Hello friends. A couple weeks ago I've wrote a journal about people who are doing very low quality stuff and not even accepting any comment or critique. I thought people on my friends list here might be offended. But actually I wasn't thinking about any of you. People I mentioned on that particular entry actually not even watching me. So when think about what I did - writing that entry was totally pointless. Because they are also living in my country, and their English speaking abilities are also not that good (usually they have no idea what I'm talking about here). Also they are girls, probably 3-4 girls. Playing with their expensive cameras and a illegally downloaded version of Photoshop.

So NO OFFENSE okay people? You are all working hard to create the beautiful stuff in your galleries and it's always a pleasure to me to observe your wonderful artistic creations. If we can clear this out we can move to the next one.

Okay so another thing I've had in mind for a long time about the 3D tools and their usage. Many people know that I hate 3ds max! Just kidding... And I'm sorry for the people who expecting that my favorite band Hypocrisy is in 3D - they are not

There's a kind of hypocrisy going on in 3D world - I hope it's not an offensive word but people using Poser, Bryce, Vue are always pushed away from the professional CG world for a long time. Pushed away from forums, magazines ect got comments like "don't rely on Bryce, learn Lightwave" and so on. But, Poser/Bryce/Daz people built their own communities and they grew up very fast. Personally I always believed the potential of Vue since it was just Vue D'esprit 3 (which I started to use) and many people think that it's just a better version of Bryce. And in time, that application Vue between those - which usually called "landscape generator", became more than just that and added to the work flow of special fx companies like ILM and Lucasfilm.

Why?

The main reason of course ease of use. With the words from an artist on ILM "You can create vast forests in a very short time and ensemble a whole digital set with it in days - with Maya it's usually took weeks to finish". Imagine as a freelancer you are working on an environment and your client want you to finish in a couple of days... Isn't it great to finish a scene like that in days and earn your money fast? Time equals money especially if you are working as a freelancer. No one can say no to that.

Large scale software developers understood that artist oriented software are always preferable because we are artists not math professors. More and more 3D software are becoming user friendly and easy of use. Maya 1 doesn't have any proper interface but command lines to render a scene. You need to be a programmer to use it. Of course they still have their scripting languages and of course it's important. But we can say everything is way easy and way more artist oriented right now - and it will be more in the future.

Latest GoZ plug-in of Zbrush shows the attitude of Pixologic about integrating the software. Now it's actually though process to create and export normal and displacement maps for a new started user. It's time consuming in tight deadlines even for an experienced user. Notice that they are working on it to make things EASY.

Look for another particular example; for the people working on 3D architectural visualization, there are pre-modeled elements are on sale for websites like Evermotion. You can purchase a ton of trees, plants, furniture ect. ect. to use on your interior scene. They are giving this service because we all know tight deadlines are stressful and we are all humans.

Modeling from scratch is the base starting point, first step and a MUST to learn on 3D. You need to learn all kind of modeling. AND choose one method to fits your abilities then keep working on the other one to improve. If you are good on organics then go with it and keep practicing on hard surface modeling or if you are good on hard surfaces go with it and keep learning organics ect. For me - hard surfaces are much easier to model. But what I can do when I need a figure on my composition? And I don't want to make a boxy one - but a nice one.

Here comes the POSER.

"Poser began as a spare time hobby in 1989 (while I was doing 3D animation and special effects at Rhythm & Hues Studios in Hollywood). My goal was to experiment with interaction techniques and develop a digital mannikin which could be used as posing reference for some comic strip work I was trying to complete. As Poser developed I realized it could be useful to many other artists. I then set out to make the world's easiest to use 3D product.

In 1994 Fractal Design decided it would be worth trying Poser as a companion product to their flagship software, Painter. I never expected Poser to survive beyond a first release, but the art world understood the need for it immediately! Poser has taken me, my programming partners, several companies and parent companies, and hundreds of thousands of users, on a wild ride since those beginnings -- becoming a full blown, professionally-powerful human modeling system, 3D rendering environment, and -- at its heart -- the perfect digital mannikin." - Larry Weinberg [link]

They wanted to make things easier for themselves and US. Since I discovered the Poser I always use it when I need figures to implement my compositions. When I modeled a ton of hard surface elements for a city and if I need a figure to observing that city from a hill - what I'm gonna do? Instead of a boxy figure I've done - I place a nice Poser figure. Because someone better than me on organics is already made it. Many of 3D modelers might not like what I said here. Technical side is always important, but also the results.

What believe is; instead of pushing people away because they are using Poser, we should separate good, high quality work from the bad ones. Also we need to understand people who are doing bad images with 3D software are might be beginners - and we all did the same low quality work at the beginning.

Also we don't need hypocrisy. We all use pre-modeled elements or materials when we out of time. Is it okay to put ready-to-use models when using 3ds max - and forbidden to use a Poser figure?! if it is - that's what I called hypocrisy.

We need to see the results. Critique the artwork considering the level of the artist. We should get rid of the prejudice about the tools like "that's cool because it's done in Maya - that's bad because it'd done with Poser"... I saw even very beautiful scenes with great composition were got bad comments because of the usage of Poser. I personally always tried to critique to the artwork itself - best as I can. And I admit that I had the same prejudice against Poser until I get the book Secrets Of The Poser Experts which is a great book and highly recommended to everyone. You can see how much work to put in one image even they are lot of tools to make things easier.

Showing respect to the good art which touches or soul and impress us is a noble behavior. And as the artists I know we are all noble...