(adjusts his reading glasses, and scratches his gray-stubbled chin...)

Gather around, my children, for you are about to learn some history!

In a far distant past, your 3D/CG hobbyist forebears were a hardy and determined lot. They dared to escape the stifling cities of Expensive CG Gear, and set out for a new land, with a promise of forging a place where computer-generated artistry could (at least occasionally) occur without requiring a second mortgage. So they hitched up their broken-mesh oxen to their meager 486es and Pentiums, and set out for the Promised Land.

They struggled under near-total deprivation. They had to endure the long, cold render times and slow and clunky interfaces, as their low-speed wagons lumbered over the jagged low-poly terrain. Overcoming the unknown and the dangers, they laughed with challenge in their hearts at their untextured meshes. They joyfully sweated out the long, lonely hours in a text editor, just to get a some odd bit of conforming clothes to actually work as advertised. You would find them happily banging away at crude pen tablets (and in most cases a --gasp-- mouse), to gently tease out smooth lines where there was once torn mesh. They suffered horrendous and heart-wrenching crashes (as the vendors respond: "but it was a feature!") They were forced to weather synapse-stretching disappointments, heartache, anger, and far, far more. When they had a chance (given Bryce's epoch-straddling render times, they had plenty) they fearlessly ventilated their frustrations at the world and at each other, in ways that would make today's tender-hearted Poserite turn white with fear and drop to the floor in a dead faint.

These hard-bitten pioneers found an unspoiled and free land. They managed to take pure crap, and turn it into works worth contemplating. They forged and built the land in which you so carelessly play today.

Nowadays, you get to ride smoothly in high-powered Multicore CPUs, and along freeways paved with chained GPUs. You tread upon soft, gently rolling, high-poly land. Your render speeds are (on average) less today, than it once took to cold-boot a computer.

You are truly spoiled. You get cranky and shout to the rafters when a new item comes out that isn't in your favorite color. You whip out your credit cards in eager anticipation of the next "texture set". You beg, plead, and cajole for someone, anyone to build you something to your personal specifications, in spite of swimming in a veritable ocean of cost-free and capable modeling suites. You've planted billboards, banners, and advertisement at every turn. Your merchants travel in large packs, gleefully following the latest fashion or eye-catching element, spewing near-blatant copies and knock-offs wherever their dances take them.

Maybe someday you may appreciate this. Maybe you never will. But no matter what you think or how you react? Know that while the days of the Poserdom pioneer have gone the way of the cowboy, the gent armed with sword, and the sailing-ship rigger, the results live on today.

Don't bother to thank us. We have ceased to give a shit long ago, as life and circumstance have carried us into the four winds (and in many cases, into the Great Beyond). Instead, do us a favor. At least once in your miserable artistic endeavors, build something excellent (mesh, texture, item) that works in its own right, and give it away to the world for free. The next time you need something for a project and do not have it, choke back the urge to run out and buy it, or to beg for someone to make it. Take the time to build it. From scratch. Sure it'll look like crap, but that just means you have to refine it - do that, and keep doing it until you love (not like... love) the results.

 

Finally - have fun with this stuff. That's what it's for.

 

Regards, and Fair Winds!

 

/P