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Real artists use brushes...but they make those brushes themselves...by plucking out eyebrow hairs every third Friday...
I want to see the end of calculaters and computers in offices i feel they should not be so lazy what is wrong with a quill and abacas and a candle for lighting.
I haven't used an abacas since Kindergarten & 1st Grade.
The surest sign something is art is a large number of critics explaning why it isn't art.
...exactly. I used to paint in oils. I never had to be concerned with having to know how things like SSS, glossy roughness, specular, scatter/transmit, diffuse, etc. values worked before I applied brush to canvas. It just seemed to feel and happen more "naturally". Sadly arthritis took that away from me. I no longer have a steady grip in my hands and it is very painful to hold a brush or pencil for more than a few minutes at a time. This is part of what pushed me into 3D CG as I still wanted to create images I had in my mind and for stories I work on.
Indeed, is seemed a totally alien media coming from the lifelong background I had in traditional art forms. I actually investigated CG back in the 80s and dreamed of tools like we have now as back then, everything was done with writing code and the process felt so cold and "detached". After a while I left CG and returned to the traditional media where I felt more in touch with what I created.
When I became involved in this I ran into the same "elitism" at first being looked down on as playing with "toy software" or "digital dolls" because I didn't model texture and rig all my own meshes. I didn't model because the only programme I had was terribly unstable, I couldn't afford the ones they use (nor a system that supported them), and couldn't wrap my brain around the UI and setup of one that was free (and still cannot).
As I worked more with these "lesser" (in their eyes) programmes, I found there was indeed a powerful sense of creativity involved. It wasn't simply "load, pose, and render" if you really wanted to create something nice. I also found my RL background in set design and especially theatrical lighting was a real bonus as in many ways Daz and other programmes like it follow a similar process. What I really liked about 3DL (and still do) was that I could get an "oil paint" quality to my work without having to do a lot of extensive postwork or digital painting (something that is also very difficult because of my arthritis), but simply by slight adjustments to the lighting.. Oh, like others I tried to see how "real" I could get things to look and came close on a few occasions, but realised if I wanted a "photo", why not just grab my camera as a few rolls of film? Instead I moved more in the, for lack of a better term, "non realistic" direction which is was what opened up a whole new world for me.
Yeah I've played with Iray and was pretty excited at first as here we had professional quality rendering in a "free" programme., However, the more I worked with it, the less I enjoyed what I was doing as it seemed to want to pull me away from the creative, imaginative side, back to one that is much more technical in nature. For example, just trying to get a skin quality that fit in with the photo real look of other scene elements, I felt I was spending more time messing with surface parameters and numeric values than I was getting any actual work done. Again it made me question "why am I going though all this effort just to create what I could simply do by picking up a camera?" It has also made be very critical of cinematic CGI as I can often "see" it for what it is and wonder, if these studios with megamillion budgets, proprietary software, teams of CGI artists/programmers, as well as the latest hardware and warehouse sized render farms still can't seem to get it quite right to satisfy my eyes, how am I supposed to do the same in my room on a single 4 year old home built PC using "affordable" commercial software?
The "painter" in me prefers the individual quality and style I can achieve outside the "photo real" box.
I think I'll hang that on my wall.
'tis simple ...
Click 1: File menu
Move cursor down to Open recent and let that expand ..
Click 2: on name of saved scene
Click 3: Render menu
Click 4: Render menu option
And let's be profligate with our clicks ....
Once render is done, enter a filename and
Click 5: Save button to retain your 5-click masterpiece
...
So who is actually going to make a 10-click image and share it with us? ;)
...I haven't used a slide rule since my high school years. Still have it though and still know how to use it.
I think the usual problem of the "10 click insult" isn't about the result. It's about the skill. People who would attack you on the fact that it took you 10 clicks would think that if you, for example, make a tutorial on which 10 clicks to do, would transfer the knowledge easily and fast to the next user. So this next user would basically immideately acquire that "technical" skill of making a scene in DAZ. Maybe he won't have the eye of what to make, but he would have the technical skill to acquire whatever he would think of. And that doesn't really awaken respect. Like, if it's "clicks" not even some movement of sliders or positioning of stuff, if it's all just selecting the right presets, it means it's very transferrable as knowledge. And the easier one can acquire certain knowledge, the less respect people have for it.
It's basically a discussion whether your skill comes from expirience or from acquiring a certain secret. Experience people respect, secrets people just want to acquire and spread. But they don't respect you for knowing it. (Unless you have skill for acquiring most wanted secrets, but then it's not about acquiring this specific secret, but about you having the skill of acquiring any secret).
That said: I can't produce a 10-click peace, or I would feel I'm rendering someone else's work. Leave alone the amount of test renders. If I have less than two, that means I'm in a very big hurry. And spent a lot of time relying on already previously rendered items, so I can guess how they will look like. Most of the time the test renders will always reveal a forgotten plastic-y converted 3delight material to Iray, poke-through or wrongly pointed eyes.
Actually if you count opening DAZ from the OS menu and use preloads from the DAZ Store that are actually scenes and have 'autologin' set to true you can render & save a scene in 10 clicks if you name your render something like 'a' and let DAZ do the rest with defaults. I bet I've left off a click or two though but it's a good memory test. It's a very tight 10 clicks though.
you should make a meme out of that!
OK, here's my dumb entry into the 10 click challenge. :) Of course it's technically not 10 clicks because we have to double-click everything, and I didn't count saving the rendered image.
1. load figure, 2. apply texture, 3. pose camera (one movement), 4. load hair, 5. apply hair texture, 6. apply pose preset, 7. load wearable preset, 8. render, 9 apply minor postwork preset and save...huh, I could have sworn it took me 10 steps...aw, I'd have applied an expression or morph if I'd counted correctly. ;)
Right click & merge into scene counts as one click.
ROTFL! Perfect!!
Yes! That's a gorgeous image and it DOES NOT need to take long suffering to make with the tools we have these days. I say celebrate that. Don't shun it.
I believe that actually sums up the core of the debate without being flippant or dismissive, and giving those who wish to really think on the subject a little bit deeper than, "it's art because you can't define art" something to consider.
Probably the best description I've seen of what art is.
Although I would add my own; it's art if two (or more) people disagree over, and try and understand what it's about.
... Or it is just enjoyable (in some way) to look at.
Of course, just because I don't think it is art, doesn't stop it being... All it needs is one person to think it is art. :)
Consider music.
With the piano, it takes no effort to make a clear note. You hit a key. It takes a fairly small amount of effort to play some (extremely basic) tunes. Hit a series of keys in something like an even beat. (Chopsticks!)
With the violin, flute, and countless other instruments? You need experience before you can even produce a clear note, and it takes effort just to make decent sounds, let alone string them together into something good.
But past that early phase, it doesn't matter. It takes time and musical elements to get any instrument to sound good, to play involved, beautiful music.
CGI is like the piano.
It takes very little effort to make something that looks like a cow/person/whatever.
But, in the end? It takes artistic training and sensibilities to make it a GOOD image.
Excuse then programmers for refraining from calling skilled 3D artists talentless hacks for not being able to write the programs they use. Or programmers for being talentless hacks for not being able to create much of the SW and HW they use, or HW engineers for being talentless hacks for not being able, nowdays, to write the SW they use to create the HW they create or even create much of the HW they use.
It's all a deck of cards that quickly collapses under the weight of its helplessness against what's really going on under the hood. Really, those complainers don't have a leg to stand on.
I always thought macguyver had the best definition of 'Art' I've heard:
"Art is art only when someone says it's art and art by itself, never calls itself art because it prefers to leave that judgement to the viewer... And more often than not, the viewer reserves that judgement for the call of the critic or expert and they call art what they feel to be art based on what that call will bring them and less on what may or may not be art to others."
I would still consider what I made above (the 10 click render) to be a test, not anything I would show on a forum as a finished work. I seem to be one of the few here who doesn't completely disagree with the "elites" point of view - doesn't mean I completely agree with them either, but even I don't like using anything "as is" if possible because I feel it's not 'my art' if I just load and render. That's why kitbashing is so important to so many of us in this hobby. I consider myself more of an assembler of other people's creations and don't feel comfortable calling myself (or frankly, anyone who makes images as I do) a true 3D artist like someone who can model a creature in Zbrush, rig it in Blender, and texture it in Mari. But, that's just me.
Well my point is really those complaining are really complaining about people with various levels of artistic skills, computer skills, and levels and types of motivation that are buying the professional's products to use for a hobby and then those hobbyists are being insulted for buying and using the professional's products exactly in the ways they were told they could use them to make nice artwork. So how is a hobbyist using a professional product out of the box is any less talented than an elite but the elite buys products that let them use V4 or M4 clothing on G3 characters or other such things. Or read and follows directions on how to run an images through several post-render image filters?
Well for me that's just too rich. However, I know that's not really indicative of most users of DAZ products but is more typical of the social behaviour in forums. It's the same in game creation forums and other forums I've visited.
Furthermore, I keep hearing about these 'elites' but I've never seen or read any of them post in the forums or galleries regarding any DAZ Studio users not being real artists because we use DAZ. These 'elites' could be total fictions or more likely, if they do exist, they are the Joanna & Eddie to our Safie and Grandma.
One thing for sure if I'm not going to seek out and verify the existance of these 'elites' so they can give me their opinion because I've haven't a clue as to what makes them elite or why they are being called elite or even who they are. Do you?
"Elites" was a term used a long time ago to describe 3D artists using high-end software that looked down on Poser users for using canned content. There are plenty of professionals who use DAZ products, and I still consider them professionals. Where I sometimes disagree with the majority here is when these art discussions come up and people say that Zbrush modelers shouldn't look down on us because they didn't write the code for the Zbrush software themselves and that sort of thing.
I'm not interested in their opinions either if they're going to look at my art and simply say "he's no good because he used pre-made content". I'd like them to tell me what they think of the compsition, expressions, etc. However, I do not consider myself in the same league as someone who can model and texture their creations themselves, and I don't think any of us who rely entirely on purchased content should either.
Well you are really unjustly treating yourself if because to don't have their 3D modeling or texting skills or Z-Brush skills that they have or to the level technical exactness they have you think you cant't create better composed art then they can using the products that even they may have made. Are they even attempting to do anything other than making models and textures for these products other use to make digital art that's not used as ad copy for something they are selling? Those being critiques of art hobbyists such as myself because I use Poser or DAZ 3D certainly don't consider themselves to be inferior artists for using all sorts of tools and resources that have no capability of making such as writing the AutoDesk Maya software as one example or even being about to identfy bugs in the SW so the the technical art models used are improved in quality. That exposes the silliness of their critique. And when it comes right down to it, much of the skill sets they've used to create these products in the past that we art hobbyists use are now being superceded by automated technical computer hardware and software so really and truly it's coming down more and more with computer digital art is the image or animation you create as being what is relevant and not whether your created the 3D models and textures and the programs and hardware used to create those things yourself. That's how it should be. Most people have no interest in what SW & HW were created to make Pixar films or the techniques of hand-drawn cell animations of old days, they care about the final product, and it just so happen the direction Poser, DAZ 3D, Unity, amnd others are going let them create such products with more and more ease.
It's nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed of, that's what these things were created to do and I appreciate these products. It's the same dynamic in making games as a hobby.
So maybe, when all is said & done, in the old days before television & radio & libraries folk used to sit around and make-up stories and embellish stories and now with the emergence of game, animation, and 2D & 3D art products maybe those stories telling personalities will again re-emerge and reduce reliance of culture on monolithic, expensive, and repetive Hollywood and and other mass media entertainment story telling businesses. It's sort of exciting for hobbyists really.
I think you're missing my point. I'll try to explain it again: it's not about how easy the process has become in comparison to something. Like it's not the easiness of Windows compared to DOS programming for example. It's about how fast can someone, who has never done it before, come in and produce something of the level we're theoretically judging.
Say you make a 10 click piece. Say, you do that by using a certain character, certain hair, clothing, clothing texture, pose, light and camera. All loaded from presets you purchased. Now you see, although your contribution to the piece is the putting together of all those unrelated items, if you look at the technical aspect of this 10-click render, you could teach any other person to do it in a simple 10 step tutorial. And after reading this tutorial, the person would immideately (and not after at least fiddling around a bit with brushes/sliders/whatever) be able to reproduce your piece of art. Exactly that piece of art. And yes, you're the one who thought of making it. But the skill to technically produce it (not think it up) can be explained in a 10-click tutorial.
In every piece of art there are always two aspects: the technical skill and the talent. The talent is responsible for visualising what you want to make, the technical skill for bringing what's in your head on the paper (or screen). And although talent is something people could argue about, technical skill is quite an objective thing. And when people talk about respect for the artist based on his technical skills (not his talent) they usually simply judge how much time it takes for them to acquire an equal technical skill from scratch. That's why we respect artists who spent years to refine their painting skills or went to a photography school, to learn with different camera's and postwork. But if you basically can say that you can learn any stranger your technical skill in something under 10 min it takes to read which 10 buttons to push, your technical skill is being devalued. It becomes something everyone can acess. And then there's only talent left to respect, which, although still a valid thing to arise respect, is still only half of the story. Especially in professional environment, where the visual is already given by the client (he wants this and that on paper, and wants you to make it come true), but the technical skill is what the client is lacking.
I'm not saying people who do 3D art are less of artists because they can load a pose or hair in one click. But I honestly believe that 10-click pieces are something akin to those platforms where you can make a picture by dressing up the base and deciding on its hair color and gender. All those bases will have the same face expression, have like 5 different backgrounds to chose from and some limited choice of hair and clothing. Yes, you can produce thousands of combinations and make your "character" unique. But in the end it's just a chablon and you're only a combiner, not anyone with any technical skill. And personally I don't really think people who work with those bases are artists. They can't improve on their skills, since they're not using any skills. All that's left is the visual part, the talent to visualize. And without the skill to bring it to the paper themselves it's like them ordering a comission. It's good that you have a vision, but can you really take credit for the work done, except for the original idea?
I don't think the fact I'm working with assets is making me less of an artist. I'm not worse than any cosplay artist or photographer. Especially photographer, they never make things from scratch. But it still takes some technical skill to set up a scene, lit it up and postwork it. But I won't manage that in 10 clicks. I won't be able to deviate from the original idea of asset creator in such a short amount of clicks.
You haven't been paying attention to some of the comments made in some of these forum discussions then, or we have a differing opinion of what "an elitist" is, because quite often people will say things like "Daz isn't a tool for 'professional work', " or " no professional would use Daz for serious work" and then proceed to list what $1000+ programs they use on a regular basis. They continally equate ease of use with amateur, and their contempt for consumer software or products in any genre is evident with the dismissive manner in which they talk about it, or the people who use it.
Mind you this doesn't necessarily make them anything other than elite in their own minds, and mostly these are people who eek out a living doing work in some field, and haven't quite made it to the upper echelons themselves, but they are sometimes in the orbit of those that are [as an example, I direct you to the profession of photography which is overflowing with such individuals]. True professionals seldom if ever are dismmissive of "anyone" who is in the process of learning and actually creating something and tend to be very supportive, or at least this has been my experience among truly talented, skilled people.
..or, having studied piano (as well as organ and harpsichord) like the difference between playing Chopsticks and Chopin's Polonaise in A flat.
No, I didn't misunderstand you, we mostly agree, except that we disagree on the need to be respected as an artist artisically because of technical skill. You should expect to be respected regardless of skill level but one should not confuse a word like respect as being the same thing as being wise to take advice or at least carefully listen and consider advice from a technically skilled and experienced worker in some sort of subject matter. Respect is not blind obediance or blind agreement but behaving civilly.
That one spends less time technically creating a work of art doesn't make the work of art any less relevant if you value it's message. I haven't a clue what Jackson Pollock or Andy Warhol art was saying and didn't care for their art but that's irrelevant to the fact that their message resonated with people who did value that art in some way. Ultimately that it took little technical skill to produce that art was also irrelevant regarding the message the art was saying to those who felt it had relevance.
Now does that mean I don't value those folk that do create models and such that other non-technically skilled people can use artistically? No, and that's reflected in that I buy plenty of their technical models and textures.
So calling someone a great artist is always subjective and never objective. Calling one a talented or technically proficient artist is and should be objective but always must be technically qualified. I have no confusion about that.