Is it your own art or not?
amyw12
Posts: 63
I have a question -
If I make a render but utilize textures, models, props etc that were all created by others, is it still considered to be your own art? Granted, I would be setting up the scene and posing and postwork.
NOTE: I am not asking what is art or not. I am asking if I can call it my own art in a legal/copyright standpoint - this applies to the questions below too.
I am curious if this is considered stealing if you say that it's your art (but don't claim that the textures etc were made by you).
I am also curious if I am allowed utilizing 3D characters in things like photobashing/photomanipulation. Like creating a 3D render and then proceeding to paint over it - can I call this my own artwork?
Thank you.
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Yes
No
Yes
Check the license - for items from the Daz store, you can use the content to create still and animated 2D output and (with a limited exception for the Anne Marie Goddard Digital Clone for Victoria 3) use it as you wish. Some other content, especially freebies, may impose more constraints.
LOL, mmmmm, could be?
Think of it like photography. The photographer does not create the model, the clothing, the landscape, the sky, the object, etc. yet it is considered art based on the composition, the lighting, the exposure, etc. The latter are all up to you.
This is always my answer to those in the wider 3D community who bash DAZ/Poser art with 'but you didn't make the assets so you didn't make it'. That and my other rsponse 'you didn't write the software you used to create the asset, where do you draw the line?'
Thought this argument was dead but saw it on Deviantart a week ago on a beautiful render of a scene in DAZ.
Is it art or not?
Hmmmm....I don't care. I'm just having fun. It gives me something to do (I'm handicapped and unemployed) and makes me happy ;)
Laurie
You didn't "make" that book you wrote. You used a publisher, instead of printing and binding the copies for sale yourself, and you used the same letters and words that other authors have been using for centuries!
It's the same logic. And obviously false. An artwork is taken in TOTAL, not by it's parts. Sculptors often use clay, metal, or other materials they simply purchase. Painters rarely grind their own pigments. It's how you assemble and compose those materials that makes art. In the 3D world, assets (the parts) are often more complex, but the final render has to be judged on its own merits, not what was used to make it.
If it was just the parts, then a "make art" button would be easy to create with a script. Funny how that particular feature has never been successfully implemented.....
Its MY art. No one else will use the assets that I use, in the way that I use them and then post process them the way I do. Even with the exact same assets. The art comes from my head and no one elses and it doesn't matter what assets i used to make it. Most quilters don't weave their own fabric and make the loom. Etc etc etc. 3D assets are just tools, just like every other medium uses tools.
1. Pink
2. Thursday
3. 80%
What she said!
Please be careful of asking the first question; discussions on what is (and isn't ) art can get pretty heated.
i think of it as a medium.
most people arent digging for the clay they sculpt with, they buy the clay at an art supply store
most people arent making paint from scratch, they buy it in a tube.
most aren't digging for the ore or marble
they buy the brushes, chisels
mann forum sloww this afternoon
From a legal standpoint, as a general rule, what ever images you create belong to you. Unless you sell or give away those rights of course.
Caveats can be that some content creators (mostly I've seen this in free stuff more than commercial) may say that you cannot use their content for "commercial purposes". Personally, although I have rarely ever sold an image I rendered, if I see that caveat in their usage agreement, I won't install the content. It isn't worth the hassle to me to remember what is and isn't appropriate for use in commercial images.
From an artistic standpoint, as others have said, you chose how to compose, light, and shoot the image. Don't let anyone tell you that it isn't art because of some snobbish opinion that anyone who uses content from someone else isn't "pure" enough in their minds.
In a legal sense I defer to Richard Haseltine. From an artistic sense I also agree with the quote above.
A possible exception is posting to forums or websites for specific 3D modeling software. I have seen posts in Lightwave forums where the original poster was criticized for using purchased models. The logic is that the site or forum is for display and critique of models created by the person making the post.
In general purpose forums, I usually try to make it clear if I've rendered purchased content or made something of my own in the image. In a pure modeling forum, I don't think I would ever post something I hadn't made myself.
Attribution may be required in certain instances. Public domain doesn't require such. Selling a composition from copy protected raw material... may be a concern.
It is virtual photography of virtual models and photography is an art.
In every form of art, there is nothing that is 100% original. I could write a story about 4 legged creatures that go around meowing and look in a particular way. Oh wait that sounds like cats. I have a book somewhere around in my room that has the same idea, but they did not create the idea of cats. Anyway another author can write about cats and not be the same type book as that one I am thinking about that I should find again and put in my bookshelf.
I could write a book about two bipedal beings meeting and falling in love, oh wait that sounds like any romance, especially since most people are bipedial beings. If one is male and the other is female then it is a typical romance, and maybe add another person and make it a love triange. Make both or all three characters same gender or non-binary gender then you get a different set of romance.
Basically what I am trying to say nothing is completely original. We strive for original but it will not be complely original. I am also very fascinated between the relationships between cats and humans. I wish I could convice my landlady to let me have a feline companion but alas I need to move out first and get a new landlady/landlord.
edit: I just think why reinvent the wheel? Not everything you use will be created by you. Even profesionals do not create everything by themselves. I had to come to grips not everything I do with writing or art is going to be 100% original. I am going to start a painting soon (if I can find the canvas of the drawing of it first) of an actor named Benedict Comberbatch. I used a picture I printed off the web. I think that will be an original arcylic painting. I have just found a painting I need to finish of an original character. Both will be original work even though I did not create my own canvas board or paint. One is drawn based on a photo I took from the web and the other was drawn from my imagination. Either way it is original.
photoung people in art requires model release forms.
True that. Wonder if I will have troubles with painting a picture based on a photo I took from the internet?
Models sign release forms with tiered use permissions. So the question is still valid in certain cases. Same with resemblance to licensed or trademarked properties. Daz and Poser's models, it seems, are licensed for any 2D use, but not all models everywhere are. You should in all cases read the license.
There's really only one form of art, and that's the kind made within 10 feet of my desk.
Everything else is just hacks and puerile nonsense!
(waves a cane)
A nature photographer certainly didn’t create nature, so yeah, it’s art... (And much harder to do than nature photography that you can now do with an iPhone and maybe some filter apps.) What we do is almost a miniature film production and we are the producer, director, art director, prop master, wardrobe, hair stylist, makeup artist, cinematographer, gaffer, model/actor, post processor, special FX (for those who do postwork) So yeah, this is definitely art...
If you you want to create your own original art, start by creating a universe. If you can't do that then you have to deal with building on something pre-existing.
Thanks for the great responses.
For clarification - I did not mean to ask about what is art and what isn't art with my original questions.
My intention was to ask if you could say it is your own artwork from a legal/copyright standpoint - I'll phrase my questions better in the future.
From a copyright perspective if you made it and it meets a threshold of originality it is yours! Period. If it is based on or incorporates somebody else's art then restrictions on what you are allowed to do with it will apply. But the piece itself is yours.
BTW, somebody else's art applies to recognizeable characters like Superman and Mickey Mouse. Sure the fanart is yours but restrictions could apply to those type of things maybe down to how you use that character in your artwork.
The proof, to me, that it is art is the hundreds of decisions the artist makes regarding every aspect of the picture.
Actually, there are no restrictions how you can use them. You can make the vilest Mickey-on-Superman porn, you can make them murder babies by the truckload and nobody can prevent you from that. The restriction only start when you take that material out of your own basement and make it available to other people. But the act of creation itself is unrestricted.
Hey what a great idea