Digital Art Zone

booksbydavid - 28 June 2012 10:36 AM

Now, I know the artist is going to ask questions, i.e. How would I do ___________? or whatever. Would a critique thread be the place for things like that. I easily see a conversation developing on points like that. I think that’s fine if that’s what we want. It would be more like a critique/learning thread. If we don’t want that, then how would we handle an artist’s questions? By PM, in a separate thread for that purpose, or what? I only ask because I can easily see such a situation happening.

Hmmm. Not sure…

I can see how someone like Joe wants a critique to be more “real world”, like the *bigger* questions are composition and intent…. I think if your submission is a work in progress or you are submitting just a part and trying to figure something out, maybe that should not go in the critique thread because it’s more a “How To” kind of topic.

At the same time I can see someone submitting a few renders of a model from different angles (maybe even a screengrab in the model room) and the critique should be limited to a modeling discussion—even if some of the suggestions are “I’d rather see a ‘clay render’ because there are problems with your UV map”... or something. In that case I think a specific discussion about the Bridge Tool or whatever would be appropriate….

Likewise, If I submitted a hairstyle for criticism, I may not be very concerned about the head it’s resting on…. BUT the real problem with my hair might be the lighting, rather than the hair shader or something. We have to be able to concentrate on the stated goal of an image - otherwise every image must be a completed masterpiece and that is less likely to happen. Besides, not everyone wants a fully illustrated book cover. The stated Goal might be to develop a fictional character (the criticisms being whether the clothes are appropriate or distracting or whatever). A goal might be realistic ocean, but the sky isn’t part of the goal or the expressions on people in a boat… We just need to be able to be specific or every critique could be very random….

On the otherhand, if a book cover *is* the stated goal, a discussion on fonts is totally appropriate. If the stated goal is postwork, that might lead to a discussion on both photoshop AND lighting in Carrara…. I think if someone wants help with something specific, they might get better answers starting a specific thread on that topic….

testing the smiley—>
Smiley problem seems to be with the Quick Reply. Hitting the Quote button opens a new interface and the smileys work…

smileys work for me using quick reply on Android 8-P mind you I type in the characters but can add em via new window too

ok, 8-P is NOT A SMILEY!!!

<—hmm. Seems to be working now. Maybe it’s me.

YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH! lol

Again, I think it’s those moments where a person has to keep insisting that they are not being understood, it’s no longer a critique of anything. It’s just venting…. If we can limit the responses to a one-time short and sweet, we’d keep signal to noise ratio high..

wendy♥catz - 28 June 2012 11:19 AM

ok, 8-P is NOT A SMILEY!!!

That was the one I was using…

holly wetcircuit - 28 June 2012 11:11 AM

booksbydavid - 28 June 2012 10:36 AM

Now, I know the artist is going to ask questions, i.e. How would I do ___________? or whatever. Would a critique thread be the place for things like that. I easily see a conversation developing on points like that. I think that’s fine if that’s what we want. It would be more like a critique/learning thread. If we don’t want that, then how would we handle an artist’s questions? By PM, in a separate thread for that purpose, or what? I only ask because I can easily see such a situation happening.

Hmmm. Not sure…

I can see how someone like Joe wants a critique to be more “real world”, like the *bigger* questions are composition and intent…. I think if your submission is a work in progress or you are submitting just a part and trying to figure something out, maybe that should not go in the critique thread because it’s more a “How To” kind of topic.

At the same time I can see someone submitting a few renders of a model from different angles (maybe even a screengrab in the model room) and the critique should be limited to a modeling discussion—even if some of the suggestions are “I’d rather see a ‘clay render’ because there are problems with your UV map”... or something. In that case I think a specific discussion about the Bridge Tool or whatever would be appropriate….

Likewise, If I submitted a hairstyle for criticism, I may not be very concerned about the head it’s resting on…. BUT the real problem with my hair might be the lighting, rather than the hair shader or something. We have to be able to concentrate on the stated goal of an image - otherwise every image must be a completed masterpiece and that is less likely to happen. Besides, not everyone wants a fully illustrated book cover. The stated Goal might be to develop a fictional character (the criticisms being whether the clothes are appropriate or distracting or whatever). A goal might be realistic ocean, but the sky isn’t part of the goal or the expressions on people in a boat… We just need to be able to be specific or every critique could be very random….

On the otherhand, if a book cover *is* the stated goal, a discussion on fonts is totally appropriate. If the stated goal is postwork, that might lead to a discussion on both photoshop AND lighting in Carrara…. I think if someone wants help with something specific, they might get better answers starting a specific thread on that topic….

testing the smiley—>
Smiley problem seems to be with the Quick Reply. Hitting the Quote button opens a new interface and the smileys work…

OK, I’m cool with that. What now?

holly wetcircuit - 28 June 2012 11:26 AM

<—hmm. Seems to be working now. Maybe it’s me.

YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH! lol

Again, I think it’s those moments where a person has to keep insisting that they are not being understood, it’s no longer a critique of anything. It’s just venting…. If we can limit the responses to a one-time short and sweet, we’d keep signal to noise ratio high..

Totally agree.

EDITED for stupidity on my part

I think the best way to start is with an actual image.  that we can practice on….. and tell each other where we went wrong in our criticism .. err I mean critique

Better to start with an image we are proud of…? Or one where we know it’s not quite there but not sure what to do next…

lol! get stuck into one of mine!
http://www.ShareCG.com/get_image.php?type=large&upload_image_id=105480
I would be fascinated by what comments come up on THAT one!

I’d love to Wendy but when I click thelink I get a php file??? or something.

edit nah it just worked,

well it looks like a lot of dead blokes wearing flowers on their nether regions… are they meant to look ... err ... ‘stiff’?
let me look again…..

hah, yes i t’s a good image, I think it need s to be bigger so we can get our hands on it ... err I am digging a deep hole

edit” oh some of those men have breasts… is it a chicken hormone ad?
but seriously can we gander it bigger ?

That was the big link

Oh sorry Wendy :( IT comes up about 250 pixles at my end??
EDIT okauy I solved the problem, clicking on your link gives a really small pic. But right clicking open in new tab on that image gives a massive one!!

Haha. Well for a start it’s a wonderful idea! I guess form the leaf litter that these guys are pixies ? I like how they are all dead and their poses are really ‘dead-like’/ Heh/

For me the shadows on the people are hard and the shadows on the leaves are spft or not there (Because it is a texture map?) and that sort of does not fit. Maybe the blood could be thicker and have more opacity reflection and shine. Was there something like a sky for the blood to reflect? That might help a little, and the opacity might hide the outside edge which is delineated i n a band. 

Maybe scattering some flowers around would help tie in the piece as well ?
For some reason it reminds me of a an english painter Richard Dadd who went mad and killed his father and did a wonderful painting called Crazy Jane ....

Maybe the blood on the bdodies could be more streaked and follow gravity as well. at the moment it looks like you used a cellular blender? Maybe some good old lacerations? Hahahahahahah (that’s me being crazy) Happy weekend.

I put something here for Critique if anyone would like to play

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewthread/3069/

thanks in advance

head wax - 29 June 2012 02:38 AM

Oh sorry Wendy :( IT comes up about 250 pixles at my end??
EDIT okauy I solved the problem, clicking on your link gives a really small pic. But right clicking open in new tab on that image gives a massive one!!

yeah forgot about that, shared a huge HF teagarden background and everyone said it was only 600 pixels! (it was 12000x6000)

Haha. Well for a start it’s a wonderful idea! I guess form the leaf litter that these guys are pixies ? I like how they are all dead and their poses are really ‘dead-like’/ Heh/

just beautiful bodies! playing with Poser ragdoll physics saved as poses!
like the idea of die young, leave a beautiful corpse, bit of dark humour.

For me the shadows on the people are hard and the shadows on the leaves are spft or not there (Because it is a texture map?) and that sort of does not fit. Maybe the blood could be thicker and have more opacity reflection and shine. Was there something like a sky for the blood to reflect? That might help a little, and the opacity might hide the outside edge which is delineated i n a band. 

Maybe scattering some flowers around would help tie in the piece as well ?
For some reason it reminds me of a an english painter Richard Dadd who went mad and killed his father and did a wonderful painting called Crazy Jane ....

Maybe the blood on the bdodies could be more streaked and follow gravity as well. at the moment it looks like you used a cellular blender? Maybe some good old lacerations? Hahahahahahah (that’s me being crazy) Happy weekend.

yeah just a texture map, Stonemasons Enchanted forest floor in fact,
I did a layered shader on the bodies using the body textures saved as a multichannel shader in one channel and a marble transparency proceedural one in the other, was an experiment at adding a layer of texture like layered image editor does in Daz studio, needs work I agree
not sure how I can get gravity effects except texturing them with 3Dpaint perhaps.

I put something here for Critique if anyone would like to play

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewthread/3069/

thanks in advance

love the likeness of your friend, the first though good and sort of toony could creep out relatives, if he was not dead it would have made a good facebook avatar for example.
really like the second one, only the shadow on the water looks a bit odd, water reflective, should not cast shadows, if it is the sand subsurface it should be very blurry and distorted, otherwise brilliant.
the third image has a nice logo look to it, would make a great page illustration with a blog on your friend.

head wax - 28 June 2012 07:25 PM

EDITED for stupidity on my part

I think the best way to start is with an actual image.  that we can practice on….. and tell each other where we went wrong in our criticism .. err I mean critique

I like the stupid part. It came through with the email alert of the post.
 

So, are we going to be criticismers or critiquers?