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The problem with threads like this is that users come in and try to convince other users to feel one way or the other which is wrong IMO. If a user is fine with d/l, install, click and then render, that is fine. If a user feels they need to create some of their own props and edit some textures to have a greater sense of creativity, there is nothing wrong with that either. I feel much or how we feel about the process and the outcome comes from our skill levels and how we compare them to others and what we can and cannot accomplish either due to skill, time, tools or even PC power.
I come from a full modeling background working in the games industry, so creating everything from scratch is the norm for me. We are completely spoiled in this community with the amount of premade assets we have available to us. The times I have just clicked and moved around assets in DS to get the render ready always left me feeling like I didn't accomplish anything. photoshop was never opened, 3dsMax was never opened, the surface pane was never opened, I never accessed the joint tool, the geometry editor, etc. All I did was look in the content library (or worse yet, the smart content tab) and then used the pose tool to move things around. Granted the end results are great (largely thanks to the PAs and DAZ) but it would have been more satisfying to me if I had dome more of the work myself based off my past 3D experiences.
I suspect those that have no to little 3D experience unlike me will find the same process way more satisfying and complete which would explain the varied opinions on this topic..
I was thinking of my own, actually. But based on that recommendation, I'll check out yours. ;-)
It does not bother me . But Its even worst when your making daz animation everyone just assumes you are using gaming clips or its made with poser.
I only started creating my own content in earnest recently, and when I do get back to rendering regularly, I expect I'll still use pre-made assets the overwhelming majority of the time. For me, the fun and creativity comes from mixing and matching elements in unique ways, and as I've said before, the characters are usually of tertiary importance at best. It's more about the story I'm telling with the image than making the individual elements look distinct.
As you say, though, that's my take on it, you have yours, and there's nothing wrong with either.
It is always better to give some personal touch and for this "MORPHS" can eliminate lot of hours.
And how many games are there where a single modeler did everything? It almost never happens because games are a business and time is a more valuable asset than tossing a whole team of modelers at something... in fact, the founder of NVDIA, Jensen Huang, recently made a huge deal about a game that WAS entirely produced by one person, Bright Memory... and it was basically made in iClone using off the shelf assets. Does anything in his presentation here sound like he considers the game to be any less because of off the shelf sourcing? And if anyone has the right to be snooty, elitist and picky about CG graphics, it's probably the founder of NVIDIA. And let's not even go into the film industry, where even the average non-Marvel feature film has a small army of CG artists with two to three effects supervisors. And that's not counting the support troops in the forms of coders and the long line of software creators who built the basic systems.
What matters is the end product, not how you got there. Nobody except other artists really gives a damn, and even then it's mostly about trying to be "one-up" on ones peers. Because, let's face it, a great deal about how artists define "art" is really tied into ego more than logic.
Once upon a time, Artists used to have to grind their own pigments and stretch their own canvases, and I had a whack job art teacher in college who insisted that we do the latter even though we (the class) quickly worked out that it actually cost 25-40% more than buying pre-stretched canvases because of wastage, and also wasted a huge amount of class time on a purely mechanical process. And needless to say, in all the years since, I've rarely met a professional artist who doesn't use off-the shelf materials whenever possible, because it's a lot more efficient (and less toxic) to buy a tube of Liquitex than to start grinding gemstones and rare earths. Even Michelangelo and DaVinci didn't create a lot of their greatest works themselves. For larger projects they would have dozens of apprentices who not only made their paints on an assembly line, but often troweled on the actual pigments following the master's instructions. Does that mean that The Last Supper and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel are anything less? No, of course not. Is someone proud of the fact that they model their own props? Fine. Did they write the software that they used or build their own mouse and monitor? There's always another step that one can add to the list if you want to draw a line between what's "being a true creator" and "being a hack."
Or we could all just agree that all that really matters to most people is the pretty pictures, whether they're made with DAZ, Blender or finger paints.
I make art to tell stories. Whether I purchase assets by others or create my own, the 3D models are merely tools that help turn an idea into visual art. Generally, what the artist brings to the table is their own unique vision. The more unique, the more memorable.
I've seen some truly awful stuff by people who created their own geometry, textures and did all the posing. I've seen some truly gorgeous work by people who bought every single elment did no modifications and put it all together and did little more than just choose some camera angles.
Who's the hack precisely? Neither. Both made art. One made better art in my opinion but that is eye of the beholder stuff. One did more technical work but again so what?
On the technical side I fall in the middle. I don't do 3d modeling, I messed around with it but have never gotten good at it. I've made some textures and some of them are in my VN's. I do a great deal of my own posing (often starting from a base pose just to save me the effort). I do a lot of my lighting (I use HDRI's so my outdoor lighting is sort of one click). My scene compositions take hours at times. Am I hack? Probably. But I don't care. I make art I like. I tell stories I want to tell and others want to read.
Every time a post comes up about whether you made everything in your render or not I remember this storey of mine.
Back when I was in college I was in a drawing class and the professor told us that we could do a project with whatever medium we wanted, so I chose to do mine with poser, I spent hours making a nice scene only to have the scene corrupt on me the day I went to render it out, so I had to quickly throw together a fairly simple scene with not a lot of complexity and it had errors in the posing and the lighting was not the best but it was what I could get done, so I took it to class on a flash drive. I sat through the class presenting their pieces and when it came to mine someone basically accused me of plagiarism when they heard me say it was made with Poser. My professor was cool as hell he pointed at the guy who said that and asked if anyone else agreed with them and a couple did. I was getting mad, but I let him talk. the guy who had said it had made a "found items" piece, (basically where you glue trash on your paper and call it art lol crude description but basically true) and my professor pointed at each item on his piece and asked how long it took him to make each piece as in how long it took to make the paper plastic or metal items. he naturally said that he had not made it so my professor says how is what you did any different from a poser render? They changed their minds and didn't think I was guilty of plagerism after that.
Malandar, you were very fortunate. My art teacher would have been in the vanguard of those advocating stringing me up for the heinous crime of knowing what computers were, let alone using them for an abomination like 'computer art'.
The school was a bit 'old school'. A course in ancient Greek was created for one person who was interested. Woodwork was stopped because only 89 people in one year were interested, instead of the required 90. There were only 89 in that year. Practical subjects were dismissed as plebeian and pointlessly abstruse ones highly valued.
Regards,
Richard.
nah. i like giving credit where credit is due. and i put a lot of energy and attention to detail into the way i light an environment for a scene and choose my camera angle because part of the process is showcasing the cool elements of somebody else's work.
and i don't render characters straight out of the box, either. most of my characters aren't even recognizable as variations on their base models. and even the ones that are are tweaked morphwise and texturewise nine ways from sunday. their poses are constantly adjusted and readjusted, too. so at the end of the day, what i see in a render is very definitely my work.
i'll generally spend weeks fiddling around with one scene and character until i feel like i've kind of gotten it right. at six or seven renders a day.
so any compliments i get on the stuff i actually post (which isn't much), i'm very very happy to get.
my philosophy about all that is basically: anything is better than crickets. :)
j
Aww don't feel that way
Even if you feel like one it doesn't mean you have to tolerate those who want to make you feel that way
Made me laugh out loud at work. :o)
Yes, yes i do, but only in the medical field where i have 0 experience. I mean it doesn't stop me but.. Oh!, oh ok you are talking art ain'tcha, then yes, but proudly yes, i don't see it as a bad thing necessarily, i mean i am generally hacking things together and hoping it works out.
I've sold a few images, but 99.99% of my stuff is just me fooling around, amazed that I can create something that looks like the image in my head. I can pose, I seem to have a knack for it. And I can place simple DAZ lights around the scene, but I have no patience anymore with textures, they've gotten too complicated. Same with newer light systems, they've gotten too complicated. I love setting a scene, arranging the basic lights, posing the characters to indicate action, carefully adjusting the morphs and especially the eye positions and expressions on the face. Then using Photoshop to fix any bloops, poke-throughs and light artifacts. Then finally adjusting the overall image contrast, gamma, color grading, etc. Most of my stuff just goes into my archive as reminders of what doesn't work.
Some "expert",in an online comic book community, watched all 93 minutes of "Galactus Rising" and assumed it was made by editing together cut scene footage from a Playstation 2.
Some "expert",in an online comic book community, watched all 93 minutes of "Galactus Rising" and assumed it was made by editing together cut scene footage from a Playstation 2.
You should take that as a compliment. The intro cut scenes (even using the ingame engine) are stunning nowadays.
I saw one where soldiers were fighting aliens with all manner of foot soldiers and mecha.
IT WAS INCREDIBLE.
I do think that there are two threads of artists in the 3D world - those that make everything, and those that buy pre-made assets. (And there's no doubt a substantial blurred area in between them, where someone might buy a model and then make their own texture for it, or make a model and then use a commercial texture resourse, or whatever.) I also agree that, in my experience, most people I talk to about my art default to the first group. Whereupon I'm quick to explain that I'm not a modeller but rather a sort of 3D photographer, assembling things that already existed to create the image I wanted.
I do this for two reasons. One, to give credit to those who did the work that I didn't. But also because then it usually focuses the conversation on what I did create, and that is both more satisfying and more helpful. And it's an easily understood metaphor. So, yeah - for those of use who are "3D photographers," we do have to do a little extra work to clarify what exactly our creativity was used for. But no, I personally have never felt like a hack for focusing on the sort of creativity I enjoy, and paying others to do the kind of creativity I find frustrating.
Finally: in my personal veiw, anything to which creativity was applied in an effort to get an aesthetic or emotional reaction is "Art." It may or may not be good art, it may or may not be effective art, but even bad art is still art.
If you feel like a hack just pick a different medium. Painting, drawing, carving, sculpting: you can do all of these in 3D>>> If you do not love what you create just toss it and keep at it till it conforms to your desires. If there is no passion, there is no art. The act of creating something that conveys your Ideas or feelings is what counts. Just look at a kid with just a simple piece of paper and a crayon and see how proud they are about their creation.
Oh, I had a professor like that and I didn't realize until I made a project in Poser, she was a piece of work...
be grateful for your passions since it's what keeps you alive
As for art it's always a matter to grab something to express emotions, your ideas is what really matters, not the medium.
You mean an unmade bed, litter, used condoms and other disgusting detritus really are art? And there was me thinking it was the sign that an avaricious person has finally worked out the rest of the world are mugs to be fleeced for as much as they are stupid enough to be parted from. [I'm referring to Tracy Emin and her installation 'My Bed' at the Turner Contemporary Gallery]
imagine that all modelled in 3D though, that would be art
A real short guide to "But is it art?" debate :
In the 19th century the Academie des Beaux-Arts was hosting the yearly salon, an exhibition, or rather the exhibition. The Salon was the ultimate gatekeeper to becoming a noticed artist. The French Academy achieved a world monopoly in all areas of visual art, which allowed it to coerce artists into adopting a rigid set of aesthetic rules.
It was only with Impressionism, first scorned and ridiculed, that slowly a counter movement was born, from which later followed Expressionism, and a new art scene was formed as it gained influence, at the cost of the Salon monopoly.
Ever since, art is no longer defined purely by an accurate representation or even how skilled the materials were applied or used, but it could also extend to character (of the art or artist), context, the idea or a performance. This allows for art to emerge and reinvent itself as it goes.
Or this?
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/manzoni-artists-shit-t07667
There are some things no-one will ever convince me is art. I can't give a definition - I feel that's for etymologists - but I know it when I see it. And then it can be good, bad or indifferent. But some things, many things, are not art to my understanding of the term & I suspect no-one would ever be able to convince me otherwise. Now, I don't know if I produce art, borderline in my mind, but I do produce a few images I like. They don't need to be capable of, or actually, being labelled as 'Art' for me to like them.
And you don't have to be convinced. Only time will tell if something is art or not, collectively. Try not to think of it as top-down defined thing. Art is a mirror of the culture and context it was made in. It's why prehistoric art is different from roman or greek art, or art from other parts of the world. Also do not conflict art with having to be in a museum, or art having to be worth much.
My teacher always told me [on creating art] it is a bit more like sports, you just try to jump a little bit higher each time. You set your own bars in a way.
I highly recommend "But is it art?" by Cynthia Freeland if you are interested in the topic.
Probably better to stay OT and away from what we like/don't or classify as art, lest someone describe the Mona Lisa as just a picture of a fat dame with a crooked smile. The OP isn't talking about art appreciation he's questioning other people's work being appropriated for one's own 3D work, and being praised for aspects that weren't his creation. Impossible to avoid with DS. Personally it's a moot issue for me. Unless you're one of the CG Society crowd who makes models from scratch, but they didn't make the software programs to create it so...?
Impossible to avoid with DS.
Not true.
I give someone a bowl of strawberries and they say "OMG, these taste incredible!"
I say "Thank you."
I have no need to offer the disclaimer that I didn't invent the strawberry fruit or that I didn't grow it myself- in my backyard.
I take credit for.....
The concern I show by washing the fruit and not just giving it to you- Raw from the package.
The care I showed by going to a farmer's market and getting FRESH fruit instead of a supermarket, where the strawberries on top are red and the bottom ones are turning color in that plastic container.
The attention to detail by making sure ALL the strawberries on the plate are from the best I could find in the bunch.
The extra effort by taking the floral parts off the ends.
The creative flair of adding melted chocolate and whipped cream (even if they don't mention it by name).
The courtesy behind the appreciation. I don't owe anyone strawberries, so they better be thankful. lol
If they ask "Did you grow these yourself?" I say no. And you know what, that answer doesn't change the taste.
If they ask where I got them- I tell them. It doesn't change the taste.
------------------
So the final question is, are they there to judge how much I love strawberries or are they there to enjoy eating some good-tasting strawberries?
Sometimes people ask, "What makes great art?" and a wise person once answered great underdrawings. If the sketch is good then it creates a good foundation. In Daz it would probably be lighting for renders and bone placement for modelers
The true successors of the classic masters like Rembrandt and Van Gogh and them aren't those that put trash on the floor but concept artists. That art tends to be really good and looks really hard to make. And a few PA's here I think are a modern version of Michelangelo
Eww that's so gross and inappropriate!