I think I was more creative in the past
daveso
Posts: 7,957
Not god art but much more creative.
not sure, but I was looking at old Poser/Rendo images I put up... way more creative, but not technically up to par. Right now, for over a year, I feel like my head is a block of rock or something. Not much flowing in the creative department. Perhaps its one of the reasons I buy so much content ... to stimulate my mind. That concept isn't working though.
It is one of the reasons I do a lot of portraits..not much imagination happening there, other than perhaps twirling dials and stopping when an interesting character appears. Again, not all that creative.
The entire thing is starting to bother me. Not sure where my mind is at. Maybe its age. not sure
I'm drawing a blank
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Try limiting what you can do through self-challenges or even tropes. It's the same concept for when I do branding or advertising. Once you've set limits, then it's easier to get creative. Think about it as if a client comes and asks you to set him up on a trip from point A to point B... and that's it. You wouldn't even know where to start! However, if he told you that he wants to travel for x days, that he likes the sea and that he'll like to visit "x" amount of cities before reaching his destination, then it becomes easier to for you to recommend something.
I know some groups hosts competitions over at Deviantart with tropes, rules and challenges. You can always try those as a guide. ;)
..I particularly like the third one.
I've felt the same as well. Seemed working with 3DL tended to make me more resourceful.
I did the first one this on an old Toshiba 32 bit notebook that had only 4 GB of memory and no dedicated graphics. I still think it is one of my best. Had to delete most of the set that wasn't in the camera frame and only used two lights as to keep it from crashing during the render process.
The second one was on my newer home built system (at the time a "beast" with an i7 and 12 GB of memory) for a Random Render challenge (not sure if those are still happening) where you had to randomly choose four items from your product library.
Make a comic book or visual novel. THAT will certainly challenge you in new ways and also...warning...eat up TONS of your content/library.
Start off with a short, short story and build from there.
If that's too much, do a set of renders that fit together in a group.
Like, they have a theme.
I mean, Daz assets have SOOOooo many uses.
Make a picture book.
A 2020 calendar.....
Make a scene and a page of meaningful text and print the poem/art, make a card and give it to someone you love...
I can name about 30 more things, but you get the idea.
Maybe it's time to branch out and some purpose behind your art.
That were I learned most of my skills for today, doing a comic you have to make a lot of your own stuff, mind you you'll never make a living out of it. But you will grow as a person ;)
One that I do from time to time is to pick three items from my library at random (everything's listed in an Excel file, so I can just use a random nr generator) and make a render with those.
Also, buying and installing items and rendering are two separate hobbies.
RIGHT NOW i HAVE A HUGE daz SHOPPING HOBBY, THAT'S FOR SUre ... caps lock on again ...
You probably need to get off the desk and make a trip. Inspiration comes from life when exploring new good things.
I wouldn't worry. I feel the same way about most of my renders so I don't post most of them. Maybe I'm being "arty". Ugh!
...or read some books and try to make them come alive. Or watch some movies and think "that could have be done better (even in only one picture)...
I watched The Avengers Endgame last night and I kept going..Oh, that's where that DAZ stuff /character comes from
This seems to happen over time as you adapt to having more and better items/availability, be it assets, hardware, freedom, time etc.. The wonder you feel when you first discover that you can render a character is a high that dimishes over time. Any experience is most potent the first go round. May be time for a break from rendering until you feel inspired again then when you come back it will likely be newer and shinier again.
Since I've read this lawsuit article I can only think of NVITWS renders
Yup I signed up to making comics.. keeps me pretty busy
NVITWS? Is that: Nude Vicky In Temple With Sword?
Yep
...or Neurotic Vicky In A Truck With A Skeleton.
I feel......I feel.....creativity increasing
Clearly, there is now a need for a challenge where people have to come up with "incorrect" definitions for NVIATWAS...
Or have someone take away your computer for three months and try a different medium such as pastels or if you are really patient and have good ventilization oil paint. Sorry for ant spelling errors. It is combination of broken phone and bad spelling skills.
I like to look at the File part of Smart Content panel, under ALL at top of category list. Scroll up and down Props panel. Can't always know from the Product panel there lurks an inspiring prop within. I have some old Egyptian props that will go nicely with the newer products such as Egyptian Bathhouse, or Museum, or the Bazaar or a relic hunter scene. I use new shaders on different stuff just to see what they look like, gingham cliffs, leather fruit, metal trees, and so on. Playing like that brings ideas to me.
Now and again when I'm stuck for inspiration, I go through my old Poser or Vue renders from 10 to 15 years ago and then re-do them from scratch using Genesis 8 or 3 models and iray. It's a nice challenge and it skips the inspiration part needed. That said - sometimes the new one looks much better, sometimes I fail to capture the feel of the original. Either way though, it's a good way to pass an afternoon and sometimes a way to learn new skills.
Try to learn how to Lucid Dream. Then just walk up to Salvador Dali and politely ask him for ideas.
Many years ago, I read the seminal work on it, by Stephen LaBerge at Stanford. It explained that the reason why dreams are so creative is that while we are in REM sleep (which he proved is just you looking around in your dream) the portion of your brain called the Reticular Activating System is suppressed. The RAS is sort of the brain's gatekeeper, which prevents all of our senses from overloading our limited number of neurons (limited by heat dissipation and why our brains look like radiators with so many convolutions and is liquid cooled). The RAS is why after you buy a red car, you tend to notice lots of other red cars. But it is also the reason why it is difficult to think creatively: it's your RAS saying, essentially "Don't waste your time thinking about bullshit when there are sabre-toothed tigers out there that will END YOU in two seconds, son" :)
But when we are sleeping, the RAS is suppressed and our brain is free to form whatever obscure connections it wants to, which, to, is the definition of creativity.
With my first successful use, I was having problems driving an HP scanner; there were Windows drivers for it but no DOS ones. In a Lucid dream, my mind conjured up the smartest person I could think of: Einstein. He was casually feeding pidgeons in a park. He was sitting on a bench, and I just approached him and said "Excuse me? Mr. Einstein? I hate to disturb you, but I am a great admirer of your work and I am having a problem I was hoping you could help me with..." After explaining the problem, he replied "Have you tried putting the device in raw mode?" I was so excited that I woke up, ran to work at 4am, and tried it. Damned if it didn't work.
Now, there is nothing supernatural going on. These are not out-of-body experiences nor seances with the dead. I had probably read somewhere about device modes, but forgot about it consciously, but my brain filed the information away.
I also used Lucid Dreaming to ask Mozart to hum me a cool melody.
In my 20s, I could Lucid Dream almost at will, sometimes 3 times per night. Now it's harder, but I still do it every now and then.
Nincompoop Victorian In A Texas Wasteland, And Shooting.
Also as for CGI I believe there's a common sense for creativity that may create barriers. I mean, as technology grows up we get new "more powerful" tools, and then they become the standard. So for example now pbr rules over raytracing and "old" raytaced images are no more considered "cool". This somewhat introduces an odd obsoloscence in 3D art. While true art itself shouldn't fear time and usually takes value with it.
So coming from a background in art from family and education this is a very common occurence. Writers block or artist block in this situation. Buying new content doesn't stir the imagination. So one of the first things they teach in formal art classes is art appreciation. They take you to art museums to show you what the masters did. Also the teachers would make you create a book of pictures. It could be ads of whatever. Anything really. So think of it like this. Obviously Rembrandt didn't have magazines to get inspired by so what do you think he did. He looked at the world around him. The only way to get inspired is not be blind of the world around you. By the way there is nothing wrong with portraits. Look at George Hurrell he made a living out of it. The secret is to making it look stunning and not something boring. Also something I tried to tell any aspiring artist never let anything hold you back. When you do that you never really release your true potential. Daz gives you the oppurtunity to just let your imagination go crazy couple that with Photoshop and it can be so much fun. My personal inspiration comes from Hardcore Heavy Metal and Women. So I put on headphones crank up some Jungle Rot or maybe some 3teeth, load up Daz and start creating dramaticly lit studio shots. Kind of noir style. My instagram name is illicitkool. Go and check out what I have done. Most of them I am very proud of but as an artist I am never completely satisfied. Hope this helps and get that mind going crazy with ideas.