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You may think that,However Blender as 3D/CG/VFX tool
Cannot compete with Autodesk in any conceivable measure
..seriously not a single one....
beyond being freeware and being free does not make a tool any more effective when one is needing to perform certain specific tasks in an efficient timely manner.
Daz studio is Free however both You & I still paid for the Expensive Iclone Pro 3DX Pipeline... and for what ???
its animation tools.
History has shown that there are basically two groups of people who actually "hate" advancements in technology.
Those who's current economic postion in some space of the market will be challenged /or supplanted by the new tech
and for whatever reason will not update/ upgrade to remain competitive
or those who made their living teaching others how to use the older tech
and for whatever reason will not update their knowledge /education to remain competitive.
The fever swamp,echo chamber of Mutual validation threads
to be found in online poser communities has often put forth this
false narrative that actual end users of "high end" programs want their own tools to remain
difficult & archaic to keep the "children" from quickly producing
great art with ease.
No one who is serious about their personal creative objectives
or their $$professional competitiveness$$$, desires tools that are less efficient for silly emotion reasons such as suggested.
Agreed well stated
@ DustRider
Excellent post and incredible short.
Yeah the OPer was thinking more along the lines of is the time to learn a new 3d software worth it if you put a little more effort out and get similar results with what you have. But the truth is I don't know what you have to create to please yourself. I'm not that picky but others can be. My "Good 'nough!" might make them break down into tears. I might have myself back in the day. I am more into making the most of my money and that is an entirely different game altogether. Others are into shaving off as much time as possible at any price. Still others are into taking as much time as it takes to get the results they want. The answer to the orginal question of whether you can develop the skill to do great works with lesser tools is yes you can sometimes but not always. Totally depends on what you are trying to get it to do and the results you demand and the time you have. I personally will settle for what I can do with the tools I have easy cheap access to and be perfectly happy. I'm a settler these days. Today someone went out dumpster diving and glued some old crap together and put a big price tag on it because that's how they do art. Tomorrow, someone might agree with them that it is art and their personal touch added tremendous value to the scraps and shell out the asking price. Art is funny that way. I can argue I don't think the arrangement looks artsy enough and someone else can argue it most certainly does. Art can be whatever floats your boat. I'm not gonna attempt to figure out what floats your boat though. Its difficult enough figuring out my own head.
DustRider
Funny enough I have to disappear from this conversation. I have pulled my beads, I need to find my Spiderwire and clasps, I owe someone a gift and I have to go craft the jewelry. My father-inlaw died almost a year ago and my mother inlaw just had a birthday. My husband wants to take her a gift from us when he visits her. I have a two tone pendant picked out and the colors are in the yellows and browns and silvers. It must be very nice to cheer her up a bit. I don't like hairdressers or bad haircuts, I ordered scissors and razors from Aliexpress and I cut my hair and my daughter's hair. I color it every color in the rainbow plus Platinum, latest request. I have to cook tonight too, everyone is spoiled and its hard to serve canned soup at this point. We went on a trip and my husband took pictures, I cleaned them up a bit and had posters made at Walmart so my color-blind husband has his art on the walls too!!! But last year I would never call myself an artist either. But artists take something and add value to it by tinkering with it, and I do that day in and day out and people agree my efforts are nice. I have come to think some brains are artsy and of a do-it-yourself nature. I think its just a brain flavor like being good at math, which I am not. If you tinker a lot you get better at tinkering than someone who doesn't tinker, usually. My math never did improve to my satisfaction. But the rest yeilded some results. DustRider start by accepting you may very well be an artsy person and an artist at one level or another on your journey through life.
What is more important, the artist or the tools?
You wont be making Toy Story using a Commodore 64.
The hammer artist people someone mentioned...what if all they had was a MEAT HAMMER. Their job just got a lot tougher!
Deli sliced meats? What if all you have is a butter knife?
You literally cannot do certain tasks without the right tools. And sure, some people do amazing things with Blender, that's swell, but it is understood you cannot do everything at the same level as other dedicated software can, because Blender does have its limits. There is a reason why Disney is not using Blender. And while some people can make nice art with Blender, this statement still neglects one thing: they still had to build a computer to use Blender, did they not? That computer was most certainly not free, and that computer most certainly is not what one would describe as a piece of junk, either. It does not matter what software you have, if your computer sucks, you are screwed.
I think many people are overlooking just how daunting a task it is for some people to get a decent computer for this field. In parts of the world, computers are extremely expensive, or certain parts are very hard to get at all. Right now we have serious price inflation for GPUs around the world. Now maybe some people already built their PC before this happened. Maybe some were doing well enough that the cost didn't matter. But for many people this GPU shortage has been a barrier of entry into this field, because you simply cannot do this reasonably on a cheap PC. Remember the thread by an older brother looking to buy his kid brother a laptop for Daz? He was thinking he could buy a fairly cheap one, which would not help very much. Its a very nice gesture, absolutely. But the laptops he was looking at were just not going to cut it for Daz Studio Iray. I'm not sure how that ended, I lost track of that thread. We also have people on a fixed income, and that is a huge barrier to this field. And anybody living paycheck to paycheck is going to hit a wall at the idea of building an expensive PC.
So the very nature of this field, no matter how cheap or free the software might be, has a very high cost of entry because of the hardware needed. You just cannot buy a cheap laptop and expect to do any of this stuff at a reasonable level. You just can't. You can try to race Pintos, but that just wont go very well, either. Unless your opponents all have Pintos, too, which would be one oddly entertaining race. But anyway...
On that note, I think the best analogy for CGI is actually motor racing. The relationship between the driver skill and the performance of their cars is very much the same. You simply cannot compete without a fast car, no matter how good you are at driving. Period. But a fast car only gets you so far, you still need skill to drive that car. At the end of the day, the best combination of skill and car wins the most races, and sometimes the amount of skill VS car is different. Sometimes, lesser skilled drivers do win races because their cars are just that much faster than others. It is just a cold hard fact. And that is true of CGI. The combination of skill, software, and hardware all factor in towards the work one does. It would be very disingenuous to suggest otherwise.
I honestly thought that said "anti-Daz porntificators" for a second and thought, "aren't something like 90% of the 3D porntificators on the internet Daz users?"
C'mon, you porntificators. You know who you are.
...again I don't think GPU physically based rendering is necessarily "better" than rendering with a biased engine like 3DL. It is a different quality and style, just as a photograph is different from an oil painting. Neither one is "better" or "worse" than the other. Yes I am disappointed by the whole GPU price gouging matter, but instead of letting it get me down, I can go back to something I have years of experience with and still use to create images until the situation eases up or something different comes along. I don't feel I'm creating "inferior" images just because they don't employ lighting that is calculated using real physics. Yes, the situation is preventing me from moving forward with photo real rendering as I like to create very large and detailed scenes that need a high VRAM GPU to render in what I consider a "reasonable" amount of time. However, it isn't the end of the world as long as I have something that still works well and with which I can realise the visions I have. It may not look like a 35mm photo, but so what?
Represent!
It's the artist that has a picture in mind. To realize it (making imagination to reality) so it can be shared, an appropriate tool is needed. To realize the artwork with this tool needs skill, that's craftsmanship and is art of its own. There is no fits-it-all tool, some are more suitable for this than that. The tool does nothing, it is the artist and craftsman using the tool to accomplish what was envisioned. The tool is passive, the artist is active.
For things like rendering in CG, I think the racing analogy outrider42 has is pretty accurate. The tools/programs/software suites are important and it takes a lot of technical knowledge and skill to overcome those shortcomings that can be worked around - and not all can -, but the results can only be so impressive without real artistic understanding behind using them. (Oh, another pinup. Yawn.)
Other crafts and arts, I think it varies widely. I can mix cookies just fine with nothing more than a fork. My stepmonster had a standing mixer. Her cookies weren't any better than mine, she could just make more a little bit faster (bakning times don't change). My older sewing machine with fewer options has proven more reliable than the newer computerized one, and both were perfectly usable for making costumes and dresses. (The newer one currently has a burnt out motor - again.) So for both of those, it is my skill that makes something delicious/beautiful, rather than the tools I'm using - and I think this is more the case for certain areas of CG, such as texturing and modeling (both of which I'll admit to having less experience with than rendering... or cooking and sewing for that matter.)
So... I think that tools matter less (though still somewhat) for some aspects of CG, and moreso for others, but it all means nothing without the artists' vision and skills to bring something beautiful together.
...well said.
...with one caveat. I have been seeing that working on an older system with fewer resources than many have today, there are ways to still get decent performance and very good results. In my case it came with choice of render engine.
I love my kitchen gadgets! But mostly I just grab very sharp knives rather than clean up behind the food processor or settle for what it produces. I may not have an idea for a piece of art until I see an outfit and then I might design a character I think would look good in it. Or I might have the character then go to the closet. I finished the necklace. I think it would sell for between $40 and $60 in an upscale shop using nothing but glass and plated plastic plated beads. Ends are finished right, clasp is good, design is where it gets you. If you shop at really expensive stores, it could cost even more. My husband and I have discovered we must now pay $20 per person to get a meal that is better than my meals, with the exception of the fried rice at certain Chinese place. That cook is awesome. But I don't just stare at a hunk of meat and dream up a recipe. I don't envision how my food will be plated. I love to edit photos and there are so many of those. The camera has been around for a very long time. I can do hair and make-up.... Would not a camera be the right tool for a photo-real image??? So strange that it is not the go to tool for that. Talk about picking the right tool for the job and then go on and about how reality sucks so bad a photo will never do we just need a jacked up computer and a thousand programmers and its got to look like a camera did it cause like photos are super rare and expensive and "man I got to make it look like it was done woith a camera".....Art can be so funny if you think about it. I kinda want to do paint overs of my renders to make them appear hand-painted cause like art supplies are costly and I want to look like I own canvas.
..in spite of the stiffness and pain I still hand cut/chop all my ingredients when needed. I also have very sharp knives where I can get paper thin slices of onion or tomato. One of the tircks I do f\ when I make my curries of teriyaki is buy local natural fresh outdoor raised chicken breast or thighs (as it has not been pre frozen to weather the trip across the country) and put in in the freezer for a couple hours. This way it is slightly firm rather than soft which allows for getting those nice thin slices I need. This technique also allows me to get super thin slices of beef for making Phở.
For me cooking is also an artform. Years ago when I still had housemates, I was asked why I took much time preparing the ingredients for my dinners instead of getting say, pre mixed frozen stir fry veggies, pasta sauce in a jar, or instant potatoes I replied, "because cooking relaxes me after a tough day at work".
...but I digress (again)
BTW, there is a fellow who does exactly that (paint over a rendered image) over on DA. Pretty nice stuff and characters with personality.
https://lundqvist.deviantart.com/
Masters of realism often copy a photograph exactly, down to the smallest detail and place next to their work. I always wanted to ask them what was wrong with the photo itself? Not one change? Not one embellishment? So you are like the ultimate copycat which means you can draw anything you can conceive? Now could please go and conceive something....How much for the photo?
Most of the time when I see discussions concerning tools versus the artist it tends to come from the camp of people who are is some ways against the democratization of art; particularly art that required extremely expensive tools (like filmmaking did until only a few decades ago), or like music recording (that also until a reasonably short while ago required studio time and very precise and costly equipment). When technology allowed artists on the lower end of the scale to suddenly be able to emulate what the "pros" were doing at a level that a mass audience was taking note, or to a point where they could cut out the middlemen you suddenly saw these "your tools aren't as good as my tools", or "this 'particular' tool is what this particular set of pros are using" disregarding all the pros out there that aren't using that particular tool. It's simply a form of elitism no matter how you try to disguise it.
As dustrider says, when you get to that level of people who are truely at the top of their craft I find that these discussions seldom if ever come up. They use the tools they use for what ever reasons, and they recognize talent when they see it regardless of what that talent may be using -- and that's taking into account that a good artist knows the limitations of what they happen to be using and ARE NOT trying to get it to do what it's is not capable of doing.
My take is use whatever the hell you want to use or can afford to use, become as proficient as you can, enjoy your art at whatever level you want to take it, and don't be a dick to other artists.
Beautifully said!!!
I see it the exact opposite way. Saying the tools matter as well as the artist opens the door to saying to anyone and everyone that "yes, if you learn how to use this tool, you also will be able to create things like this," instead of implying the key is some innate "artist" trait a person may or may not have.
Any time you post DAZ/Poser renders at a high end sites they consider it clip art ,it's a given your going to get ragged for posting there.best not to post DAZ/Poser renders on those sites.
Not all are mean but High end forums aren't necessarily nice either .They have no problems crucifying you for asking the wrong question or doing any thing they don't like.
If your going to hang around high end sites best to keep your armor on..
Well, a person can't become an artist by throwing tons of money at it alone. I can spend all the money I want to on classes and math is gonna be tough for me. My color-blind husband hates "art". And yet he had me paint every room in the house repeatedly. He loves having me make jewelry and he always looks at what I come up with impressed. He himself has become a master of 2x4 and plywood construction. This is his art, he makes functional things like desks, bookshelves, storage, bookcases, and few for pretty as I have some glass topped end table with sand and shells displayed in them. He really is getting great at it. He ignores the stamps on the wood and sometimes they face outward, but I think of it as his trademark. I call it redneck Ikea, although his stuff is 100 times tougher. The house could blow away but his creations would still be holding up a wall or two. He is also a good decorator with some help on the colors. There are a lot of people with some money that think if they use that money right on their education and tools they will certainly beat poor people all day long and always be first to the trough. Maybe their dad made the money or grandfather and bought them a leg up. Classism is alive and well and it always about who gets to be first to the trough. However, a rich woman would be happy to wear my glass jewelry on casual day and in that case, I made my money. I don't have to profit from my daz art but if I wanted to, I'd go for making fairy mugs and tshirts and things real, regular people buy and enjoy. There are far more tastless poor people who actually are not so tasteless after all. You might have to sell many things to real people rather than one thing for a rich person. But Walmart says it works!!!!
I'm not sure that's true. If you post a really good render, nobody will care how you made it, nor perhaps even notice that it came out of Daz Studio. But the standards in CG are really high. A lot of times our stuff just doesn't have that level of quality, neither artistically nor technically. It's just something we have to be a bit humble about.
The PC's n web help to level the Classism field .You can build CGI PC's cheaper n buy a game ready PC for around $ 500 at wally world .PC's get bigger n cheaper every decade.
I've been a Artist since before home PC's .With my cheap PC no CGI school education n determination I can create any CGI any thing .Do I need the $10,000.00 PC's n the $100,000.00 education ? I'm sure they would be cool to have but not necessary.
There is nothing humble about this lady!
...sorry everyone, I just had to have a fan moment... back to the conversation...
I think the right tool for that job.I'm not going to Vue for humans ,not going to D/S for a forest.not using cycles for a game engine.
I think the tools I like best.I like to model in a very old version of basic C4D it's my fav modeler.I like sculpting best in mudbox.
We have a variety of app's to chose from which I think is a good thing but a 2018 polygon is same as a 1998 polygon .Really CGI hasn't change much in 20 years.
Beyond me why we have not solve the seem problem ,or why we turn tri's to quads when we subdivide.I give CGI coders credit for creating magic.but why do we still have the same problems 20 years latter ?
Blah, I went and poked around CGIsociety's Gallery. The stuff I liked best was 2d stuff from Photoshop. I can't say that I'd want to spend all my time modeling stuff. Much of the stuff is modeled by TEAMS of people and you are just seeing the model, not a scene or something ready for a wall or t-shirt or mug or bookcover. I have decided I have to work on my posing in Daz Studio, Iray will help me understand lighting better for painting. I also have no time to run off and try to make an album as a one-man band,(Taking out a morgage to buy 3d softwares out the behind and trying to make it all myself before I render) nor do I have the cash for highend assets. I have a nice collection of clothes, hair, buildings and G3F morphs already. I can build a character in Daz Studio, I can set up a scene, I can do a render of it. If I want to get fancy, I can work on my 2D skills and learn to do those paint overs to have it looking like the 2d art on that fancy gallery done in what? Photoshop. I am done asking myself if Zbrush is worth it or 3d coat is good enough, cause I'm just not going there. I have too much stuff to do as it is.
I think it's more about fooling the most people with a CGI representation than it is about doing a 100% accurate recreation of an photograph.
Blender has a sculptor in it ,mudbox is only $10.00 a month like photoshop n since your a 2D Artist I'm assuming you all ready have a wacom.Wacoms are a lot better then a mouse for sculpting.
Don't think zBrush has ever charged for a upgrade.