Making renders but using other people's assets....
amyw12
Posts: 63
I'm confused if I am allowed to call a render my own work if I am using a skin from a premade character, hair that someone else made, clothes that someone else made. Even the Genesis 8 Figure belongs to DAZ. When I show people some renders they are impressed but I also feel like a sham because I didn't make the assets used in it (though I sometimes make custom morphs, but I still end up using skin textures, eye textures from premade characters).
Yes, I put this all together and rendered it, but this skin is from a Mousso Character, the eyes from a Merchants' resource, clothes from this bundle, even the HDRI lighting is from a bundle.
I feel like I am deceiving people. I don't even know how to feel. Am I allowed to call myself an artist if this is what I do? Forget about whether or not something has artistic value. At the very base of it, can one call their renders their own art if they use premade assets?
I have people now asking for commissions and I can do them. When I advertise my service for commissions, people can be impressed with my portfolio, but I wonder, am I deceiving them? Sometimes people want custom characters that I can make with the aid of Face Transfer. But I wonder if this can be considered my own work too.
Now when I advertise my commission work I'm always afraid someone will call me out and say that I'm not making any art, that I'm just "putting stuff together". I guess that's why I made this post in the first place.
PS: Of course I do not mean taking other people's characters and creations and passing them off as my own. For example, I'd never claim I made an OOT hair. But I would use it in a render that I have uniquely made. The render is mine, the assets are not.
So where do we draw the line here?
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Comments
Well, do traditional painters make all the canvas and the paint themselves?
You have a good point there, Ati!
Yes, of course, you are still an artist. A photographer takes pictures of people and animals and nature...but they didn't make anything...and they are still absolutely an artist. And if it helps you feel better, I've heard plenty a PA say that while they can make great assets all day long, they have a hard time making good artistic renders of those assets. It's all art. It's just different kinds of art.
I do commissions as well, and the way I look at it is...if I were to make every asset from scratch for each piece, I'd be asking thousands of dollars per commission, rather than a few hundred. You have to consider how much your time is worth.
I think graphic designer would be more accurate.
a graphic designer will use stock photos and decide the font and the white space.
graphic designer
a person who combines text and pictures in advertisements, magazines, or books.
"any graphic designer will tell you the importance of proper typography in a design"
We are a digital hobby store. We supply content so that you dont have to make you own and can spend all your time producing artwork instead. Please enjoy!
If you take a photo of a person you did not give birth to - can you still call yourself a Photographer? Of course you can! Bake a cake that you did not grow and harvest the wheat for? etc. You might use assets created by other people but it is your interpretation and lighting, and composition that make it the image that it is.
you can delete all your D|S Runtime and do pencil drawing.
don't try to be an artist just render!! RENDER!!
or delete it all and get a copy of Maya, 3DSMax, or other modeling software and start making your own models. I edit the heck out of the assets I use from DAZ because I feel it's part of the creative process and it makes my imagery more unique and my own.
If it really bothers you so much, take a look at places like CGSoceity and Artstation and see plenty of none DAZ, original work and what can be achieved when not using DAZ assets and more effort than click and render..
I've disagreed with the majority when this discussion comes up because I also don't really like to call myself an "artist". I think that word is thrown around way too much these days, and I like to reserve using it to describe those with more 'manual' and classic artistic skills (those who can draw, paint, (digitally or traditionally), sculpt, etc). The "did you make the canvas" defense is silly to me because we could call ourselves anything if we took things that far. Am I a chef because I microwave a frozen dinner?
I'll say I'm a digital or 3D artist to people to keep conversations simple, but if I need to go into detail, I'll call myself an "assembler".
I feel the same way. I call the images I create "imagery" since "art" doesn't really seem right IMO.
Firstly, I don't care whether anyone else classifies it as art or whatever - I make pictures for my own pleasure and I don't (or very rarely) make them public. It's a hobby, nothing more. With that in mind, I don't think of myself as an artist. When I used to draw and paint for fun, I didn't call myself an artist either. I have a hobby, it passes the time and affords some small pleasures. I have no need to get all serious about art.
I think you are an artist, of course.
Explaining it to your mom might be harder...
Click and render is one thing...understanding the rules of composition, lighting, and image flow are quite another. For me it's an easy jump to say that if photography is art, then so is creating pieces in Daz. It's a form of medium.
I remember when digital cameras were just hitting mainstream...and my best friend said that I wasn't a photographer because I wasn't shooting film. Now film is niche and you're lucky if you can even find a place that can develop it without having to send it out. Times change. Poeple's attitudes of what constitues art changes. I've also had to deal with 2D digital artists saying things like "isn't Daz just a dress up doll game?" Well, yes it can be. I can also draw stick figures with pastels. But...it's what you do with the medium that makes it art.
And again...how much would you charge for a commission if you were making all of your own assets? I've had some pieces take me 40 or 50 (or more) hours to complete. I have to build the character, pose the character, put the whole shabang together along with all of my own tweaks and customizations to the assets I'm using. Then postwork. Not to mention the downtime my computer has in doing the actual render (which I didn't even include in my time calculation). I have a hard enough time justifying only charging $100 or so for a piece (seriously, that's only $2.50 an hour...that's...not even pocket change...which is why it's only a hobby for me). Start making your own assets for that piece and you'd be looking at having to charge thousands.
I think it depends on the renders.
Not all photographs are art. In the same way I consider not all renders are art.
But I do believe that some renders can be art, even if the ones that "assembled" the assests didn't create any themselves.
I would not call myself an artist or anything I do art because I do not believe I am at that level. I would call myself an amateur renderer of sorts for now.
The painter didn't make the canvas and the paint himself defense feels silly to me.
I would compare it to we didn't make the PC we use or write the software.
Like the microwave example from above you can cook a frozen dinner or you can cook from besic ingredients, it's not the same.
If you cook a frozen dinner you cannot be a chef.
And if you cook from basic ingredients, depending on what you do, you can be a chef or just a person that knows how to cook.
The art is in HOW you assemble them. As Melissa said, making a good render involves understanding rules of composition, lighting and so on, and even with all that, you could make a technically proficient render that stirs no emotion in the viewer, which is ultimately what all art is about. Your microwave chef rebuttal is even sillier than the point you're disputing, because painting involves more than simply putting paint on a canvas. Photography isn't just a matter of pointing a camera at something and pushing a button. If you loaded one of those render-in-a-box scenes into DS and clicked render, is that art? I think most would agree that it's not, but that's definitely not what you're doing when you create a render.
While related, model creation and rendering (a broad term to include composition, lighting and what would be set design in film) are two different disciplines. Would a director's work in the making of a movie be minimized or discounted because he didn't build the set, apply makeup to the actors and sew the costumes? No, absolutely not.
We are more than artists. If you use a filmmaking analogy, we are the producer, director, cinematographer, set designer/decorator, gaffer, makeup artist (if we use LIE makeup or SkinBuilder), wardrobe & hair person, choreographer, (P.A. when we fetch our own coffee, craft service when we eat lol,) still photographer, post production supervisor and PR agency. A lot of work goes into what we do. Way more than a photographer. We have to pose and morph the models too (assuming you don't use products out of the box.)
Well said.
I used to associate the term artist as someone who ys not only creative but also someone who has some technical skill and craftsmanship. Be it how to sketch, how to sculpt, how to draw, how to shoot from a camera or how to capture the light ... but this used to be due to my former self and my arrogance because I used to draw 2D art from scratch and I felt I was doing something I perceived as superior. I was wrong.
I'm doing a lot more stuff myself nowadays and I'm learning to do more myself. Part of me enjoys this, part of me dreads this because building quality assets just for one render ... is tiresome and not always fun. So I'm more building assets because I can't buy them because nobody creates them. YMMV.
At the end you have to find for yourself what works for you. DAZ assets are just tools at the end. You can modify every aspect of it to get the result you want. Some artists model their characters all the way from a polygon primitive but buy texture sets. Some artists use premade mesh and refine them to build their own characters. Sone characters use pre-made characters and sculpt their own morphs. Sone artists manipulate the character in a way that they don't share s lot resemblance with the original character the originsl artist created.
I think the PA @KindredArts said it once beautifully: if you are a hobbyist you have to decide what's fun and what's worth your time. If creating assets isn't fun for you and you can buy quality content easily that fits your needs why should you re-create what others have already built. If you are a professional artist you have to decide how to spend your resources. Time is a valuable resource. If you need to spend 20 hrs creating an asset that someone else sells 10 bucks for and you charge 20 bucks the hour then it might not be a good investment to create that asset yourself.
amyw12,
You may also be experiencing a bit of Imposter syndrome. I believe many people have this to a certain extent, some suffer greatly from it.
Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon, impostorism, fraud syndrome or the impostor experience) is a psychological pattern in which one doubts one's accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a "fraud".
I didn't write that. I copied it from wikipedia.
I would say it's more like using a packet of store-bought noodles instead of making them yourself. yes, fresh pasta tastes amazing, but you can still make a mean alfredo with packet noodles. If using daz pre-built assets was like throwing in a microwaved dinner, then every render would look the same, or at least be the same quality, but if you look at a really good render in the gallery, compared to someone who is just starting out, the difference is night and day and I think that's because it takes an artistic eye to put it all together, and a lot of post-production work in photoshop. I spend far more time in PS than I do in DS That said, I think that someone who paints a scene from scratch is in a different class entirely.
Just to answer the question, a lot of cover designers use stock photos which is essentially the same thing, (if somewhat more limited) so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Just do your thing and let people decide if they like it or not.
It is foolish to define if someone is an artist or not. By the way every artists borrows something from other artist. It is fact. Either copy techniques or tools created by other artists or someone else to create something.
Well like I said, my opinions are different from most of those here. I don't call photographers 'artists', I call them 'photographers'. I do not believe that everyone who dabbles in something creative should call themselves an "artist" (but I don't say that with disrespect, I say it because I greatly respect those with traditional expertise that I think the term should be reserved for). Maybe I should say "I'm artistic" or "I have artistic skill" because I know and utilize artistic techniques and creative editing in my work, but the fact is that I would not be making any art at all if I wasn't buying 3D content from this store, and *that* is why I'm reluctant to place myself alongside my friends who can draw and paint.
Many people seem to be considering this in absolute terms purely because the distinction between what's art and what's not art is so arbitrary. But i think when it concerns the common conception of what most people think of as 'art', even if you're some pedestrian provincial yokel, we can all intuit art when we see it. People know it even if they cant describe its boundaries.
I think a dead giveaway of what's not art is if you just purchased content from the store and rendered a scene at the scene origin with default pose, because it probably wouldnt look interesting. And it wouldnt attempt to convey anything. And in terms of effort, it would be as much art as a child's stick figure is art. That's one extreme of the spectrum, and it continues on towards art from there. But at or near that extreme it's not really comparable to even some milquetoast fruit bowl painting or a wildlife photographer capturing a boring animal in its natural habitat, because even though those things are banal and uncreative, the implicit effort and artist's viewpoint is imprinted in paint and photography whereas a computer can remove the artist from the equation when it comes to rendering. So for it do be art, as others have said, you actually have to make it art.
With that said, since we are using a very high level program, mostly not making products ourselves. There is a greater risk to be appreciated fraudulently as a digital artist on unfair grounds. People might appreciate your stick figure, not because it's art but because of the sticks you used to make it.
My take...the terms "art", "artwork" or "artist" should encompass more than just drawing and painting. Sculpture is a type of art. Photography is a type of art. Even writing can and should be considered a type of art (seriously, try it...it's not easy). Because any and all is a way for a person to express themselves in an artistic fashion...thus becoming an artist. I started out first with photography, and I have always considred myself, as well as my counterparts to be artists. As already discussed above, anybody can take a picture, just as anybody can make a render...it's what the artist does with that specific medium that makes it art. Take that camera off auto, learn about lighting and aperatures and shutter speed, get down on your knees or hang near upside down to get that interesting composition, swap out that lens or gut your camera to turn it into a devoted infrared rig...hell, even know what I mean when I say "infrared rig"...that's an artist. Put the same effort into Daz and putting together renders...that's an artist.
Wikipedia's definition - "Art is a diverse range of human activities in creating visual, auditory or performing artifacts (artworks), expressing the author's imaginative, conceptual ideas, or technical skill, intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power."
That's just the way I feel about it, and I'll go on referring to myself and my friends...even my writer friends...as artists.
Are you creating art? If yes, then you're an artist. What's art? I know it when I see it.
Greetings,
I use the term 'illustrator', because I'm creating illustrations of the ideas that boil, burble and beg to be released from my mind.
I don't let many people know what I do, because folks have a problematic view of it. Like many things, the worst examples are held up as emblematic. Be it in politics, artistic pursuits, fandoms, genre literature, or renders. For DAZ, the worst of Poser is held to be the entirety of the capabilities of the field. It makes it hard to stand up and say that "I do that." To be fair, it doesn't help that I _do_ render casual pulchritude on occasion, and so I can't share my image collection with coworkers (because I earnestly don't want to make folks feel uncomfortable). I do share the images which are more meaningful, though, and I've gotten great reactions to those, which makes me proud.
I'm never going to be a great 3D artist, however. I don't have the time in my life to dedicate to it and the other things that I wish to be competent at. This is, in my opinion, an important thing to come to terms with, if it's true for you also. I'm not going to be great...but I can be good enough to make myself happy, and that's all I need.
You don't have to be an artist; you can be a creator, and be proud of that.
-- Morgan
I think, qualitatively, creating visual works that provoke an impression, even if it's 'oh that's neat' or 'hubba hubba' is art.
Now, it doesn't mean you are GOOD. I mean, there are shoddy artists, artists who stink at whatever they do... they are still artists, just, well. Not good ones.
In ANY artistic style, there are skills to learn and employ. That could be stacking rocks by a river, photographic composition, or how to mix particularly vibrant paint. That's where the craft comes in.
And, again, arranging dried insects to create a sense of the essentially futility of existance or composing a song that does the same... it's art. Art is a creative communication.
That's just my view. It is, of course, the only right view and if you disagree it's pistols at dawn.
I am going to throw in another component.... traditionally, there are arts and crafts. I have known draftsmen who can create a photorealistic image of a person or a scene but don't consider what they do as "art". Pretty much any arttist who creates post modern art can do the old timey literal stuff; that is learned in the freshman portion of an art curriculum. The lines are often blurred between arts and craft; I remember seeing an exhibition of Syd Mead, the visionary industrial designer who created the look of Blade Runner, and stood two feet away in a small gallery lit by sunlight for a viewing of Da Vinci's Salvator Mundi. They are all art. That Grecian krater may once just been used as a wine vessel but it now sits in a museum. As long as you remember that it is your observation, composition, and thought that decides what is art, you are fine!