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I agree *if* one's idea of 'working in the industry' is focused on working for a studio or in creating assets to sell to said studios. There are independents who create using non-standard tools, but they do probably have a rougher way to go often if they are contracting to or selling to that marketplace (if they are working for studio houses directly.. it's a non issue, they will be using those tools usually.) If one is selling finished works independently, to web designers for instance, then the tools used to get there have no bearing other then what works for the artist. I am hoping to tap into markets such as that where I have the freedom to use whatever tools work for me. Having said that, I am taking time to learn something of Maya, 3D Max etc...
I agree *if* one's idea of 'working in the industry' is focused on working for a studio or in creating assets to sell to said studios. There are independents who create using non-standard tools, but they do probably have a rougher way to go often if they are contracting to or selling to that marketplace (if they are working for studio houses directly.. it's a non issue, they will be using those tools usually.) If one is selling finished works independently, to web designers for instance, then the tools used to get there have no bearing other then what works for the artist. I am hoping to tap into markets such as that where I have the freedom to use whatever tools work for me. Having said that, I am taking time to learn something of Maya, 3D Max etc...
Just so, thanks for the clarification.
I need to find a good online program that teaches Maya; on this side of the world the places that purport to do so are a joke. That the "instructors" know the software cannot be denied, but skill in Maya does not automatically make one qualified to teach it. I quit halfway through, not having gotten my money's worth. I gain familiarity with Maya's UI but that wasn't what I paid for :P
If I am interpreting what you are getting at properly, I think the issue is that what you are looking for one can't get from learning one toolset. Each tool has a different perspective, a different take on things, and it is in the process of becoming embedded in the different takes/approaches that we gain the fluidity of mind to reach what I think you are hinting at. Of course I could be totally off base.
Possibly.
This thread was started to encourage, and possibly provide some steel, to those who are new to 3D art against the slings and arrows of others.
I agree with that a 1000% :cheese:
My boy Jad pointed out he has no truck with snobs, Dire Bunny (who I watch on DA under a more relevant handle) observes there are those who use D|S/Poser and feel that any post-work is a cheat. I agree with them a 1000% as well. The "I'm right and you're wrong" mindset doesn't stop there of course.
I do think those with that mindset are caught up in their own little world have lost sight of the fact that all of these are tools to help one realize one's vision. At least that's the way I see it.
What do I myself look for? Thank you for asking (and I am not being ironic), for the moment becoming a better renderer and gaining more understanding and skill in my rendering engine of choice.
What do I look for in others? As I enjoy learning and discourse an opportunity to learn from them. I can never thank Jad enough for his JGRS; it's my first tool in every render now :-P There will be those whose line is "It's my way or the highway" and life is too short for me to have any truck with them :lol:
What do I look for in another's art? Honesty. Truth. Something that moves or stirs whether lightly or profoundly. Those are the people I watch on DA and their tools and skills are varied :)
I hope I've answered the question and I thank you for starting this thread. It's always good to meet fellow travelers ;-)
Speaking as someone who uses the tools DAZ and other companies and the wonderful creators such as DAZ PAs provide in my profession and creator owned comic, I can say this stigma is pretty much based on PRIDE. Although this does not apply to all from that side of the fence, I feel most of those who believe we are cheating are simply frustrated that for all their attempts, they produce only equal or even lesser results through the painstaking and time-consuming path of building everything from scratch. But that, in itself, should be their own reward. Power to you if you want to work that hard and dedicate that much time. But it's no fault of ours if we decide to take advantage of resources that make things faster without sacrificing the quality of the results.
There is no shame in working smarter. And anything you produce through the use of these artistic resources are your own. The tools may not have been made by you, but those tools would not produce what you do on their own. My allegory with this is no, you did not go to the mines and gathered the ore, smelted the gold, and processed them into bars. But you did make them into necklaces, bracelets, and other jewellery. So is your effort any less worthy of recognition and respect? That's what I thought.
Hear, hear! :cheese:
In one of my magazines (3D Artist or 3D World ) a respected artist (need to go through all of them to find out which one) said something similar; that software with prebuilt content allowed him to concentrate on the artistry instead of the technicals :)
As a content creator, I go out of my way to offer customers pre-built scenes, and I include everything I can to make it easier for my customers to load a scene and get on with it, without a lot of faffing about.
But let's suppose that in one of my products - The Classroom, for example - instead of supplying a 1-click scene, I had split it all down to separate pieces, and for each prop (around 50), you had to apply a texture and set the materials. You'd end up with the same result - a scene ready to add figures, pose them and render - but it would take an extra hour to do it. and what would be the gain, in terms of art? Zero. Nada. Zilch. In fact, to take the detractors' arguments to their logical conclusion, you, the customer, should not only build the geometry, but write your own software to do it, build your own computer, and who knows, maybe start up a factory to make circuit boards as well!
Pfft!
People who deride pre-built content are Luddites at heart. They oppose anything that makes life easier for mankind. They'd have us go back to candles and milking cows by hand, if they could. But I bet that after a few years of living like that themselves, they'd change their tune.
mac
also, lets face it....using prebuilt content is not always such an easy thing to do for art.
Unless everything you use is built by the same artist/pa, then you will find many varying styles and looks to the different parts in your scene, and it will take a special kind of artistry to make them all look like they work together.
Its not really just about plopping them in the scene and shooting.
Well said, Mac and that is exactly the point, Rawn (i hope it's okay to call y'all that :-P ).
Apologies of this has been said before but I'm a noob :P It struck me immediately since I started rendering (probably because of my film school background and work experience as a cameraman, later multi-hyphenate for corporate videos) that we are Directors, DPs, Production Designers, Casting Directors. :)
In the real world no one holds it against any of them for not creating the resources the use. As a truly collaborative art form (at its best because there are control freaks) you have a diverse group of people coming together to tell a story.
Because at their core artists are storytellers. We need to tell stories, whether visually, with words or both, or something inside us dies. And using prebuilt content is like working with uber talented set and costume designers who are world builders :cheese:
That's why I respect PAs/Content Creators and renderers, whatever their skill level may be. That's why I respect artists ;-)
Here is a good example imo of art as a creative process among a group of people working in symphony towards a common creative expression. I think this joining of creative talents is something that helps define us as human (in one of the best possible ways.) We may not be the only species on the planet to be able to do so, but from what I see, no other species comes near to doing it to our level :)
*warning, link goes to Facebook (sorry about that) for anyone who doesn't care to go there.
...I agree. Which is why I not only work with Daz Studio, but Carrara, Bryce, Poser Pro 2012, and am learning Marvelous Designer3 and Blender.
Each of these have a strong point of their own. Of all, Carrara attempts to be the most "encompassing".
Daz actually has the foundation for a good "enthusiast's" 3D studio suite if they can overcome the stability issues of a couple apps like Hexagon and Studio and with bridging between them (Studio - Carrara being the worst at the moment). The only shortcoming is cloth dynamics. Studio's dynamic system is "closed ended" in that you cannot create your own cloth simulations. The price of the core software this is based on makes 3DS, Maya, C4D, and other pro apps almost look like PC priced items in comparison. As I also recently learned, the Optitex dynamics to not take well to scaling which is an important function with the introduction of Genesis. This is why Poser and Blender (which also has cloth dynamics) will always have a place in the pipeline.
Just a few quick comments...
The first is that the more complex a process is, the less logical it is for someone to attempt to carry out every phase of the production. A short story or novel writer may work only with an editor, but films, comic books, even daily comic strips are all produced by teams of artists, even though only one may be credited. In fact, in business, the idea of one person trying to control every aspect of something, ie: micromanagement, is generally considered to be a very bad thing
Second, bias in the arts usually leaks down from those who are doing it professionally, in which case it is to the betterment of those same individuals to find any way possible to espouse the superiority of their own work to that of potential competition. The same extends to the other main source of artistic snobbery: those who are paid to teach said skills. In both of these cases, the use of pre-paid content can be perceived as a direct economic threat, making the use of blanket generalizations against pre-paid content far more attractive.
On the other hand, when people think of something being bad, they usually call to mind of the WORST example of something they've seen. For example, in film many producers used to have issues with the use of matte paintings and miniatures, because they'd all seen that occasional horrible shot of a badly superimposed castle on a jittery background. What they WOULDN'T think of were the thousands of completely invisible shots that no none ever noticed because they were done properly. Similarly, with 3D, what a lot of people bring to mind when they think of pre-paid content is that really bad, poorly posed, badly lit shot someone has posted on deviantart after owning Poser for six hours. Because, let's face it, there ARE some truly terrible Poser works out there, and if that's someone's main exposure to the use of pre-paid content, is it really that surprising that some people would attach a negative connotation to it?
And finally, I have to admit that there are some Poser/Daz assets that are so overused that seeing them tends to pull me right out of whatever mood an artist was trying to create... just like the use of a bad stock shot can pull you out of a movie. But the moral there shouldn't be "don't use the Daz Troll," but rather to make enough subtle changes in how it's used so that it doesn't look exactly like it does in the work of hundreds of other artists.
Let me see --
I contact Locations and tell them what I want forf a setting
Then I contact Casting and tell them what I want in the way of actors
Props are charged with dressing the set
Wardrobe and Makeup get the actors ready
On location, I get Lighting involved - change the set dressing, if needed, and find the camera angles I want
Then it's time to motivated the actors, touch up the makeup, and get them in position
Then we take the money shot(s)
So - do advertisers get chided for not building the skyscrapers they use as background?
Just because those of us in this hobby/semi-pro environment tend to wear ALL of the hats mentioned above it can't be art?
And Cybersox13 does have a valid point - stock can be boring, we need to make the items our own.
Here's an example of how the technical skills aren't to much to brag about, but the ideas that is generated is more important...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/norse_graphics/8595372299/in/photostream
and, you do nice work.. I enjoy it :)
All of this reminds me of a saying... 'Steal from the best, ignore the rest.'
"Hey dire, look over there, what's that?" ;p
:) thanks.
Thanks for the tips. I do like DAZ Studio, and plan to stick with it. Lighting is what I figured I need to work on the most to get my renders to look better. I also think selecting the right skin textures for figures could be a big help; sometimes with several figures in a scene, the skin texture on one of them doesn't look like it fits in the pic with the others. The big thing is practice, something I've learned after decades as a professional musician. The trouble is, free time is at a premium of late, but I just started vacation (technically tomorrow, but today is a day off), so I hope to put in some time each day working on lighting.
I admit I did not read through the thread except for most of the first page so I will just be repeating whats already been said but none the less...
Carl Segan said - "If you want to create an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe"
That has to be my favorite quote when people come up with that argument that you're not an artist unless you make it all yourself. Cause to be perfectly honest, having recently started making models myself, there is just no way on earth I would sit there and make every last element of a scene. Thats just dumb. The world does not work that way so why anyone thinks we have to as artists is just beyond me cause after all, its not like anyone wrote their 3D program, made all the parts for their computer or provides the electricity it runs on. So, yeah... whatever on them and enjoy doing your art folks!
riftwitch -
while everyone has a different skin texture, you want the ones you use to work together. My suggestion is to keep a list if you modify skin using other products. When I bring skin into Vue, for example, often I have to reduce the bump mapping, but not always so I try to keep in mind which ones I am using. The same is true of buildings and the bricks, for example. Sometimes I have to modify the maps so the sizes of the bricks look correct together when I use models from different people. Since you are using DAZ Studio, it should be easier than if you were using another program.
Thanks. I'm just watching some tutorials before I head to bed. Hopefully I'll remember some of it when I wake up. ;-)
totally know what the threadstarter is talking about. I got a friend who always says that my renders are not art, cause i use content from others, even though the work behind them is still basically similar to what a photographer has to do (ie. he doesn't make the models himself either).
I WOULD be able to make models and textures (Zbrush, Photoshop), I just can't bring myself to learn through the steps to get them working in DAZ through more techincally focused 3D programs (3DS, Maya and such), since I'm focussed on the creative aspect.
So yeah, I'd love to have my own models and all, but it would just be too complex, so I rather look for fitting content from others and adjust them to my needs.
Oh yeah, in the area of tips: I had a huge step forward when i got Reality for Daz Studio. I wasn't too knowledgeable at 3D lighting, but I had some ideas about lighting in photographic settings and since Lux Render uses a more realistic approach to light, it was right up my alley.