I posted this in the Daz forums yesterday and it sparked an interesting debate, so I decided to repost it here:
(all images from Daz and Vue galleries)

There is much that can be said in praise of CG art where the creator did everything themselves, and I think we all know of certain CG sites where the type of art we do here is seriously looked down upon or even viciously attacked.

I used to be a professional artist (and all that implies). Human characters and rigs was my focus. I was very good at it and achieved photorealism on more than one occasion. I have modeled sub-D characters, NURB characters, and polygon characters. I have worked in video games, TV and film. For most of that time I knew very little, if anything, about the whole Poser world. What little I did hear, coming from "professional artists" was not good. Sadly, I believed it without ever having looked at the program for myself. These guys use Maya. They must be right, right?

The first time someone really tried to push me into Poser was quite a few years ago when I was at the now defunct EA Vegas, formerly known as Westwood Studios. He was an avid Poser user and did a lot of matte paintings for Threshold, on the Mortal Kombat movies and TV series. When you see those little people walking around in the matte paintings, those are Poser people.

So one day he said, "I can't imagine why you don't use Poser. It's perfect for what you do!" I replied, "Yeah, yeah..." Still he decided to show me just how quick and easy it was to populate a scene with characters walking and running around. He also showed me how much content, as far as human styles and costumes, there was available. Still I thought, "Maybe I use it for extras or background characters." On one of the Command & Conquer games there was a scene where Cain, the bad guy, is giving a speech to a bunch of soldiers. He did the crowd in Poser. It was easy.

That was a long time ago, so it must have been Poser 2 or 3. Over the years I saw Poser get better, but never gave it much more thought. Then something changed.

Around 2006 I was working on a movie, a low budget creature flick directed by the guy who designed the dragons for Reign of Fire. Because he had a name and had worked on quite a few big movies, he had connections. This allowed him to "borrow" sets for his film that we could never afford. Being an art director, he threw up some tarps, some lanterns and some good lighting and BOOM! New set. He did the same with costumes. He knew people and it helped. So did we have totally original stuff of our creation in the film? No, but it made our movie of less than $2 million look like it must have cost $20 million or more. That's when I gave Poser more serious consideration.

If there's one thing I never liked to model, it's generic, real world things, like, say, a Baretta 9mm pistol. I modeled one once. Did a great job too, near photoreal, but it took a lot of time and effort and had I known about this site back then I would have paid $20 for a pack of guns and moved on.

As I mentioned before, human characters was my focus and I had been modeling them for ages before I found about this site. When I saw the latest versions of Poser and then later found this site I was truly happy! Why should I continue to model human characters? There comes a point past which human characters are not getting any better. And that goes double for generic clothing like T-Shirts, jeans, underwear, bikinis and the like. They are everywhere here! If there's one thing I don't believe in, it's reinventing the wheel.

I mentioned in another thread how I paid nearly $50 for a mask on Turbo Squid. I was working on a scene where I needed it and at that point I had two choices. Pull out a card, pay the $50. Drop the mask in the scene and move on, OR drop everything I am doing and spend the time to model up and texture a mask to go on the wall in the background of my scene. Personally, I would rather spend m time focusing on my story, characters, good lighting etc.

Buying content that does what you need simply makes sense, and the prices on this site can't be beat. You think Stone Mason's prices are high? A few buildings cost hundreds of dollars on a "pro" site like 3D02. Speaking of which, who do you think is buying content off these super expensive pro sites? I asked a buddy of mine at Zoic about buying content and he said, "Hell yeah! All the time." The big guys buy content too. When you have a tight deadline on your TV show or movie and you need to flip a 2007 BMW 525, do you think they pay some guy thousands and give him months to model it? So while the "pro" artists on certain sites may sit around and bash Poser, they do plenty of content buying too, even in shows like CSI, BSG, Angel, X-men and many more.

You know what? I say let the pros talk while they spend $200 on a human model that looks no better than Victoria. Or worse, spend months to model something that doesn't come close. (Have you seen the digital stunt doubles in some recent movies?! PS3 games look better!) And if they want to say what we do isn't art, let them say it if it makes them feel better! Do you enjoy what you do? Do you love playing with the software and the content we have here? Does your art look the way you want it to look? Then who cares what anyone else has to say?

I'm going to make something cool in Poser now.

Tags: Art

*** MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS ***

I had my suspicions, even from the trailers. I suspected this movie might just contain some very big turn-offs for me. Sadly, an article on Tractor Facts titled 10,000 B.C.: And a White Man Will Lead Them confirmed my worst fears. In that article it states:

"D'Leh - looking handsome above - fights killer ostriches, horse-whispers to a saber tooth, gets mystical about the moon, plants crops, and leads a legion of black men into liberating themselves (and pyramid slaves) from The Almighty. That last bit comes off as more than a little condescending, because, for some inexplicable reason, large villages of capable black warriors are unable to rise up until a white man shows them the way."

I have to say I am truly sick of this mentality from Hollywood. Since the dawn of film, Hollywood has depicted a world view where up until old honest Abe Lincoln came along, blacks are shown anywhere in the world, through all of human history, to be slaves. I won't even get into the mountains of archaeological or anthropological evidence that show that nothing could be further from the truth. Still, even classic writers like Shakespeare created dramatic stories which featured black characters in positions of power and influence in, of all places, Europe. Yet, in Hollywood the same backwards myth perpetuates.

That's only one aspect of Hollywood myth making that has irked me for some time now. Another reviewer, writing on Kaylow Media had this to say:

"Plus, the Pharaoh is depicted as a shrouded, hissing snake-like villain. It’s only after he’s killed by The World’s Most Improbable Spear Toss that we see that he’s an ordinary Caucasian white guy. Ruling ancient Egypt. In Africa."

If you go by what Hollywood shows, one would not even realize that Egypt is in Africa, let alone was ever an African kingdom. I think a simple look at Joel Freeman's Egypt photo gallery says all that need be said about how the ancient Egyptians saw themselves. Hollywood has never been known for anything resembling historical accuracy and there is a reason for this. Consider a movie like Troy. Greeks are not today, nor were they at any point in history, white like Brad Pitt and Sean Bean. When Hollywood creates, they create a Hollywood world.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't fault Hollywood for what they create, nor do I expect that they should do any different. I'm simply saying that I'm done watching it. Their works are simply not for me. This is, in fact, the whole matter. One must consider who the movies are made by and who they're made for. Think of it this way. In China, when they sit down to make the next great wuxia epic, do you think the creators sit down and think, "I want to make an epic movie and I want it to have a Chinese hero instead of a white guy."? Of course not! That would be ludicrous. It's all about who the movie is by and who it's for. The largest American movies are made for the largest majority of the population. That's both wise and financially sound. There's no reason to expect them to do any different.

What this means, though, is that for those of us who desire to see something different, or want a different experience, we have to make it! That's what it comes down to. Sitting around waiting for someone to make something for us, when they have no valid reason to, is folly. If we want to see a different story, then we must make that different story. If we want a different kind of hero, then we must create that hero. Some of the best movies, TV shows and anime done were made because the creator wanted to see something different and wasn't getting it anywhere else. So it is with any of us who want something different. No need to sit down and lament what someone else is making. Instead of spending two hours watching it, spend that two hours creating something for you.

Tags: movies, Hollywood

I decided to remove the link to the old blog archive from the main menu and it has now been replaced by the gallery. It's not a completely new gallery. Some of the images were on the previous incarnation of this site. A few are new. The link to the blog archive has now been made into a category in this blog. In fact, I have, up until now, been unaware of just how useful blog categories can be. I was schooled by my friend Bryan when he setup his blog to chronicle his Carnival Cruise voyages, even though I introduced him to Rapid Weaver, the web design tool I use for this site!

Learning from his blog, I will begin making better use of categories in the future, including adding a FAQ category to keep a tally of questions I am often emailed. I can also organize posts based on the different projects I am doing using categories, so those who are interested in a particular item, like Anigen, will be able to jump directly to the posts dealing with that subject. I'm not yet sure how I will work it all out, but it will probably be slowly implemented over time.

So from here on out, to get to the old blog archive, click here.

Tags: Art