are making beautiful pictures with Poser, inspite of its "poor" renderer.

Best regards,

Bopper.

-How can you improve things when you don't make mistakes?

*Or if you can paint, maybe you think you were put on the earth to blow a Rembrandt away?  When I realized my work would be at best good, but probably never be great -

There was a lunatic here in Holland who threw acid on the "nightguard" of Rembrandt.
I think he had his fifteen minutes of fame like Warhol said,  but by now, the nightguard is restored and everyone has forgotten his name.

-How can you improve things when you don't make mistakes?

Quote - If you want to take it the easy way, be my guest, but I have great admiration for those who are making beautiful pictures with Poser, inspite of its "poor" renderer.

That's cool in the hobbyist realm, but try explaining missed deadlines or sub-par results to the boss/client in a pro environment. ;)

/P

Quote - As far as Art goes:  There is only one purpose for all art - It's entertainment, plain and simple.
It doesn't matter what is used or who is using it, if it entertains it has served its purpose end of story.   M

Well, I have to beg to differ with you here. There's much more to art then entertainment. But yes, entertainment can be a component of it.

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Why is there even a need for a debate. Both worlds are completely different. Modelers make models, they make it either to use in-house, or to sell to people like us. Many modelers don't have a clue how to rig something, or how to animate. And many animators can't model anything.

What we do here is 3D art. It's just as valid as fractals, photo painting, modern art, etc (I do admire traditional painters and sculpters more because it takes so much more to do it all with no undo button but that's another story).

As for "3D art" being just a hobbyist thing, again that's BS. Every month there's plenty of reports of publications using Poser characters for illustrations, we also have plenty of people here who have exposed their art in art fairs, and made some money from it, and of course there's the whole marketplace side of things. Go to some of the Florida outdoor art shows and you'll see an interesting trend with 3D artists becoming a regular part of the exposition.

So again, it's 2 very different worlds, but both use 3D and both are just as justified.To say there are crappy Poser renders is totally true. But I've seen crappy 3D models in "professional" games too.  And I've seen some breathtaking pieces made in Poser also. As long as someone who just uses Poser doesn't claim they modeled everything they do, or that modelers don't claim their level of superiority is directly relative to their skill with 3DS MAX, everything will be fine.

Actually we do more than just 3D Art here. There are modelors, riggers, animators, python scripters, actual programmers as well as artists on this site. Rendo is more like the Melting Pot of America  than any Ghetto because it's membership comprises all of the above.

*Melting Pot of America 

• some of us even come from outside of america, small place called "the rest of the world" :)  

Pinky - you left the lens cap of your mind on again.

*quote: 'Melting Pot of America 
some of us even come from outside of america, small place called "the rest of the world" :) '

I've heard of that place too :)

The melting pot concept is a good one though and it adequately explains the success of places like Renderosity and also the appeal of the lower end graphic apps like Poser. Everything is here both for the newbie and for the pro as well for everyone in between those two poles.

• Rick

I don't think we really disagree, Conniekat, I probably just didn't say it right..  lol

This is from a book written by a great artist about the craft.  He says it much more eloquently than I can:  (this is not a direct quote, I'm just taking from it what applies to art in its visual form; he is talking about the art of fiction, but he also talks about how it applies to art in all of its forms...) -

On Aesthetic Law and Artistic Mystery -

• What the beginning artist usually wants is a set of rules on what to do and what not to do.  Some general principals can be set down, and some very general warnings can be offered, but on the whole the search for aesthetic absolutes is a misapplication of the artist's energy.  When one begins to be persuaded that certain things must never be done and other things must always be done, one has entered the first stage of aesthetic arthritis, the disease that ends up in pedantic rigidity and the atrophy of intuition.  Every true work of art - and thus every attempt at art - must be judged, primarily but not exclusively, by its own laws.  If it has no laws, or if its laws are incoherent, then it fails - usually - on that basis.

Trustworthy aesthetic universals do exist, but they exist at such a high level of abstraction as to offer almost no guidence to the artist.  Most supposed aesthetic absolutes prove relative under pressure. (here's what I basically meant in the above post) They're laws, but they are slippery at best.

Art depends heavily on feeling, intuition and taste.  It is feeling, not some rule, that tells the abstract painter to put his yellow here and there, not there, and may later tell him that it should have been brown or purple or green.

In other words, art has no universal rules because each true artist melts down and reforges all past aesthetic law.  To the true artist, anything whatever is possible. Invention, the spontaneous generation of new rules, is central to art.  And so it follows that for the beginning artist, as for the great one he/she hopes to become, there can be no firm rules, no limits, no restrictions.  Whatever works is good.  One must develop an eye for what - by his/her own informed standards - works. 

My interpretation of what he means when he uses the work "works" is that it makes people feel something, captures their imagination, and hence is entertaining at least on some level.  So IMHO, that is the main purpose of it, the reason for it, and if it accomplishes that much, anything else is open for debate...  ;-)

M

Quote - Actually we do more than just 3D Art here. There are modelors, riggers, animators, python scripters, actual programmers as well as artists on this site. Rendo is more like the Melting Pot of America  than any Ghetto because it's membership comprises all of the above.

...and whining to high Heaven as an art form. You forgot that one. :)

Interestingly enough, most immigrants historically wound up living for a time in a ghetto when they first started out (lack of dough, prejudice from folks born locally, etc - see also the phrase "Irish Need Not Apply").

Now if I were Mental Roy, I'd have compared it to Suburbia - with it's cookie-cutter houses and near-complete aesthetic monoculture. ;)

(cue outrage in 5... 4... 3... 2... )

/P

*quote: Now if I were Mental Roy, I'd have compared it to Suburbia - with it's cookie-cutter houses and near-complete aesthetic monoculture. ;)

"Little boxes on the hillside, Little boxes made of ticky-tacky...'

lol :)

• Rick

The vast majority of them can't even begin to do the thing they are criticizing.

And?

It doesn't take someone with the skills of Tom Morello or Eric Johnson to know that someone is playing an electric guitar in a truly horrendous manner, nor for that matter if someone is playing it brilliantly.

I can't figure skate (hell, I can barely skate), but that doesn't mean I can't differentiate between an award-winning, technically awe-inspiring performance and a routine skated by some shlub who barely manages to land their jumps.

I'm not a published author, but I can certainly tell the difference between  an acclaimed piece of fiction and some Grade-Z piece of crap that at least had the spelling and grammar right but has an absurd plot, cardboard characters and utterly stupid dialogue.

And I'm probably never going to direct a movie, but I can tell the difference between The Godfather Part 2 and Plan 9 From Outer Space.

The "I'm an ARTIST and how dare you criticize my work without demonstrating sufficient skill" argument (and I'll be generous and call it an argument and not what it is, a pathetic whine), aside from being illogical, gets old real fast.

Quote -
And I'm probably never going to direct a movie, but I can tell the difference between The Godfather Part 2 and Plan 9 From Outer Space.

Devil's Advocate: Dude! Plan 9 is art (albeit not artistic in any sort of way that the director intended). The other analogies, okay... but cheesy-as-hell Sci-Fi flicks have sort of taken on a status all its own, as fodder for quite a bit of entertainment (see also Mystery Science Theater 3000).

Now artistically, you'd have prolly done better comparing Godfather (all of them) and Gigli.  Godfather is a masterpiece series, with a compelling (and complete) story, and drama that is palpable. Gigli is a crap attempt at a blatant money-grab, by idiot movie moguls who thought a bit too highly of their talents. Guess which one of the two folks remember?

/P

Well, you could say that every post in this thread is just a whine, but isn't that a whine of sorts??? 

I think the whole point of this is just for people to have a place to talk about things..

...lol

;-)

M

Quote - *Melting Pot of America 

• some of us even come from outside of america, small place called "the rest of the world" :)  

Way to nit pick Sparky! I said it was LIKE the melting pot of America I didn't say it WAS America!

Quote -
...and whining to high Heaven as an art form. You forgot that one. :)

LOL Yeah I neglected a few other groups  that exist around here like the terminally neurotic, The ADD and SAD crowds, The Eternal Victim crowd, the International crowds and many more. Still and all, Rendo has everything. That is what my point was. It wasn't meant as a slight to the rest of the world either.  Sheesh!

I lost track of what exactly we're talking about in this tread
[insert head spinning avatar in here]

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I'm still talking about the "Ghetto" comment. :tt2:

Our sewer pipe broke and flooded half the house this morning...  LOL, there are 'hazmat' people in the house cleaning out the crap - literally. Thank god for insurance!

Anyway, what I was trying to say...
I'm having a ghetto moment today.

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
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Yes, it is beginning to veer off in strange directions...

(maybe it's time to look for other threads..?)

That seems to be a trend nowdays; someone makes a post and then eventually the accusations will start to fly....    is this really necessary?

No need for things to get ugly, folks..

adios 

Way to nit pick Sparky!
Take a chill pill - I was only joking.

 

Pinky - you left the lens cap of your mind on again.

Quote - Way to nit pick Sparky!
Take a chill pill - I was only joking. 

Sorry I didn't notice the :) but thank's for the kind offer of drugs.

*Sorry I didn't notice the :)

• No probs.

*but thank's for the kind offer of drugs.
*Red or Blue M&M's :)

Pinky - you left the lens cap of your mind on again.

Would you guys share a few happy pills with me today... I coould really use them!

Pleez? 
Purrrrty pleez?

Kitty does a figure 8 around LISM's and Mr. Sparky's feet.

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
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Quote - *Sorry I didn't notice the :)

• No probs.

*but thank's for the kind offer of drugs.
*Red or Blue M&M's :)

What? No Green or Purple? Ok, I'll take the Blue ones.

Quote - Would you guys share a few happy pills with me today... I coould really use them!

Pleez? 
Purrrrty pleez?

Kitty does a figure 8 around LISM's and Mr. Sparky's feet.

Drops a couple blue M&M's on BadKitty's head.... with sprinkles....

Hi, my namez: "NO, Bad Kitteh, NO!"  Whaz yurs?
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Quote -

Awww... Poor Sick Kitty!

*Would you guys share a few happy pills with me today... I coould really use them!

*Here you go Connie - Cat V Vorg :)

Pinky - you left the lens cap of your mind on again.